Post by farmgal on Dec 3, 2012 18:37:00 GMT -5
December 1 is the 336th day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 30 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should have been leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1145 Pope Eugene III (d. 8 July 1153) sent a papal bull to King Louis VII of France (1137–1179), proclaiming the Second Crusade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_praedecessores
1521 Pope Leo X, enemy of Martin Luther, died (b. Giovanni de' Medici, 11 December 1475, Florence, Italy).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X
1523 The Reformation began in Strasbourg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg#Imperial_city
1750 First American school to offer manual training courses opens, Maryland.
1764 The French government issued a royal decree abolishing the Jesuit order in that country. The decree came as a result of powerful forces opposing both the Jesuits and Pope Clement XIII. The pope’s successor, Clement XIV, formally suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1767, but it was restored again by Pius VII in 1814.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit#Suppression_and_restoration
1777 Washington establishes winter quarters at Morristown. General George Washington's army settles into a second season at Morristown, New Jersey, on this day in 1779. Washington's personal circumstances improved dramatically as he moved into the Ford Mansion and was able to conduct his military business in the style of a proper 18th-century gentleman. However, the worst winter of the 1700s coupled with the collapse of the colonial economy ensured misery for Washington's underfed, poorly clothed and unpaid troops as they struggled for the next two months to construct their 1,000-plus "log-house city" from 600 acres of New Jersey woodland.
Life was similarly bleak for the war-weary civilian population. With an economy weakened by war, household income declined 40 percent. Farmers faced raids from the British and their Indian allies. Merchants lost foreign trade. Even a great victory, such as the capture of British General John Burgoyne's army in October 1777, led to 7,800 more mouths to feed. As in 1776, the troops were eager to go home and many did. Although enlistment papers showed 16,000 men in Washington's ranks, only 3,600 men stood ready to accept his commands. Even those remaining were unable to sustain combat since they lacked sufficient horses to move their artillery. With their currency rendered worthless, the army relied upon requisitions from farmers to supply themselves. Military-civilian relations strained under demands on farmers and shopkeepers to sell at a loss and because of the now-professional army's disdain for civilians. Without paper money, Congress could not pay the army. Without fair pay, farmers stopped planting. By spring, the Continental Army stood at risk of dissolution.
The British army faced a similar crisis. Civilians at home no longer shared British King George III's determination to keep the colonies within the empire. They too suffered from lost trade and increased debt endemic to war. To fill the royal army, the crown had to tolerate Catholics, which engendered religious violence. The war of attrition was quickly becoming one of contrition for both sides.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morristown,_New_Jersey#Eighteenth_century
1775 Peter Muhlenberg (1746–1807) was appointed colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Muhlenberg
1824 House of Representatives begins to end election deadlock. The contest for President in 1824 was one of the closest--and most bitterly contested--elections in U.S. history. John Quincy Adams was ultimately declared the winner. But another candidate, Andrew Jackson, won the popular vote. No candidate (there were four in all) won the number of electoral votes needed to be declared President. Therefore, the House of Representatives had to decide who the President would be. Adams won in the House by one vote. Jackson claimed Adams and another presidential candidate, Henry Clay, made a deal to make sure Adams won.
1831 The coldest December of record in the northeastern U.S. commenced. Temperatures in New York City averaged 22 degrees, with just four days above freezing, and at Burlington VT the temperature never did get above freezing. The Erie Canal was closed the first day of December, and remained closed the entire month. (David Ludlum)
1841 The first steamboat engine built in America for a screw-propelled vessel, installed on the Vandalia, was launched. It was designed by John Ericsson and built by Captain Sylvester Doolittle. The engine had two vertical cylinders with a diameter of 14-in and a stroke of 22-in. Ericsson had previously built two engines for British ships. The Vandalia was the first screw-propelled vessel on the Great Lakes. Unlike the pioneer screw-steamers in England, which were towing vessels, the Vandalia was built to carry passengers and freight through the canals. The Vandalia, demonstrated that propellers could pass easily through the narrow locks where side-wheelers could not.
1843 First chartered mutual life insurance company opens. The New England Mutual Life Insurance Company (1835) issued its first policy in 1844 and the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (1842) began operation in 1843; at least fifteen more mutuals were chartered by 1849.
