NOW & THEN
2 DECEMBER
1697: The rebuilt St Paul’s Cathedral, designed by
Sir Christopher Wren, was consecrated for use.
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I of France.
1815: Britain and the Rajah of Nepal signed peace treaty.
1823: United States declared the Monroe Doctrine, opposing European attempts to interfere in the Americas.
1852: Second French Empire proclaimed, with Napoleon III as emperor.
1875: Gelignite was patented by Nobel Peace Prize founder Alfred Nobel.
1899: USA and Germany agreed to devide Samoa between them.
1901: King Camp Gillette patented the safety razor, and nearly went bankrupt, selling only 51 in his first year of trading.
1907: Tommy Burns knocked out James “Gunner” Moir in the tenth round at Covent Garden, London to claim the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.
1917: The world’s first aircraft carrier, HMS Argus, launched.
1929: Britain’s first public telephone boxes came into service.
1932: “Bodyline” Test series began between England and Australia. English tactics of bowling at batsmen’s bodies caused several injuries and much tension.
1933: Fred Astaire’s first film released, with leading lady Joan Crawford. It was called Dancing Lady and the studio’s report on Fred read: “Can’t act, can’t sing, balding, can dance a little.”
1941: Single women aged 20-30 were called up for war work.
1942: The world’s first nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated at the University of Chicago, by physicists Enrico Fermi and Arthur Compton.
1966: Prime Minister Harold Wilson met Ian Smith on HMS Tiger off Gibraltar for talks on the independence of Rhodesia.
1971: The Trucial States (the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf ), declared independence from the UK as Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Sharjah and Umm Ak Qiwain, formed the United Arab Emirates.
1982: World’s first artificial heart was fitted, to a dentist, Dr Barney Clark, at University of Utah Medical Centre. He survived for six months.
1990: Chancellor Helmut
Kohl’s centre-right coalition won crushing victory in first allgerman elections since 1932.
1991: Shares in Robert Maxwell’s public companies, Mirror Group Newspapers and Maxwell Communication Corporation, were suspended as City concern mounted over his private finances.
1993: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar shot and killed in Medellin.
1993: Nasa launched Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair Hubble Telescope.
1995: Barings Bank trader Nick Leeson jailed for six and a half years in Singapore for his role in the bank’s £860 million collapse.
1999: The UK devolved political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.
2014: Stephen Hawking told the BBC Artificial Intelligence could spell the end of the human race.