TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2017

On this day in history:

1876 - Aboriginal stockman Sam Isaacs and teenager Grace Bussell rescue about 40 people from a stricken steamship off Western Australia.

1919 - Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament. 1925 - The Locarno Pact finalised the treaties between World War I protagonists. 1934 - Sergei M. Kirov, a collaborator of Joseph Stalin, was assassinated at the Leningrad party headquarters. 1943 - In Tehran, leaders of the United States, the USSR and the United Kingdom met to reaffirm the goal set on October 30, 1943. The previous meeting called for an early establishment of an international organisation to maintain peace and security. 1952 - In Denmark, it was announced that the first successful sex-change operation had been performed. 1955 - Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, AL, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Mrs Parks was arrested marking a milestone in the civil rights movement in the US.

1959 - 12 countries signed a treaty that set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, which would be free from military activity.

1987 - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen is forced to resign as Queensland's longest-serving Premier.

1987 - Construction began on the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France.

1989 - Dissidents in the Philippine military launched an unsuccessful coup against Corazon Aquino’s government. 1989 - East Germany’s Parliament abolished the Communist Party’s constitutional guarantee of supremacy.

1990 - British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel finally met under the English Channel.

1992 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment attempt by hard-liners at the opening of the Russian Congress. 2004 - Two years after being destroyed by bushfires, Mount Stromlo Observatory in the ACT becomes fully operational again.