Events1409 - The
University of Leipzig opens.
1755 - The second
Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire.
1804 - At
Notre Dame Cathedral in
Paris,
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself
Emperor of the French, the first French Emperor in a thousand years.
1805 -
Napoleonic Wars:
Battle of Austerlitz -
French troops under
Napoleon defeat a joint
Russo-
Austrian force.
1823 -
Monroe Doctrine: US President
James Monroe delivers a speech establishing
American neutrality in future European conflicts.
1845 -
Manifest Destiny: US President
James K. Polk announces to Congress that the
United States should aggressively expand into the West.
1848 -
Franz Josef I becomes
Emperor of Austria.
1851 - Newly-elected
French President
Charles Louis Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic.
1852 -
Napoleon III becomes
Emperor of the French.
1859 - Militant
abolitionist leader
John Brown is hanged for his
October 16th raid on
Harper's Ferry.
1867 - In a
New York City theater, British author
Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the
United States.
1899 -
Philippine-American War: The
Battle of Tirad Pass, termed "The Filipino Thermopylae", is fought.
1920 - Following more than a month of
Turkish-Armenian War, the Turkish dictated peace treaty is concluded -
Treaty of Alexandropol 1927 - Following 19 years of
Ford Model T production, the
Ford Motor Company unveils the
Ford Model A as its new automobile.
1930 -
Great Depression: US President
Herbert Hoover goes before the
United States Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
1939 -
New York City's
La Guardia Airport opens.
1942 -
Manhattan Project: A team led by
Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction.
1943 - A
Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of
Bari,
Italy, sinks an American ship with a
mustard gas stockpile. Numerous fatalities (though the exact death toll is unresolved as the bombing raid itself caused hundreds of deaths too).
1946 - British Government invites four Indian leaders,
Nehru,
Baldev Singh,
Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan to obtain the participation of all parties in the Constituent Assembly.
1947 -
Jerusalem Riots of 1947: Riots break out in
Jerusalem in response to the approval of the
1947 UN Partition Plan.
1954 -
Red Scare: The
United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn
Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." 1954 - The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, between the
United States and the
Republic of China, is signed in
Washington, DC.
1956 - The
Granma yacht reaches the shores of
Cuba's Oriente province and
Fidel Castro,
Che Guevara and 80 other members of the
26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the
Cuban Revolution.
1956 - Meher Baba and followers suffer auto accident in
Satara,
India.
1961 - In a nationally-broadcast speech,
Cuban leader
Fidel Castro declares that he is a
Marxist-
Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt
Communism.
1962 -
Vietnam War: After a trip to
Vietnam at the request of US President
John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader
Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to not make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress.
1970 - The
United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
1971 -
Abu Dhabi,
Ajman,
Fujairah,
Sharjah,
Dubai, and
Umm Al Quwain form the
United Arab Emirates.
1972 -
Gough Whitlam becomes the first
Australian Labor Party Prime Minister of
Australia for 23 years.
1975 -
Pathet Lao seizes power in
Laos, and establishes the
Lao People's Democratic Republic.
1976 -
Fidel Castro becomes President of
Cuba replacing
Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.
1980 - Four U.S. nuns and churchwomen,
Ita Ford,
Maura Clarke,
Jean Donovan, and
Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a
death squad in
El Salvador.
1988 -
Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as
Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an
Islam-dominated state.
1990 - A coalition led by Chancellor
Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-
German elections since
1932.
1993 -
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in
Medellín. 1993 -
Space Shuttle program:
STS-61 -
NASA launches the
Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the
Hubble Space Telescope.
1999 - The
United Kingdom devolves political power in
Northern Ireland to the
Northern Ireland Executive.
2001 -
Enron files for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
2005 -
Van Tuong Nguyen is executed in
Singapore for
drug trafficking.
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2. Dezember