today.nukz.net: December 3

Events

1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state
1828 - U.S. presidential election, 1828: Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected President of the United States.
1901 - US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
1912 - First Balkan War ends - Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long war.
1917 - After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic (the bridge partially collapsed on August 29, 1907 and September 11, 1916).
1929 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover announces to Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash are behind the nation and the American people have regained faith in the economy.
1937 - The Dandy, the world's longest running comic, was first published.
1944 - Civil war breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.
1947 - Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.
1953 - The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and Republic of China is signed in Washington, DC.
1964 - Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and massive sit-in at the administration building protesting the UC Regents' decision to forbid Vietnam War protests on UC property.
1967 - At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky becomes the first human to receive a heart transplant, but dies 18 days later from double pneumonia. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.
1967 - The luxury train 20th Century Limited completes its last run from New York City to Chicago, Illinois (the train was inaugurated on June 15, 1902).
1973 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
1976 - Patrick Hillery becomes the sixth President of Ireland.
1979 - In Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert kills eleven fans.
1984 - Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others.
1989 - George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end.
1990 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with a Boeing 727 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers aboard flight 1482.
1992 - UN Security Council Resolution 794 is unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid gets distributed and establishing peace in Somalia.
1992 - The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil runs aground in a storm while on approach to La Corua, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.
1997 - In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.
1999 - After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 miles, Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.
1999 - NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.