Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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Obama says all U.S. troops leave Iraq by December 31

The announcement follows a collapsed deal to keep an American training force in the country past the deadline.

By the fall of 2011, the Iraq War had run for eight years and cost nearly 4,500 American lives. Washington was negotiating whether any U.S. troops would stay past the year's end. On October 21, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the withdrawal would be complete by December 31, under the deadline set in the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement. "The American combat mission in Iraq has ended," he said. The last convoy crossed into Kuwait on December 18…

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More from October 21
1861

A sitting senator falls at Ball's Bluff; his men are driven into the Potomac

Boats swamp under the weight of fleeing soldiers as a Mississippi regiment breaks the Union line at dusk.
1959

Wright's spiral museum opens its doors on Fifth Avenue

The architect died in April; the building he fought sixteen years to see built opened without him in October.
1959

Eisenhower signs over the Army's rocket men; von Braun now works for NASA

The order strips most of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and hands its hardware and people to the year-old civilian space agency.
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The banner still flies the King's colors, with Liberty and Union stitched across the bottom.
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More from Modern America
2001

Atlantis lifts off with Quest airlock; station finally has its own door to open space

Astronauts Gernhardt and Reilly will bolt the 6.5-ton steel-and-aluminum chamber into place across three spacewalks, giving the station a hatch usable by both American and Russian suits.
1995

Discovery lifts off at last; woodpecker damage and a mid-count signal flag had held it back

Six hours after launch, the crew deploys TDRS-G, the last first-generation tracking satellite, raised toward geostationary orbit by the Inertial Upper Stage.
2013

Cassini turns its camera toward Earth; Saturn's shadow makes it possible

Imaging leader Carolyn Porco positioned the spacecraft to catch the sun eclipsed by Saturn, putting Earth in the frame 1.44 billion kilometers away, and millions look up and wave.
1997

Old Ironsides sails again; Cronkite takes the helm off Marblehead

The 1797 frigate moves under her own canvas for the first time in 116 years, on sails paid for through a national campaign of citizen and student donations.
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