HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Friday, December 2, the 336th day of 2016. There are 29 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1942 – World War II: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. 1947 – Jerusalem Riots of 1947: Riots break out in Jerusalem in response to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. 1954 – Cold War: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censure Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonour and disrepute”. 1954 – The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Taiwan, is signed in Washington, D.C. 1956 – The Granma reaches the shores of Cuba’s Oriente Province. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the Cuban Revolution. 1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm

al-Quwain form the United Arab Emirates. 1975 – Laotian Civil War: The Pathet Lao seizes the Laotian capital of Vientiane, forces the abdication of King Sisavang Vatthana, and proclaims the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. 1976 – Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing

Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado. 1980 – Salvadoran Civil War: Four US nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a military death squad. 1988 – Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state. 1991 – Canada and Poland become the first nations on earth to recognize the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. 1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed

in Medellín. 1993 – Space Shuttle program: STS-61 – NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. 1999 – The United Kingdom devolves political power in

Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.