1857 A U.S. patent was issued to Ephraim Ball for his mower design, which became the first widely successful of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers. This "Ball's Ohio Mower" greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers. Ball began inventing with a turn-top stove. Then in 1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. His invention of the "Ball's Blue Plough" sold well, and in 1851 he joined with others to expand with a larger company with factories in Canton, Ohio. After his "Ohio Mower" he continued inventing farm machinery. The "World Mower and Reaper," and "Buckeye Machine" (1858) sold extensively. He followed these with the "New American Harvester," of which to10,000 were produced annually (1865).«
www.todayinsci.com/B/Ball_Ephraim/BallEphraim.htm
1858 The Lutheran Hospital Association was organized in Saint Louis.
1860 The second 1860 The second Michigan Synod was organized in Detroit.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=M&word=MICHIGANSYNOD
1864 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.
1868 John D Rockefeller begins anti oil war. Rockefeller struck a major deal with a railroad, guaranteeing a certain volume of shipments in exchange for rebates. The first of many, this deal was made with Jay Gould, owner of the Erie Railroad. In 1870, Rockefeller founds Standard Oil of Ohio with $1 million in capital, the largest corporation in the country. The new company controls 10% of U.S. petroleum refining.
1878 First White House telephone installed. First telephone installed for Rutherford B. Hayes, using the phone number "1." And to whom did the commander-in-chief place his first call? Alexander Graham Bell, of course, who was waiting for the call some 13 miles away from the White House. The president's first words were said to have been, "Please speak more slowly." President Hayes did not use it very often, however, because there were not many other telephones in Washington.
1884 Elfego Baca battles Anglo cowboys. Elfego Baca, legendary defender of southwestern Hispanos, manages to hold off a gang of 80 cowboys who are determined to kill him.
The trouble began the previous day, when Baca arrested Charles McCarthy, a cowboy who fired five shots at him in a Frisco (now Reserve), New Mexico, saloon. For months, a vicious band of Texan cowboys had terrorized the Hispanos of Frisco, brutally castrating one young Mexican man and using another for target practice. Outraged by these abuses, Baca gained a commission as deputy sheriff to try to end the terror. His arrest of McCarthy served notice to other Anglo cowboys that further abuses of the Hispanos would not be tolerated.
The Texans, however, were not easily intimidated. The morning after McCarthy's arrest, a group of about 80 cowboys rode into town to free McCarthy and make an example of Baca for all Mexicans. Baca gathered the women and children of the town in a church for their safety and prepared to make a stand. When he saw how outnumbered he was, Baca retreated to an adobe house, where he killed one attacker and wounded several others. The irate cowboys peppered Baca's tiny hideout with bullets, firing about 400 rounds into the flimsy structure. As night fell, they assumed they had killed the defiant deputy sheriff, but the next morning they awoke to the smell of beef stew and tortillas--Baca was fixing his breakfast.
A short while later, two lawmen and several of Baca's friends came to his aid, and the cowboys retreated. Baca turned himself over to the officers, and he was charged with the murder of one of the cowboys. In his trial in Albuquerque, the jury found Baca not guilty because he had acted in self-defense, and he was released to a hero's welcome among the Hispanos of New Mexico. Baca was adored because he had taken a stand against the abusive and racist Anglo newcomers. Hugely popular, Baca later enjoyed a successful career as a lawyer, private detective, and politician in Albuquerque.
1885 First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas (USA).
1891 James Naismith creates the game of basketball. In December 1891, Canadian-born James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) training school, took a soccer ball and a peach basket into the gym and invented basketball. In 1893, James Naismith replaced the peach basket with iron hoops and a hammock-style basket. Ten years later came the open-ended nets of today. Before that, you had to retrieve your ball from the basket every time you scored.
1896 The temperature at Kipp, MT, rose 30 degrees in just seven minutes, and 80 degrees in a matter of a few hours. A thirty-inch snow cover was melted in half a day. (The Weather Channel)
1896 First certified public accountants receive certificates (New York). In 1896, New York State passed the first accountancy law, which required testing the qualifications of those who wished to practice as public accountants. The first examination was administered in December 1896. This led to the issuance of a state license to practice as a CPA.
