TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, DEC. 1, the 335th day of 2019. Thirty days are left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date 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 won.
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 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 1952, the New York Daily News ran a front-page story on Christine Jorgensen’s sex-reassignment surgery with the headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.”
In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus; the incident sparked a yearlong boycott of the buses by blacks.
In 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the U.S. began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.
In 1974, TWA Flight 514, a Washington bound Boeing 727, crashed in Virginia after being diverted from National Airport to Dulles International Airport; all 92 people on board were killed.
In 1990, British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their countries finally met after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel.
In 1991, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
In 1997, a 14-year-old boy opened fire on a prayer circle at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, killing three fellow students and wounding five; the shooter is serving a life sentence.
In 2005, a roadside bomb killed 10 U.S. Marines near Fallujah, Iraq.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor-director Woody Allen is 84. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Lee Trevino and singer Dianne Lennon (The Lennon Sisters) are 80. Country musician Casey Van Beek (The Tractors) is 77. Television producer David Salzman is 76. Rock singermusician Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult) and rock musician John Densmore (The Doors) are 75. Actress-singer Bette Midler is 74. Singer Gilbert O’Sullivan is 73. Actor Treat Williams is 68. Country singer Kim Richey is 63. Actress Charlene Tilton is 61. Actress-model Carol Alt is 59. Actor Jeremy Northam is 58. Actor Nestor Carbonell is 52. Actress Golden Brooks and actresscomedian Sarah Silverman are 49. Actor-writer-producer David Hornsby and singer Sarah Masen are 44. Rock musician Brad Delson (Linkin Park) and actor Nate Torrence are 42. Rock musician Mika Fineo (Filter) is 38. Actor Riz Ahmed (Film: “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) is 37. Actress Ilfenesh Hadera and R&B singer-actress Janelle Monae are 34. Actress Zoe Kravitz and pop-rock-rap singer Tyler Joseph (Twenty One Pilots) are 31. Pop singer Nico Sereba (Nico & Vinz) is 29. Actor Jackson Nicoll is 16.