On Dec. 28, 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ten years ago

Former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. (Causey was later sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison.) Barry Cowsill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, was found dead on a New Orleans wharf nearly four months after he disappeared when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city.

Five years ago

Eight young people were killed in a fire that swept through an abandoned New Orleans warehouse (some of the victims were squatters who had been living inside the building). Agathe von Trapp, the real-life inspiration for eldest daughter Liesl in the musical “The Sound of Music,” died in Towson, Maryland, at age 97.

One year ago

AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A-320, crashed during a flight from Indonesia to Singapore, killing all 162 people on board. A fire broke out aboard the ferry MS Norman Atlantic off the coast of Albania, leaving at least 11 people dead and 18 missing. The war in Afghanistan, fought for 13 bloody years and still raging, came to a formal end with a quiet flag-lowering ceremony in Kabul that marked the transition of the fighting from U.S.-led combat troops to the country’s own security forces.

— By The Associated Press