December 1 in History

Historical Events on December 1

800

Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
1420

Henry V of England enters Paris.
1577

Francis Walsingham is knighted.
1640

End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, ending 59 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the Philippine Dynasty.
1768

The former slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
1822

Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.
1824

United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1828

Argentine general Juan Lavalle makes a coup against governor Manuel Dorrego, beginning the Decembrist revolution.
1834

Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
1862

In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865

Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1913

The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the Southern Hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation.
1913

Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
1913

Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.
1918

Transylvania unites with the Kingdom of Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28), thus concluding the Great Union.
1918

The Kingdom of Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
1918

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
1919

Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. (She had been elected to that position on November 28.)
1924

The National Hockey League's first United States-based franchise, the Boston Bruins, played their first game in league play at home, at the still-extant Boston Arena indoor hockey facility.[1]
1934

In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergey Kirov is shot dead by Leonid Nikolaev at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad.
1941

World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941

World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1952

The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.
1955

American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city's bus boycott.
1958

The Central African Republic attains self-rule within the French Union.
1958

The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959

Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1960

Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1964

Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1969

Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971

Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
1973

Papua New Guinea gains self-governance from Australia.
1974

TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
1974

Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1981

Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.
1984

NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.
1989

Philippine coup attempt: The right-wing military rebel Reform the Armed Forces Movement attempts to oust Philippine President Corazon Aquino in a failed bloody coup d'état.
1989

Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
1990

Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.
1991

Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
1997

In the Indian state of Bihar, Ranvir Sena attacked the CPI(ML) Party Unity stronghold Lakshmanpur-Bathe, killing 63 lower caste people.

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