TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 2
1763 Touro shul of Newport RI dedicated (oldest existing US synagogue)
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.
1899 US & Germany agree to divide Samoa between them
1921 The first successful helium dirigible, C-7, makes a test flight in Portsmouth, Va.
1932 “Adventures of Charlie Chan” 1st heard on NBC-Blue radio network
1942 The first controlled nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated at the University of Chicago.
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.
1970 The U.S. Senate votes to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
1970 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established.
1980 A death squad in El Salvador murders four US nuns and churchwomen
1982 Barney B. Clark became the first person to receive an artificial heart in a transplant operation.
1990 The Midwest section of the U.S. prepared for a massive earthquake predicted by Iben Browning. The earthquakes did not occur.
1991 Muslim Shites release American held hostage in Lebanon (Joseph Cicippio)
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 **
