A look at this week in years past
November 30
1782 Britain signs agreement recognizing US independence
1924 1st photo facsimile transmitted across Atlantic by radio
1939 USSR invades Finland over a border dispute
1948 Soviets set up a separate municipal government in East Berlin
1949 Chinese Communists captured Chungking
1990 Bush proposes US-Iraq meeting to avoid war
December 1
1641 Massachusetts becomes 1st colony to give statutory recognition to slavery
1656 Germany promises Poland aid against Sweden
1708 Great Alliance occupies Brussels
1835 Hans Christian Andersen published his 1st book of fairy tales
1878 1st White House telephone installed
1913 Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (car every 2 38)
1919 Lady Nancy Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of British Parliament
1933 Rudolf Hess & Earnest Röhm become a minister in Hitler government
1936 Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use
1939 SS-Führer Himmler begins deportation of Polish Jews
1941 Japanese emperor Hirohito signs declaration of war
1943 FDR, Churchill & Stalin agree to Operation Overlord (D-Day)
1955 Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus
1973 Australia grants self-government to Papua New Guinea
1988 Benazir Bhutto named 1st female PM of a Moslem country (Pakistan)
1989 East Germany drops the communist monopoly from its constitution
December 2
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte crowned 1st emperor of France in Paris by Pope Pius VII
1868 1st British government of Disraeli resigns
1929 1st skull of Peking man found, 50 km out of Peking at Tsjoe Koe Tien
1941 Naval Intelligence ceases bugging Japanese consul
1941 Yamamoto sends his fleet to Pearl Harbor
1942 1st controlled nuclear chain reaction (Enrico Fermi-University of Chicago)
1943 1st RSHA transport out of Vienna reaches Birkenau camp
1954 US Senate censures Joe McCarthy (Senator-R-WI) for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute"
1961 Fidel Castro declares he’s a Marxist, & will lead Cuba to Communism
1978 Chanting "Allah is great", anti-Shah protesters poured through Tehran
1980 4 American Maryknoll nuns killed by death squads in El Salvador
1982 1st permanent artificial heart successfully implanted (University of Utah) in retired dentist Barney Clark; lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart
1990 1st parliamentary election in newly reunified Germany
December 3
1586 Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England, from Colombia
1621 Galileo perfects the telescope
1685 Charles II bars Jews from settling in Stockholm Sweden
1878 Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah Israel
1912 Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece & Bulgaria sign weapons pact
1944 British order to disarm, causes general strike in Greece
1967 1st human heart transplant performed (Dr Christiaan Barnard, South Africa)
1983 France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island
1992 UN Security Council votes unanimous for US led forces to enter Somalia
December 4
1110 Syria harbor city Saida (Sidon) surrenders to Crusaders
1534 Turkish sultan Suleiman occupies Baghdad
1644 1st European peace congress opens in Münster
1791 Britain’s Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in world, 1st published
1833 American Anti-Slavery Society formed by Arthur Tappan in Philadelphia
1864 Romanian Jews are forbidden to practice law
1915 Ku Klux Klan receives charter from Fulton County GA
1930 Vatican approves rhythm method for birth control
1941 Nazi ordinances places Jews of Poland outside protection of courts
1942 US bombers struck Italian mainland for 1st time in WWII
1952 Killer fogs begin in London England, "Smog" becomes a word
1961 Museum of Modern Art hangs Matisse’s Le Bateau upside down for 47 days
1981 President Reagan allows CIA to engage in domestic counter-intelligence (No 12333)
1991 Muslim Shiites release last US hostage Terry Anderson (held 6 ½ years)
December 5
1349 500 Jews are massacred at Nüremberg in Black death riots
1496 Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I
1846 C F Schoenbein obtains patent for cellulose nitrate explosive
1861 Gatling gun patented
1879 1st automatic telephone switching system patented
1892 Anti-semite Hermann Ahlwardt elected to Germany’s Reichstag
1893 1st electric car (built in Toronto) could go 15 miles between charges
1941 Sister Elizabeth Kenny new treatment for infantile paralysis approved
1941 Russian anti offensive in Moscow drives out nazi army
1952 London smog of 1952 – worst smog in London ever, 4,000+ die
1955 Historic bus boycott begins in Montgomery AL by Rosa Parks
1967 Benjamin Spock & Allen Ginsberg arrested protesting Vietnam war
1991 New York Daily News files for protection under chapter 11
December 6
1240 Mongols under Batu Khan occupy & destroy Kiev
1648 Pride’s Purge: Thomas Pride prevents 96 presbyterians from sitting in English parliament
1768 1st edition of "Encyclopedia Brittanica" published (Scotland)
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland
1862 President Lincoln orders hanging of 39 Santee Sioux Indians
1865 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery
1870 Joseph H Rainey, 1st black in the House of Representatives (South Carolina)
1877 1st sound recording made (Thomas Edison)
1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty signed; Ireland receives dominion status; partition creates Northern Ireland
1940 Gestapo arrest German resistance fighter/poster artist Helen Ernst
1956 Nelson Mandela & 156 others arrested for political activities in South Africa
1982 11 soldiers & 6 civilians die by bomb planted by Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland
1983 A bomb planted on a bus in Jerusalem explodes, kills 6 Israelis
1984 Hijackers aboard Kuwaiti jetliner kill 2nd hostage
1985 UK joins US Star Wars project
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