1903 "The Great Train Robbery", the first Western film, released. The film is only twelve minutes long, but it is a milestone in film making. The film used a number of innovative techniques including parallel editing, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.
1909 First Christmas Club payment made, to Carlisle Trust Company, Pennsylvania. The idea was originated by Merkel Landis, the bank's treasurer.
1913 A six day front range snowstorm began. It produced a record total of 46 inches at Denver CO. (David Ludlum)
1913 First drive-up gasoline station opens (Pittsburgh.) In 1913, Gulf Corporation (which merged with Chevron in 1984) made its own history by opening the first drive-up service station. The brick, pagoda-style station was situated on a high traffic Pittsburgh street and featured free air, water, restrooms and a lighted sign touting "Good Gulf Gasoline."
1913 Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford. To improve the flow of the work, the line needed to be arranged so that as one task was finished, another began, with minimum time spent in set-up. Ford was inspired by the meat-packing houses of Chicago and a grain mill conveyor belt he had seen. If he brought the work to the workers, they spent less time moving about. Then he divided the labor by breaking the assembly of the Model T into 84 distinct steps. Each worker was trained to do just one of these steps. Ford called in Frederick Taylor, the creator of "scientific management," to do time and motion studies to determine the exact speed at which the work should proceed and the exact motions workers should use to accomplish their tasks. Ford put these principles into play gradually over five years, fine-tuning and testing as he went along. In 1913, they came together in the first moving assembly line ever used for large-scale manufacturing. Ford produced cars at a record-breaking rate - one car every 2 hrs. 38 min.
1917 Boys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan, west of Omaha NE. Concerned about the great number of orphaned, abused, and neglected children, Father Edward J. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic priest, opened a house for homeless boys in Omaha, Neb., in 1917. Father Flanagan's Boys' Home later became known as Boys Town. From its original five boys, the community soon grew to more than 100.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Town_(organization)
1921 US Post Office establishes philatelic agency. In 1911, the Post Office Department began transferring to the USNM holdings of stamps and related objects from its Postal Museum. This collection eventually amounted to some two hundred thousand items, mostly consisting of domestic and foreign stamps, envelopes, and postal cards as well as albums of models, photographs of Post Office facilities, and die proofs. The Post Office Department agreed to make periodic transfers of United States issues and foreign stamps to the Smithsonian, to insure the continual growth of what became known as the National Postage Stamp Collection. From 1913 to 1921, Joseph B. Leavy served as the first Philatelist of the Collection. The Collection was organized as the Section of Philately in the Division of History through 1947, and became the Division of Philately in the new Department of History in 1948.
1924 George/Ira Gershwin's musical "Lady Be Good" premieres in New York NY. Critical reception to the Broadway opening fell just short of raves, with most of the papers hailing the new show as "the best musical in town." All the reviews singled out the "startling" Gershwin score and the performances of the Astaires as the highlights of the new show. Many critics noted the cleverness of the placement of the title song, which was not sung by Dick or Jack to his girl, but by the lead comic, Watty, as a plea for Susie to participate in his masquerade. Four other solid hits emerged from e score: "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Half-Of-It, Dearie, Blues," "So Am I," and "Little Jazz Bird."
1925 MR PEANUT was trademark registered. Mr. Peanut was born in 1916, when Planters offered a prize for the best sketch suitable for adoption as a trademark. A 14-year-old Virginia Schoolboy submitted the winning entry: a drawing of a peanut with arms and legs labeled "Mr. Peanut". A commercial artist later added the top hat, monocle and cane.
1925 World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty is signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements.
1926 Groundbreaking ceremonies were held for Bob Jones College at Panama City, Florida. It later relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, and is known as Bob Jones University.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University
1929 Game of BINGO invented by Edwin S Lowe. When the game reached North America in 1929, it became known as "beano". It was first played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it "bingo" after he overheard someone accidentally yell "bingo" instead of "beano". He hired a Columbia University math professor, Carl Leffler, to help him increase the number of combinations in bingo cards. By 1930, Leffler had invented 6,000 different bingo cards.
