TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, DEC. 2, the 336th day of 2019. Twenty-nine days are left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1859, militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harpers Ferry the previous October.
In 1816, the first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened for business.
In 1823, President James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1942, an artificially created, selfsustaining 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 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first full-scale commercial nuclear facility in the U.S., began operations. The reactor ceased operating in 1982.
In 1969, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet had its first public preview as 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, flew from Seattle to New York City.
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 murdered in El Salvador. Five national guardsmen were convicted in the killings.
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 1990, composer Aaron Copland died in North Tarrytown, New York, at age 90. Actor Bob Cummings died in Woodland Hills, California, at age 80.
In 1993, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.
In 2015, a couple loyal to Islamic State opened fire at a holiday banquet for public employees in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 21 others before dying in a shootout with police.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III is 88. Actress Cathy Lee Crosby is 75. Movie director Penelope Spheeris is 74. Actor Ron Raines is 70. Country singer John Wesley Ryles is 69. Actor Keith Szarabajka is 67. Actor Dan Butler and broadcast journalist Stone Phillips are 65. Actor Dennis Christopher is 64. Actor Steven Bauer is 63. Country singer Joe Henry and rock musician Rick Savage (Def Leppard) are 59. Actor Brendan Coyle is 56. Rock musician Nate Mendel (Foo Fighters), actresses Suzy Nakamura, Rena Sofer and Lucy Liu, and rock singer Jimi HaHa (Jimmie’s Chicken Shack) are 51. Actor Joe Lo Truglio is 49. International Tennis Hall-of-Famer Monica Seles is 46. Singer Nelly Furtado is 41. Pop singer Britney Spears is 38. Actresssinger Jana Kramer, actresses Yvonne Orji and Daniela Ruah, and NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers are 36. Actor Alfred Enoch is 31. Pop singer-songwriter Charlie Puth is 28. Actresses Deanna and Daniella Canterman are 27.