TODAY IN HISTORY

On Dec. 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he said, “Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will

be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

In 1942, during World War II, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.

In 1952, the New York Daily News ran a frontpage 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.

In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.

In 1991, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.