TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2018

On this day in history:

1835 - Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairytales.

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.

1952 - In Denmark, it was announced that the first successful sex-change operation had been performed.

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.

1991 - Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.

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.

Birthdays

Cyril Ritchard 1897

Mary Martin 1913 Stansfield Turner 1923 David Doyle 1925 Robert Symonds 1926 Billy Paul 1934

Woody Allen 1935

Lou Rawls 1935

Sandy Nelson 1938

Lee Trevino 1939 Dianne Lennon (The Lennon Sisters) 1939

Richard Pryor 1940