1997 – A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church’s foundations down to bedrock
1240 – Ukrainian city of Chernigov surrenders, despite this still sacked and pillaged by Mongolian army of Batu
1469 – Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. The marriage united all the dominions of Spain.
1648 – 1st labor organization forms in North American colonies (Boston Shoemakers)
1685 – King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration of the Protestant population.
1767 – The Mason-Dixon line was agreed upon. It was the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
1775 – African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from slavery
1776 – Tadeusz Kościuszko receives a commission from US Congress as a colonel of engineers in the Continental Army
1860 – British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan at the end of the Second Opium War.
1862 – Morgan’s raiders capture federal garrison at Lexington, KY
1867 – The U.S. took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. The land was purchased of a total of $7 million dollars (2 cents per acre).
1898 – The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico only one year after the Caribbean nation won its independence from Spain.
1912 – Black boxer Jack Johnson arrested for violating the Mann Act for “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes” due to his relationship with white woman Lucille Cameron, allegedly a prostitute. Later convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to a year in prison.
1912 – The Treaty of Lausanne ends the Italo-Turkish War; Italy annexes Libya
1921 – Biding its time, Soviet Russia agrees to independence for the Crimea
1929 – The Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada.
1942 – Hitler orders captured allied commandos to be killed
1944 – Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets during World War II.
1950 – Connie Mack announced that he was going to retire after 50 seasons as the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.
1954 – Texas Instruments Inc. announces the first transistor radio.
1956 – NFL commissioner Bert Bell disallowed the use of radio-equipped helmets by NFL quarterbacks.
1958 – The first computer-arranged marriage took place on Art Linkletter’s show.
1962 – US launches Ranger 5 for lunar impact; misses Moon
1969 – The U.S. government banned artificial sweeteners due to evidence that they caused cancer.
1970 – Quebec’s minister of labor was found strangled to death after eight days of being held captive by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ).
1977 – West German commandos liberate Boeing 737 with 86 hostages at Mogadishu
1979 – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini orders mass executions to stop
1983 – General Motors agreed to hire more women and minorities for five years as part of a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
1985 – South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer.
1989 – The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a mission that included the deployment of the Galileo space probe.
1990 – Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait.
1997 – A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
2007 – After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near Bhutto’s convoy, killing over 100, including 20 police officers. Bhutto escapes uninjured.
2013 – Saudi Arabia became the first nation to reject a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Jordan took the seat on December 6.
2016 – US White Houses says it is “confident” Russia behind recent email hacking and attempts to influence US election
2017 – US congresswoman Frederica Wilson says President Donald Trump said to bereaved army family of Sgt. La David Johnson “He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway”
2021 – Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso declares 60-day state of emergency in response to a violent crime wave caused by power struggle between drug cartels
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