1930 NHL drops 20 minute slashing-about-the-head penalty
1930 Ruth Nichols becomes first woman pilot to cross the continent. Having gotten her start in aviation by flying co-pilot on the first non-stop flight from New York City to Miami, Ruth Nichols broke both the east-west and west-east transcontinental speed records for women in 1930. Then in 1931, using a regular oxygen tank with a simple rubber hose attached to supply her with air, she set a new women's altitude record of 28,743 feet. She later flew a new women's three-kilometer speed record of 210.6 miles per hour and a non-stop distance record of 1,977 miles, making her the highest, farthest, and fastest-flying woman in the world by the end of 1931.
1936 EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtain patent on soilless culture of plants. In 1935, the first large hydroponicum was established in Montebello, Cal., by Ernest W. Brundin and Frank F. Lyon, who installed a circulating system. They were issued a U.S. patent on 1 Dec 1936 for a "system of water culture." They incorporated on 19 Oct 1937 as the Chemi-Culture Company. Benefits of chemiculture include higher yields in less space, can be used even in desert gardening, quicker growth and attracts least diseases. The word hydroponics was coined in the early 1930s, by Professor Gericke at U.C.L.A. to describe the growing of plants with their roots suspended in water containing mineral nutrients. It comes from two Greek words: "hydro" (water) and "ponos" (to work, labor).
1941 The American Civil Air Patrol was founded. The American Civil Air Patrol, a U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, was founded as Director of Civilian Defense, former New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, signed the formal order. Today the CAP provides aerospace education, a CAP cadet program, and emergency services such as locating missing aircraft.
1941 Japanese Emperor Hirohito signs declaration of war. With Emperor Hirohito in attendance, the ruling council of Japan unanimously voted to go to war with the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. The following day, the Japanese cabinet confirmed the decision of the ruling council for an attack on Pearl Harbor.
1942 Gasoline rationed in US. Gasoline rationing reduced the number of miles the average citizen drove and thus conserved rubber. Voluntary gas rationing proved ineffective and by the Spring of 1942, seventeen Eastern states had instituted some form of mandatory gas rationing. By December mandatory controls extended across the entire country. On average, motorists who used their cars for "nonessential" purposes were restricted to 3 gallons of gas a week.
1943 FDR, Churchill & Stalin agree to Operation Overlord (D-Day) The Tehran Conference proposed that Operation OVERLORD be launched during May 1944, in conjunction with an operation against Southern France. The latter operation would be undertaken in as great a strength as availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further took note of Marshal Stalin's statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front.
1945 Burl Ives made his concert debut. He appeared at New York’s Town Hall. In 1944, after medical discharge from the forces, Ives played a long stint at New York's Cafe Society Uptown nightclub, and appeared on Broadway with Alfred Drake in Sing Out Sweet Land, a "Salute To American Folk And Popular Music". For his performance, Ives received the Donaldson Award as Best Supporting Actor. During the following year, he made a concert appearance at New York's Town Hall. Also in that year he made his first movie, Smoky, with Fred MacMurray and Anne Baxter, and appeared with Josh White in a full-length feature about folk music. We lovingly listen every year for the voice of this old-time radio personality as the narrator and banjo-pickin' snowman in TV's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
1948 "Scrabble" the board game was copyright registered. During the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts decided to invent a board game. Butts wanted to create a game that combined the vocabulary skills of crossword puzzles and anagrams, with the additional element of chance. The game was originally named Lexico, but Butts eventually decided to call the game "Criss-Cross Words."
Butts' first attempts to sell his game to established game manufacturers were failures, but he didn't give up. He and his partner, game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules and design of the game, and renamed it SCRABBLE. The name, which means "to grope frantically," was trademarked in 1948.
1948 Piet Roozenburg becomes world champion checker player.
1951 Golden Gate Bridge closes due to high winds. Between 5:55 P.M. and 8:45 P.M. the bridge was closed to traffic because of a violent storm which generated a gale with a velocity of seventy miles an hour. The deck of the bridge swayed twenty-four feet from side to side and five feet in the perpendicular dimension. Since the bridge was designed to sustain a twenty-seven-foot sway, no serious effects came from this dramatic moment. Close examination of the structure later indicated only minor damage.
1952 The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
1955 Rosa Parks (black) arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for disregarding an order to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger. Her protest galvanized a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a historic turning point in the African American battle for civil rights. Rosa Parks was much more than an accidental symbol, however. It is sometimes overlooked that at the time of her arrest, she was no ordinary bus rider; she was an experienced activist with strong beliefs.
