Today is Friday, Dec. 2, the 337th day of 2016. There are 29 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Dec. 2, 1816, the first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened for business.
On this date:
In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French.
In 1823, President James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1859, militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harpers Ferry the previous October. Artist Georges-Pierre Seurat was born in Paris.
In 1927, Ford Motor Co. unveiled its Model A automobile that replaced its Model T.
In 1939, New York Municipal Airport-LaGuardia Field (later LaGuardia Airport) went into operation as an airliner from Chicago landed at one minute past midnight.
In 1942, an artificially created, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago.
In 1954, the U.S. Senate passed, 67-22, a resolution condemning Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., saying he had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."
In 1961, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would eventually lead Cuba to Communism.
In 1970, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency opened its doors under its first director, William D. Ruckelshaus.
In 1980, four American churchwomen were raped and killed outside San Salvador. (Five El Salvador national guardsmen were later convicted of murdering nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel and lay worker Jean Donovan.)
In 1982, in the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device.
In 1991, American hostage Joseph Cicippio (sih-SIHP'-ee-oh), held captive in Lebanon for more than five years, was released.