TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2018

On this day in history:

1801 - Flinders explores and charts King George’s Sound (later Albany) in Western Australia.

1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The theory holds that Mary, mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment she was conceived.

1863 - Tom King of England defeated American John Heenan and became the first world heavyweight champion.

1941 - The United States entered World War II when it declared war against Japan. The act came one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Britain and Canada also declared war on Japan.

1949 - The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Formosa because of Communists pressure.

1980 - Zimbabwe’s manpower minister, Edgar Tekere, was found guilty in the killing of a white farmer. He was freed under a law that protected ministers acting to suppress terrorism.

1987 - U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty agreeing to destroy their nations’ arsenals of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

1987 - The “intefadeh” (Arabic for uprising) by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories began.

1989 - Communist leaders in Czechoslovakia offered to surrender their control over the government and accept a minority role in a coalition Cabinet.

1991 - Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government to be dead. They forged a new alliance to be known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. The act was denounced by Russian President Gorbachev as unconstitutional.

1994 - Bosnian Serbs released dozens of hostage peacekeepers, but continued to detain about 300 others.

1997 - Jenny Shipley was sworn in as the first female prime minister of New Zealand.

1999 - Russia and Belarus agreed in principle to form an economic and political confederation.