Today’s highlight in history
On Dec. 3, 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.
On this date
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.
In 1833, Oberlin College in Ohio — the first truly coeducational school of higher learning in the United States — began holding classes.
In 1926, a real-life mystery began as English novelist Agatha Christie, 36, drove away from her home in Sunningdale, Berkshire, and disappeared. (Christie turned up 11 days later at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, under an assumed name, for reasons never quite explained.)
In 1960, the Lerner and Loewe musical “Camelot” opened on Broadway.
In 1965, The Beatles’ sixth studio album, “Rubber Soul,” was released in the United Kingdom by Parlophone (it was released in the U.S. by Capitol Records three days later).
In 1967, surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donor heart, which came from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank clerk who’d died in a traffic accident.
In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
Ten years ago: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election, defeating Manuel Rosales.
Five years ago: In Atlanta, Herman Cain suspended his faltering bid for the Republican presidential nomination amid a drumbeat of sexual misconduct allegations that he condemned as “false and unproven.”
One year ago: Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the armed services to open all military jobs to women, removing the final barriers that had kept women from serving in combat, including the most dangerous and grueling commando posts.