Today in history
On Dec. 1, 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 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 1942, during World War II, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States; the goal was not so much to save on gas, but to conserve rubber (as in tires) that was desperately needed for the war effort.
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 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.
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. Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, a Boeing 727, crashed near Stony Point, New York, with the loss of its three crew members (the plane had been chartered to pick up the Baltimore Colts football team in Buffalo, New York).
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.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops into the war in Afghanistan but promised during a speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to begin withdrawals in 18 months. General Motors Co. CEO Frederick “Fritz”
Henderson stepped down after the board determined that the company hadn’t been changing quickly enough.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama, after meeting with mayors, civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials at the White House, asked federal agencies for concrete recommendations to ensure the U.S. wasn’t building a “militarized culture” within police departments.
One year ago: After a dinner meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day ceasefire in their trade dispute, with Trump agreeing to hold off on plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods. France’s most violent urban riot in a decade engulfed central Paris, as “yellow jacket” activists torched cars, smashed windows and looted stores. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took the oath of office as Mexico’s first leftist president in more than 70 years. Actor and dancer Ken Berry, star of the 1960s sitcom “F Troop” and “Mayberry R.F.D.” in the 1970s, died at a Southern California hospital at the age of 85.