1956 Frank Robinson (NL) & Luis Aparicio (AL) voted Rookie of the Year.
1957 Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed Sullivan Show. Buddy Holly and The Crickets perform That'll Be The Day and Peggy Sue on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan calls Buddy back on stage after the second song for an impromptu interview and to solicit another "very nice hand for these Texas youngsters."
By 1957 and 'You Send Me', Cooke already had orchestration and female backing vocals on his recordings. 'Wonderful World' and 'Only Sixteen' soon followed and regular placings on the pop charts became common place.
1958 "Flower Drum Song" opens at St James Theater NYC for 602 performances. Flower Drum Song is a Broadway musical with a score by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Hammerstein and Joseph Fields, based on the novel The Flower Drum Song by C.Y. Lee. The original production opened in 1958 and starred Miyoshi Umeki, Pat Suzuki, Juanita Hall, Larry Blyden, Ed Kenney, and Arabella Hong; it ran for 600 performances at the St. James Theatre.
1958 The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in Chicago, Illinois, kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 12 nations sign a treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica. The primary purpose of the Antarctic Treaty is to ensure "in the interests of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord." To this end it prohibits military activity, except in support of science; prohibits nuclear explosions and the disposal of nuclear waste; promotes scientific research and the exchange of data; and holds all territorial claims in abeyance. The Treaty applies to the area south of 60o South Latitude, including all ice shelves and islands.
1959 The first color photograph of Earth received from outer space. In 1959, the first color photograph of the earth from outer space was taken from the nose of a Thor missile launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The data capsule containing the camera was recovered 16 Feb 1960 on the beach of Mayaguana Island, Bahama Islands, approximately 1,700 miles from the take-off point.
1964 Houston Colt .45s change name to Astros. On April 9, 1965, the Houston Colt .45s become the Houston Astros and inaugurate indoor baseball in the Astrodome. Late in 1964,the Harris County Domed Stadium was officially named the Astrodome after the Houston club changed its nickname, December 1, from Colt .45s to Astros. The move resulted from objections by the Colt Firearms Company to the club's sales of novelties bearing the old nickname."
1964 Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1969 US government holds its first draft lottery since WWII. A lottery drawing - the first since 1942 - was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event determined the order of call for induction during calendar year 1970, that is, for registrants born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. There were 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates placed in a large glass container and drawn by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective Service law. With radio, film and TV coverage, the capsules were drawn from the container, opened, and the dates inside posted in order. The first capsule - drawn by Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) of the House Armed Services Committee - contained the date September 14, so all men born on September 14 in any year between 1944 and 1950 were assigned lottery number 1. The drawing continued until all days of the year had been paired with sequence numbers.
1971 Cubs release Ernie Banks & sign him as a coach. He will always be "Mr. Cub," the most popular player the Cubs ever had. His sunny personality is legend, as is his refrain on a sunny day: "Let's play two!" The first black player on the Cubs, Banks came up as a shortstop, where he won consecutive MVP awards, but actually played more games at first base. He is also one of a handful of Hall of Famers never to get into postseason play.
1974 TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport killing all 92 people on-board.
1974 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1975 Lambda Theta Phi - The first Latino fraternity is established in New Jersey.
1976 The American Bible Society published Good News Bible.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/GNB_Logo.png
1977 The isolation of the bacterium Legionella pneumophila that was the cause of Legionnaire's Disease, was described in a scientific paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. They had first announced that they had sufficient laboratory evidence to implicate a bacterium on 18 Jan 1977 as responsible for an outbreak of this disease in Philadelphia in 1976, largely among people attending a state convention of the American Legion, which led to the name "Legionnaires' Disease." After the bacterium causing the illness was named, the name of the illness was changed to legionellosis.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaire%27s_Disease
1978 President Carter more than doubles national park system size. The Alaska Lands Act protected more than 97 million acres of pristine wilderness--an area larger than the whole state of California--and doubled the size of the National Park and Wildlife Refuge System.
