Today in History
Today is Saturday, Dec. 1, the 335th day of 2018. There are 30 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus; the incident sparked a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.
On this date:
In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. (Adams ended up the winner.)
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery, and went on to say, “Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”
In 1941, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito approved waging war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands after his government rejected U.S. demands contained in the Hull Note.
In 1942, during World War II, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States; the goal was not so much to save on gas, but to conserve rubber (as in tires) that was desperately needed for the war effort.
In 1952, the New York Daily News ran a front-page story on Christine Jorgensen’s sex-reassignment surgery with the headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty”.
In 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.
In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.
In 1989, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
In 1990, British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their countries finally met after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel.
In 1992, a judge in Mineola, New York, sentenced Amy Fisher to 5 to 15 years in prison for shooting and seriously wounding her lover’s wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco (buh-tuh-FYOO’-koh). (Fisher served seven years.)
In 1997, a 14-year-old boy opened fire on a prayer circle at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, killing three fellow students and wounding five; the shooter is serving a life sentence.
In 2004, Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time as principal anchor of the “N-B-C Nightly News”; he was succeeded by Brian Williams.