Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land.

A day after Bolsheviks seize control of Russian military headquarters at Mogilev, a formal ceasefire is proclaimed throughout the battle zone between Russia and the Central Powers.

After departing from an airfield outside London on December 15, 1944, a single-engine aircraft carrying trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller goes missing over the English Channel. Miller was traveling to France for a congratulatory performance for American troops that had recently helped to liberate Paris.

General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan’s established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine.

Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson’s $17 million ransom but finally agreed to cooperate after the boy’s severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome. He eventually secured his grandson’s release by paying just $2.7 million, the maximum amount he claimed he was able to raise.

On December 15, 1973, at a time when society often still views gay people as deviants, the American Psychiatric Association reverses a century-old decision, issuing a resolution stating that homosexuality it neither a mental illness nor a sickness. To underline the point, the association removes homosexuality from its influential reference tool, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

On December 15, 1974, Oakland's Jim "Catfish" Hunter is ruled a free agent by arbitrator Peter Seitz—the first free agent in modern baseball history—after A's owner Charles O. Finley fails to live up to terms of the star pitcher's contract. "The contract is quite clear as to what Finley is obligated to do, and it is also clear he has done none of it," Marvin Miller, head of the powerful Major League Baseball Players Association, tells reporters.

Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson in the true story of a German businessman who saves the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jews during the Holocaust, opens in theaters. The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and took home seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

In a ceremony held in Baghdad on December 15, 2011, the war that began in 2003 with the American-led invasion of Iraq officially comes to an end. But violence continued and in fact worsened over the subsequent years. The withdrawal of American troops had been a priority of President Barack Obama, but by the time he left office the United States would again be conducting military operations in Iraq.