TODAY IN HISTORY

On Dec. 1, 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.

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 1921, the Navy flew the first non-rigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to Washington, D.C.

In 1934, Soviet communist official Sergei M. Kirov, an associate of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, resulting in a massive purge.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

One year ago: During the first stop of a "Thank you" tour, President-elect Donald Trump made a surprise announcement from the stage in Cincinnati, saying he had decided to offer the post of defense secretary to retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis.