Today is Tuesday, December 1, the 335th day of 2015. There are 30 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1530 – Margaret of Savoy, Governor of the Netherlands, dies. She ruled the country for her nephew, who later became Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
1640 – Portugal revolts against Spanish control and becomes independent under John IV.
1813 – Allies agree to invade France after Napoleon Bonaparte’s vague replies to peace terms.
1821 – The Dominican Republic declares independence from Spain.
1824 – The presidential election is turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock develops among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. Adams is declared the winner.
1887 – Portugal secures the secession of Macau from China.
1913 – The first U.S. drive-in automobile service station opens in Pittsburgh.
1918 – Croatia becomes part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — later Yugoslavia.
1925 – Through the Locarno Treaties Belgium, Britain, Italy, Germany and France agree to a mutual peace in Europe.
1934 – Sergei Kirov, a trusted aide of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin but also a possible rival, is assassinated, prompting Stalin to purge the Communist Party.
1935 – Chiang Kai-Shek is elected president of Kuomintang, China’s ruling party.
1948 – Arab conference at Jericho proclaims Abdullah of Transjordan King of Palestine.
1954 – United States signs mutual security pact with Nationalist China — now Taiwan.
1959 – Representatives of 12 countries, including the United States, sign a treaty in Washington setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity.
1962 – India rejects Chinese proposals for cease-fire and negotiations over disputed border territory.
1965 – An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States begins. Thousands of Cubans are allowed to leave their homeland.
1971 – The “Croatian Spring,” a movement for more independence within Yugoslavia, is crushed.
1981 – A chartered Yugoslav DC-9 jetliner slams into a Corsican mountain as it approaches Ajaccio Airport, killing all 174 people aboard.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto is named Pakistan’s prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead a modern-day Muslim nation.
1990 – British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their countries finally meet after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel.
1991 – Ukrainians vote 9-to-1 in favor of independence from Soviet Union in a referendum.
1995 – Prosecutors in South Africa formally charge former Defense Minister Gen. Magnus Malan and 19 others with the murders of 13 people in 1987.
1997 – Historians say banks in Switzerland received three times more gold than previously believed from the Nazis during World War II and that as much as one sixth was stolen from concentration camp victims.
1999 – Scientists announce for the first time they have virtually mapped an entire human chromosome, one of the chains of molecules that bear the genetic recipe for human life.
2000 – Vicente Fox is elected president of Mexico, ending the seven-decade political dynasty of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The election marks the first peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party in Mexico’s history.
2001 – Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito’s wife, Crown Princess Masako gives birth to a daughter, the couple’s first child, and long-awaited royal heir.
2009 – President Barack Obama sends 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, accelerating a risky and expensive war buildup, even as he assures the nation that U.S. forces will begin coming home in July 2011.
2010 – A new study suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion stars, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion.
2014 — Suspected Islamic extremists strike in two state capitals in northeast Nigeria, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
Today’s Birthday:
Gerard Swope, U.S. industrialist (1872-1957); Rex Stout, U.S. mystery writer (1886-1975); Walter Alston U.S. baseball manager (1911-1984); Mary Martin, U.S. actress (1913-1990); former Vietnamese President Le Duc Anh (1920-); Woody Allen, U.S. director (1935–); Bette Midler, U.S. singer/actress (1945–); Jeremy Northam, British actor (1961–).
Thought For Today:
The only people who attain power are those who crave it — Erich Kastner, German author and poet (1899-1974).
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
