Check out This Day in History for Dec. 20, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1924: Adolf Hitler, imprisoned on charges of high treason for the failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch, is freed from jail after only nine months of his five-year sentence. The entire experience is credited with giving Hitler an early platform for the genocidal views that would characterize his rule in the 1930s and 1940s.
Clockwise from upper left: the United States Space Force logo; Adolf Hitler (far left) in 1923 with other participants in the Beer Hall Putsch failed coup; an Afghan woman studying; an early rendition of “It’s A Wonderful Life;” and the late news anchor Max Robinson
1946: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” now one of the most popular Christmas films of all time, debuts to lukewarm public reception. The film, about a down-and-out businessman in the Depression era who encounters a guardian angel, eventually received five Academy Award nominations and helped catapult star Jimmy Stewart to legendary fame, but was dismissed by The New Yorker magazine as “baby talk.”
1956:Â A 381-day boycott of segregates buses in Montgomery, Ala., ends at the direction of Martin Luther King, Jr. King ends the boycott after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that segregated buses are unconsitutional.
1985: The position of “American Poet Laureate” is established, a change from the previous post of “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.” The new post would focus more on organizing poetry readings and events, and less on curating poetry collections.
1988: Max Robinson, who had gained fame as America’s first-ever Black news anchor, dies of complications of AIDS. His family immediately makes it clear that Robinson wished his cause of death to be known, to further awareness and treatment of HIV and AIDS especially among Blacks.
1989: Operation Just Cause begins, with the United Sates invading Panama to take down its leader Manuel Noriega. News reports afterwards showed no drop in the drug trade after the invasion, and ongoing poverty and high unemployment in Panama.
2007: Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom upon the 55th anniversary of her appointment, at age 82. She will continue to rein 14 more years until her death in 2022 at the age of 96.
2018: The amended Farm Bill allows greater production of hemp and also removed hemp products from the Controlled Substances Act. Through amendments passed in 2025 and taking effect in November 2026, “many hemp-derived CBD products that were not controlled substances because of the 2018 Farm Bill will now revert back to being regulated as Schedule 1 Controlled Substances,” writes the law firm Arnold & Porter.
2019: The United States Space Force is founded, extending the armed forces to “space warfare” and protection of things like communications satellites.
2022: The Taliban announces a ban on Afghan women studying at universities. The terrorist government had overtaken Afghanistan after the United States’ pull-out of troops inAugust 2021. Teen girls had already been banned from secondary schools nine months earlier.Â
Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
