1999 – After three years under suspicion of being a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested. He was charged with removing secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee later pled guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape and was freed. The other 58 counts were dropped.
1041 – Michael IV, Paphlagonicus, Byzantium Emperor dies of results of dropsy. His wife Empress Zoe elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V.
1510 – Muslim ruler of Goa, Yusuf Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies surrender to Portuguese forces led by Afonso de Albuquerque who puts the Muslim population to the sword
1520 – Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict. The papacy demanded that he recant or face excommunication. Luther refused and was formally expelled from the church in January 1521.
1684 – Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley
1690 – Massachusetts Bay becomes first American colonial government to issue paper money
1799 – Metric system first adopted in France
1817 – Mississippi was admitted to the Union as the 20th American state.
1845 – British civil engineer Robert Thompson patented the first pneumatic tires.
1869 – Women were granted the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory.
1898 – A treaty was signed in Paris that officially ended the Spanish-American War. Also, Cuba became independent of Spain.
1902 – Women are given the right to vote in Tasmania
1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
1907 – The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clash with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals who have been vivisected.
1932 – The “Great Emu War” ends: Emu’s surprising resilience to bullets led to Emu victory over Australian military in Campion district, Western Australia
1936 – Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson
1941 – Japan invaded the Philippines.
1941 – The Royal Naval battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Battle of Malaya.
1945 – Preston Tucker reveals plan to produce the Torpedo, a new 150 MPH car
1948 – U.N. General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The document proclaimed, for the first time, fundamental human rights were to be universally protected.
1950 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the first African-American to receive the award. Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in mediation between Israel and neighboring Arab states.
1967 – CBS officially renames CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York (built in 1927 as Hammerstein’s Theatre), as “The Ed Sullivan Theater” in celebration of the 20th anniversary of his program
1968 – Japan’s biggest heist, the still-unsolved “300 million yen robbery”, occurs in Tokyo.
1974 – Helios 1 launched by US and Germany; later makes closest flyby of the Sun
1980 – South Carolina Representative John W. Jenretter resigned to avoid being expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives following his conviction on charges to the FBI’s Abscam investigation. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/10/us/ex-rep-jenrette-gets-two-years-in-abscam-case.html
1982 – The Law of the Sea Convention was signed by 118 countries in Montego Bay, Jamaica. 23 nations and the U.S. were excluded.
1983 – Raul Alfonsin was inaugurated as Argentina’s first civilian president after nearly eight years of military rule.
1984 – 1st “planet” outside our solar system discovered
1990 – The U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved Norplant, a long-acting contraceptive implant.
1992 – Oregon Senator Bob Packwood apologized for what he called “unwelcome and offensive” actions toward women. However, he refused to resign.
1994 – Advertising executive Thomas Mosser of North Caldwell, NJ, was killed by a mail bomb that was blamed on the Unabomber.
1995 – The first U.S. Marines arrived in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to join NATO soldiers sent to enforce peace in the former Yugoslavia.
1996 – South Africa’s President Mandela signed into law a new democratic constitution, completing the country’s transition from white-minority rule to a non-racial democracy.
1996 – Rwandan Genocide: Maurice Baril military advisor to the UN Secretary-General and head of the UN Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations recommends the UN multi-national forces in Zaire stand down
1998 – The Palestinian leadership scrapped constitutional clauses that rejected Israel’s existence.
1999 – After three years under suspicion of being a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested. He was charged with removing secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee later pled guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape and was freed. The other 58 counts were dropped.
2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld new restrictions on political advertising in the weeks before an election. The court did strike down two provisions of the new law that involved a ban on political contributions from those too young to vote and a limitation on some party spending. (McConnell v. FEC, 02-1674)
2003 – The U.S. barred firms based in certain countries, opponents of the Iraq war, from bidding on Iraqi reconstruction projects. The ban did not prevent companies from winning subcontracts.
2006 – One million Lebanese opposition supporters gather in downtown Beirut, calling for the government to resign.
2013 – Mary Barra of General Motors becomes the first female CEO of a major automotive company
2013 – Uruguay becomes the first country to legalize the growth, sale, and use of marijuana
2016 – Terrorist bomb attacks outside a stadium in Istanbul kill 38 and injure 166
2017 – Governor of California Jerry Brown tours Southern Californian wildfires and declares them “the new normal”
2018 – Russia’s most prolific mass murderer Mikhail Popkov sentenced to second life sentence for total of 56 murders
2019 – Shooting at a New Jersey cemetery and a kosher supermarket leaves six dead, including the two shooters, in suspected anti-Semitic attack
2021 – Rare December tornadoes strike four American states, with a ‘Quad-State Tornado’ across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky, completely destroying some towns and leaving at least 70 dead
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