1981 Abdul-Jabbar passes Oscar Robertson as NBA’s second all-time leading scorer. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers passed Oscar Robertson to become the NBA's second all-time leading scorer, behind Wilt Chamberlain. Abdul-Jabbar finished the season with over 28,000 career points and eventually surpassed Chamberlain for the top spot.
1981 The AIDS virus is officially recognized
1982 At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
1985 A storm produced more than six inches of snow from the Northern and Central Plains to parts of Michigan, with 36.4 inches reported at Marquette MI. Many roads were blocked by snow. A family was stranded for 25 hours south of Colome SD. Drifts twelve feet high were reported in north central Nebraska. (The Weather Channel)
1987 A powerful storm hit the northwestern U.S. Winds gusted to 80 mph at Cape Disappointment WA, and reached 94 mph at Cape Blanco OR. Thunderstorms in western Washington State produced wind gusts to 60 mph, and dime size hail at Hoquiam. Stevens Pass, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, received seven inches of snow during the morning hours. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Squalls in the Great Lakes Region produced up to a foot of snow in Ashtabula County OH, up to ten inches in Erie County PA, and up to a foot of snow in western New York State. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Heavy snow blanketed the mountains of New Mexico, with 12 inches reported at the Angel Fire Ski Basin. Strong northerly winds ushering cold air into the north central U.S. gusted to 55 mph at Devils Lake ND. Low pressure over the Gulf of Alaska produced wind gusts to 69 mph at Kodiak Island. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1989 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II met at the Vatican, announcing an agreement to reestablish diplomatic ties. Gorbachev also denounced seventy years of religious oppression in his country.
1997 Eight planets from our Solar System lined up from West to East beginning with Pluto, followed by Mercury, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn, with a crescent moon alongside, in a rare alignment visible from Earth that lasted until Dec 8. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn are visible to the naked eye, with Venus and Jupiter by far the brightest. A good pair of binoculars is needed to see the small blue dots that are Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is visible only by telescope. The planets also aligned in May 2000, but too close to the sun to be visible from Earth. It will be at least another 100 years before so many planets will be so close and so visible.
1997 Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS
1999 An international team of scientists announced it had sequenced the first human chromosome. By November 1999, the public HGP had sequenced one billion bases, or one third of the human genome. By December 1999, the public HGP had claimed the first human chromosome sequence, which it published in Nature. It was the work of one of the largest international collaborations to date. More than two hundred researchers working at the Sanger Centre in Britain, together with genome centers in the U.S. and Keio University in Japan, described most of the entire sequence of chromosome 22.
2001 Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
2002 Heavy lake effect snow fell downwind of the U.S. Great Lakes. Buffalo, New York reported 16 inches of snow, with thundersnow reported late in the afternoon. While the eastern U.S. experienced much colder than normal temperatures on December 1, much of Alaska was basking in above average warmth. Many daily temperature records were set across this region through the beginning of the month.
2004 Tom Brokaw signed off as anchor of NBC News after 21 years. Along with the two other pillars of the so-called "Big Three"-- Peter Jennings (ABC) and Dan Rather (CBS) - Brokaw had ushered in the era of the TV news anchor as lavishly compensated, globe-trotting star in the 1980s. He closed his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC by saying: "That's Nightly News for this Wednesday night. I'm Tom Brokaw. You'll see Brian Williams here tomorrow night; and I'll see you along the way."
Births
1798 Albert Barnes, in Rome, New York, American Presbyterian clergyman and Bible scholar,(d 24 Dec 1870).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Barnes_(theologian)
1807 Joseph Getchell Binney, Boston, Massachusetts, Baptist pastor and American Board (Congregationalist) missionary to the Karens in Burma, (d. 26 Nov 1877). He was also president of George Washington University from 1855 to 1858.
1846 William Henry Holmes (d 1933) American archaeologist, artist, and museum director who helped to establish professional archaeology in the United States. He was a geologist and outstanding illustrator who turned to archaeology while working for the U.S. Geological Survey (1875) and became an expert on southwestern Indian art and prehistoric ceramics and stone implements. His knowledge of geology, archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology made him a master in the scientific documentation of landscapes. His achievements included important publications on Indian cultures in prehistory and on Mayan civilization at Chichen Itza. He was chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1902-09) and director of the National Gallery of Art (1920-32).
