2001 – Enron Files for Bankruptcy – The Houston, Texas-based energy company filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy after reports of widespread accounting fraud became public. At that time, the company became the largest company in the history of the United States to declare bankruptcy.
1682 – Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury flees to Amsterdam following the failure of his plots to prevent a Catholic succession should King Charles II die
1697 – St Paul’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren is consecrated for use (previous building destroyed in the Great Fire of London)
1763 – Touro shul of Newport, Rhode Island dedicated (oldest existing US synagogue)
1777 – British General Howe plots attack on Washington’s army for Dec 4
1802 – Britain sells Suriname to the Netherlands
1804 – Napoleon was crowned emperor of France at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
1816 – The first savings bank in the U.S., the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened for business.
1823 – US President James Monroe declares the “Monroe Doctrine” opposing European colonialism in the Americas, arguing any European political intervention in the New World would be a hostile act against the United States
1845 – US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West, a widely held belief termed “manifest destiny” by newspaper editor John O’Sullivan
1851 – French President Charles Louis Bonaparte in a Coup d’etat overthrows the Second Republic establishing himself as Emperor.
1859 – Abolitionist John Brown hanged for murder, treason, and conspiring slaves to revolt at Charles Town, Virginia
1899 – US & Germany agree to divide Samoa between them
1908 – Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at the age of two
1917 – Han Yong-woon, found Zen awakening at Osean Monastery Korea
1917 – During World War I, hostilities were suspended on the eastern front.
1927 – Paleoanthropologist Davidson Black announces to the Geological Society of China that the ancient human fossils from Zhoukoudian, China are a new species which he has named ‘Sinanthropus pekinensis’ (now known as ‘Homo erectus’)
1927 – The Ford Motor Company unveiled the Model A automobile. It was the successor to the Model T.
1938 – The first ‘Kindertransport’ carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain
1941 – American mobster Louis Buchalter is sentenced to death along with his lieutenants Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone
1941 – US Naval Intelligence ceases bugging Japanese consul
1942 – A self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated by Dr. Enrico Fermi and his staff at the University of Chicago.
1950 – “I Robot” collection of sci-fi short stories by Isaac Asimov published by Gnome Press in the US
1954 – The U.S. Senate voted to condemn Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy for what it called “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.” The censure was related to McCarthy’s controversial investigation of suspected communists in the U.S. government, military and civilian society.
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 Environmental Protection Agency began operations.
1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Sharjah & Umm ak Qiwain form United Arab Emirates
1971 – Soviet space probe Mars 3 is first to soft land on Mars
1979 – Crowds attack US embassy in Tripoli, Libya
1982 – Doctors at the University of Utah implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Barney Clark. He lived 112 days with the device. The operation was the first of its kind.
1988 – 5 gunmen who hijacked Soviet Aeroflot jet surrender in Israel
1990 – The Midwest section of the U.S. prepared for a massive earthquake predicted by Iben Browning. The earthquakes did not occur.
1991 – Muslim Shi’ites release American hostage Joseph Cicippio held in Lebanon
1994 – Jury finds Heidi Fleiss guilty of running a call girl ring
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.
1995 – NASA launched a U.S.-European observatory on a $1 billion dollar mission intended to study the sun.
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.
1999 – The British government transferred political power over the province of Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.
2001 – Enron Files for Bankruptcy – The Houston, Texas-based energy company filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy after reports of widespread accounting fraud became public. At that time, the company became the largest company in the history of the United States to declare bankruptcy.
2010 – NASA announced the discovery of a new arsenic-based life form.
2014 – Comedian Bill Cosby resigns from the board of trustees of an American university following renewed sexual assault allegations
2014 – Hong Kong pro-democracy activists clash with police as they try to surround the government’s headquarters in some of the worst violence since the protests began
2014 – Vanuatu police arrest at least 20 people over the deaths by hanging of two men accused of sorcery
2015 – Attack on a social services centre in San Bernardino, California kills 14 and wounds 17
2017 – Egyptian lawyer Nabih al-Wahsh sentenced to 3 years in prison for saying women wearing ripped jeans should be raped
2018 – Israeli police recommend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife be charged with fraud and bribery
2018 – Trade war truce agreed between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at G-20 meeting in Argentina
2020 – US Attorney General William Barr says there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, despite claims by President Donald Trump
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
