Today is Friday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2009. There are 20 days left in the year. The Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, begins at sunset.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Dec. 11, 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.

On this date:

In 1792, France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention to face charges of treason. (Louis was convicted, and executed the following month.)

In 1816, Indiana became the 19th state.

In 1882, Boston's renamed Bijou Theatre, the first American playhouse to be lighted exclusively by electricity, debuted with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe."

In 1928, police in Buenos Aires announced they had thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

In 1937, Italy announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations.

In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.

In 1946, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, or UNICEF, was established.

In 1981, the U.N. Security Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth secretary-general of the world body.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II visited a Lutheran church in Rome, the first visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to a Protestant church in his own diocese.

In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.

Ten years ago: Agreeing with his wife, Hillary, President Bill Clinton told CBS Radio his 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military wasn't working, and he pledged to work with the Pentagon to find a way to fix it. Ron Dayne, Wisconsin's record-setting tailback, was a landslide winner in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

Five years ago: Doctors in Austria determined that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin, which caused the severe disfigurement and partial paralysis of his face. Vitali Klitschko stopped Danny Williams in the eighth round to retain his WBC heavyweight title. Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart won the 70th Heisman Trophy.