TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON DEC 2
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral.
1816 1st savings bank in US opens (Philadelphia Savings Fund Society)
1823 President James Monroe proclaims the principles known as the Monroe Doctrine, “that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers.”
1845 Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West
1859 Abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harper’s Ferry.
1867 People wait in mile-long lines to hear Charles Dickens give his first reading in New York City.
1909 J.P. Morgan acquires majority holdings in Equitable Life Co. This is the largest concentration of bank power to date.
1921 The first successful helium dirigible, C-7, makes a test flight in Portsmouth, Va.
1927 The new Ford Model A is introduced to the American public.
1942 The first controlled nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated at the University of Chicago.
1946 The United States and Great Britain merge their German occupation zones.
1954 The Senate voted to condemn Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
1961 Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared in a nationally broadcast speech that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that he was going to lead Cuba to communism.
1967 1st human heart transplant performed in South Africa by Dr Christiaan Barnard on Louis Washkansky
1970 The U.S. Senate votes to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
1970 Environmental Protection Agency begins (Director: William Ruckelshaus)
1980 A death squad in El Salvador murders four US nuns and churchwomen.
1982 Dentist Barney Clark receives the first permanent artificial heart, developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik.
1991 Muslim Shites release American held hostage in Lebanon (Joseph Cicippio)
1994 The U.S. government agreed not to seek a recall of allegedly fire-prone General Motors pickup trucks. A deal was made with GM under which the company would spend more than $51 million on safety and research.
1997 U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno declined to seek an independent counsel investigation of telephone fund-raising by President Clinton and Vice President Gore. She had concluded that they had not violated election laws.
2001 Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in US history.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
