MOMENTS IN TIME

• On Dec. 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War.

• On Dec. 7, 1965, Chevrolet produced its 3 million-th car for the year. It was the first time Chevrolet had produced an annual total surpassing 3 million vehicles.

• On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon, a founding member of the Beatles and one of rock's most influential musicians, is murdered by a deranged fan in front of Lennon's New York City apartment building. The Beatles scored several U.K. hits in 1963, launching the "Beatlemania" tidal wave that hit the United States in 1964.

• On Dec. 9, 1958, in Indianapolis, retired Boston candy manufacturer Robert H.W. Welch Jr. establishes the John Birch Society, a right-wing organization dedicated to fighting what it perceived to be the extensive infiltration of communism into American society.

• On Dec. 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The ceremony came on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives.

• On Dec. 11, 1939, actress Marlene Dietrich records her hit song "Falling in Love Again." Dietrich also became a U.S. citizen in 1939 and allegedly refused several offers to return to Germany to star in Nazi films. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom and named Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.

• On Dec. 12, 1980, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer pays $5,126,000 at auction for a notebook containing writings by the artist Leonardo da Vinci. The manuscript, written around 1508, contained 72 loose pages featuring some 300 notes and detailed drawings.