Today--the most forgotten historic date in American history

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Examiner.com:

Today is perhaps the most forgotten historic date in American history, yet it is the most important date outside the day of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Today, December 15, is Bill of Rights Day--the date in American history that the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, was ratified and added to the U.S. Constitution to protect the individual rights of citizens.

Since 1941 the ratification of the Bill of Rights has been commemorated in this country on December 15. Yet it is fair to say that today the average guy on the street has no clue that one of the most significant events in human history happened on that day.

The original Constitution, ratified in 1788, had no Bill of Rights. The fledgling young Republic had just managed to fight off the British for their independence and declare themselves a new nation united by a commonly accepted rule of law--the U.S. Constitution. Yet long before the Constitution was ratified many of the Founders insisted that the document would be woefully incomplete without protecting certain individual rights. One of these was James Madison, who was elected by Virginia to the first Congress upon the promise that he would work for a Bill of Rights.

George Mason, also of Virginia, refused to sign the original Constitution precisely because it contained no Bill of Rights. Mason had written a Bill of Rights for the state of Virginia which many other states used to adopt their own Bill of Rights.