■ On Dec. 18, 1912, the Piltdown Man made its public debut as
fossil collector Charles Dawson reported to the Geological
Society of London his discovery of supposedly fragmented early
human remains at a gravel pit in Piltdown. (More than four
decades later, the Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax.) ■ In
1787, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S.
Constitution. ■ In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution,
abolishing slavery, was declared in effect by Secretary of State
William H. Seward. ■ In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson, widowed
the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her Washington
home. ■ In 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered secret preparations for
Nazi Germany to invade the Soviet Union. ■ In 1944, the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-
Americans, but also said undeniably loyal Americans of Japanese
ancestry could not continue to be detained.