1875 – William Marcy Tweed, the “Boss” of New York City’s Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled from the U.S.
1110 – Syrian harbor city Saida (Sidon) surrenders to Crusaders
1154 – Adrian IV elected Pope. The only Englishman to become pontiff, Nicholas Breakspear was a member of the family which until recent years brewed beer in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
1197 – Crusaders wound Rabbi Elezar ben Judah
1259 – Treaty of Paris: English King Henry III and French King Louis IX end 100 years of conflict between the Capetian and Plantagenet dynasties
1563 – Council of Trent holds its last session, after 18 years. Last ecumenical council for more than 300 years.
1674 – Father Marquette builds first dwelling in what is now Chicago
1680 – Hen in Rome lays a uniquely patterned egg, later believed to have predicted the arrival of the Kirch/Newton “Great Comet of 1680”
1783 – Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York
1791 – First Sunday paper published, The Observer, a British newspaper became the first newspaper in the world to be published and read on a Sunday.
1812 – Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, patents a horse-drawn mower
1829 – Britain outlaws “suttee” in India, a Hindu practice where a widow burns herself to death on her husband’s funeral pyre
1836 – Whig party holds its first national convention, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
1875 – William Marcy Tweed, the “Boss” of New York City’s Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled from the U.S.
1908 – The world’s ten leading maritime nations attend a Naval Conference in London; they agree on rules for blockade, convoys, and seizure of contraband
1915 – Henry Ford’s peace ship, Oscar II, sails for Europe ‘to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas’
1915 – Ku Klux Klan receives charter from Fulton County, Georgia
1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. Wilson became the first chief executive to travel to Europe while in office.
1921 – The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends in a hung jury
1930 – Vatican approves rhythm method for birth control
1933 – FDR creates Federal Alcohol Control Administration
1935 – 1,200 at St Joseph’s College (Philadelphia) enroll in anticommunism class
1941 – Nazi ordinance places Jews of Poland outside protection of courts
1942 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration. The program had been created in order to provide jobs during the Great Depression.
1942 – U.S. bombers attacked the Italian mainland for the first time during World War II.
1943 – Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced that any club was free to employ black players.
1945 – The U.S. Senate approved American participation in the United Nations.
1961 -The female contraceptive ‘pill’ becomes available on the National Health Service in Britain
1965 – The U.S. launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Comdr. James A. Lovell on board.
1970 – Unemployment in US increases to 5.8%
1971 – McGurk’s Bar bombing: the UVF explode a bomb at a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, killing fifteen Catholic civilians and wounding seventeen others; this was the highest death toll from a single incident in Belfast during ‘the Troubles’
1973 – Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter.
1977 – Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony believed to have cost more than $100 million. He was deposed 2 years later.
1978 – Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco’s first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been murdered.
1979 – For the second time, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to urge Iran to free American hostages that had been taken on November 4.
1980 – The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of the murders.
1981 – Reagan Executive Order on Intelligence (No 12333) that allows CIA to engage in domestic counter-intelligence
1982 – China adopts its current constitution, The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China replaced the Constitutions of 1954, 1975, and 1978.
1983 – U.S. jet fighters struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for attacks directed at American reconnaissance planes. Navy Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. was shot down and captured by Syria.
1984 – A five-day hijack drama began as four men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran. Two American passengers were killed by the hijackers.
1986 – Both U.S. houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.
1987 – Cuban inmates at a federal prison in Atlanta freed their 89 hostages, peacefully ending an 11-day uprising.
1988 – The government of Argentina announced that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers had ended a four-day military revolt.
1990 – An Iraqi official reports that Iraq will withdraw if it can retain control of the Rumailah field and keep Bubiyan and Werbah islands; also says that demands that the Palestinian issue be treated separately would not be surmountable
1990 – Due to Persian Gulf crisis gas hits $1.60 per gallon price in NYC
1992 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.
1993 – The Angolan government and its UNITA guerrilla foes formally adopted terms for a truce. The conflict was killing an estimated 1,000 people per day.
1994 – Bosnian Serbs released 53 out of about 400 UN peacekeepers they were holding as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.
1997 – Nizar Hamdoon warns that Iraq will not allow oil to flow during a third six-month phase of the UN’s oil-for-food sale until the UN approves an aid distribution plan
2003 – Interpol put the former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, on its most-wanted list.
2012 – 29 people are killed by a mortar attack in Bteeha, Syria
2014 – Ukraine and Pro-Russian rebels agree to cease fire in the eastern war zone, beginning December 9
2016 – Tens of thousands march throughout Brazil against a vote to undermine anti-corruption investigations
2017 – US President Donald Trump scales back Utah National Parks – Bears Ears National Monument (85%), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (50%)
2017 – US Supreme Court allows President Trump’s travel ban to come into effect for 6 mostly Muslim countries
2018 – French President Emmanuel Macron drops controversial rise in fuel tax after three weeks of mass protests
2018 – Theresa May’s UK government suffers three parliamentary defeats in one day, also found in contempt of parliament for failing to publish report in full on Brexit
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
