Today in history
On Dec. 3, 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.
In 1960, the Lerner and Loewe musical "Camelot," starring Julie Andrews as Guenevere, Richard Burton as King Arthur and Robert Goulet as Lancelot, opened on Broadway.
In 1964, police arrested some
800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
In 1967, a surgical team in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard (BAHR'nard) performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donor organ, which came from Denise Darvall, a 25-yearold bank clerk who had died in a traffic accident.
In 1980, Bernadine Dohrn, a former leader of the radical Weather Underground, surrendered to authorities in Chicago after more than a decade as a fugitive.
In 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.
In 1991, radicals in Lebanon released American hostage Alann Steen, who'd been held captive nearly five years.
In 1992, the first telephone text message was sent by British engineer Neil Papworth, who transmitted the greeting "Merry Christmas" from his work computer in Newbury, Berkshire, to Vodafone executive Richard Jarvis' mobile phone. The Greek tanker Aegean Sea spilled more than 21 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground off northwestern Spain.
In 1999, Tori Murden of the United States became the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone as she arrived at the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, 81 days after leaving the Canary Islands near the coast of Africa.
In 2001, in the wake of bombings that had killed 26 Israelis, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a war on terror. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge asked Americans to return to a high state of alert, citing threats of more terrorist attacks.
In 2002, thousands of personnel files released under a court order showed that the Archdiocese of Boston went to great lengths to hide priests accused of abuse, including clergy who'd allegedly snorted cocaine and had sex with girls aspiring to be nuns.
Ten years ago: President
Barack Obama hosted a White House-sponsored jobs forum, where he said he'd heard many "exciting ideas" and proposals and expressed hope some could be put into action quickly. Pope Benedict XVI and visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (dih-MEE'-tree medVYEH'-dyev) agreed to upgrade Vatican-Kremlin ties to full diplomatic relations. Comcast and GE announced joint venture plans, with Comcast owning a 51 percent controlling stake in NBC Universal. British actor Richard Todd died in Little Humby, Lincolnshire, England, at age 90.
Five years ago: A Staten Island, New York, grand jury declined to indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man stopped on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Herman Badillo (bah-DEE'-yoh), a Bronx politician who was the first person born in Puerto Rico to become a U.S. congressman, died at age 85.
One year ago: President Donald Trump made it clear that he was closely watching those who turned on him in the Russia investigation; he tweeted that his former lawyer, who cut a deal with prosecutors, should go straight to prison, but Trump praised a key witness for having the "guts" not to testify against him. A casket containing the body of former President George H.W. Bush was flown from Texas to Washington to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. At the U.N.'s annual climate summit in Poland, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a dramatic appeal to world leaders to take global warming seriously, calling it "the most important issue we face." After a two-year chase, a NASA spacecraft arrived at the ancient asteroid Bennu, some
76 million miles from Earth; the goal is to grab gravel samples in
2020 for return to Earth in 2023.