TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, DEC. 1, the 336th day of 2016. There are 30 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY: On this date in 1941, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito approved waging war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands after his government rejected U.S. demands contained in the Hull Note. In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. (Adams ended up the winner.)

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery and went on to say, “Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

In 1866, Welsh surveyor Sir George Everest, 79, whose name had been conferred upon the mountain in Nepal by the Royal Geographical Society over his objections, died in London.

In 1921, the Navy flew the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington, D.C.

In 1942, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus; the incident sparked a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.

In 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland. In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.