1847 Christine Ladd-Franklin (d 1930) (née Ladd) American scientist and logician known for contributions to the theory of colour vision accounting for the development of man's color sense which countered the established views of Helmholtz, Young, and Hering. Her position was that color-sense developed in stages. Ladd- Franklin's conclusions were particularly useful in accounting for color-blindness in some individuals. In logic, she published an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula (1883)
1880 William Frederick Arndt, Missouri Synod exegete and Greek lexicographer, was born in Mayville, Wisconsin (d. 25 February 1957, Cambridge, England).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=A&word=ARNDT.WILLIAMFREDERICK
1886 Rex Todhunter Stout (d 1975) American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair).
1912 Minoru Yamasaki (d 1986) American architect, best known for his design of the twin towers of the World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of "romanticized modernism".
1913 Mary Martin, American actor and singer (d. 1990)
1923 Stansfield Turner, American admiral and 12th Director of Central Intelligence
1925 Martin Rodbell (d 1998) American biochemist who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in the 1960s of natural signal transducers called G-proteins that help cells in the body communicate with each other. He shared the prize with Alfred G. Gilman, who later proved Rodbell's hypothesis, by isolating the G-protein, which is so named because it binds to nucleotides called guanosine diphosphate and guanosine triphosphate, or GDP and GTP. Prior to Rodbell's research, scientists believed that only two substances--a hormone receptor and an interior cell enzyme--were responsible for cellular communication. Rodbell, however, discovered that the G-protein acted as an intermediate signal transducer between the two.
1933 Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls (d 2006) American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game". Rawls released more than 70 albums, sold more than 40 million records, appeared as an actor in motion pictures and on television, and voiced-over many cartoons.
1940 Richard Pryor, American comic and actor (d. 2005)
1941 Stephen Benton (d 2003) American physicist who was a pioneer in medical imaging and fine-arts holography. His fascination with optical phenomena began with the 3-D glasses he used as an 11-year-old to watch te 1953 movie "House of Wax." In 1968, he invented the "rainbow holograms" as seen on credit cards while working for Polaroid Corporation. He turned to academia as an assistant professor at Harvard (1968) and later a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1985 where he helped set up the Spatial Imaging Group and headed the M.I.T. media art and sciences program. Benton was a pioneer in natural light holography as a artistic medium, and was a curator at the Museum of Holography in Manhanttan until it closed in 1992
1944 Michael W. Hagee, 33rd Commandant of the United States Marine Corps
Deaths
1882 Titus Coan, American Presbyterian missionary to Hawaii, died in Hilo, Hawaii (b. 1 Feb 1801).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Coan
1975 Nellie Fox, American baseball player (b. 1927)
1987 James Baldwin, American writer (b. 1924)
1991 George Joseph Stigler, American economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (b. 1911)
2002 Dave McNally, American baseball player (b. 1942)
Christian Feast day:
Castritian
St. Eligius
St. Edmund Campion
Nicholas Ferrar (Episcopal Church (United States))
akaCG
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/12/12_01.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/dec01.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_01
www.history.com/this-day-in-history
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1201.htm
There are 30 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should have been leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
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1145 Pope Eugene III (d. 8 July 1153) sent a papal bull to King Louis VII of France (1137–1179), proclaiming the Second Crusade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_praedecessores
1521 Pope Leo X, enemy of Martin Luther, died (b. Giovanni de' Medici, 11 December 1475, Florence, Italy).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X
1523 The Reformation began in Strasbourg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg#Imperial_city
1750 First American school to offer manual training courses opens, Maryland.
1764 The French government issued a royal decree abolishing the Jesuit order in that country. The decree came as a result of powerful forces opposing both the Jesuits and Pope Clement XIII. The pope’s successor, Clement XIV, formally suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1767, but it was restored again by Pius VII in 1814.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit#Suppression_and_restoration
1777 Washington establishes winter quarters at Morristown. General George Washington's army settles into a second season at Morristown, New Jersey, on this day in 1779. Washington's personal circumstances improved dramatically as he moved into the Ford Mansion and was able to conduct his military business in the style of a proper 18th-century gentleman. However, the worst winter of the 1700s coupled with the collapse of the colonial economy ensured misery for Washington's underfed, poorly clothed and unpaid troops as they struggled for the next two months to construct their 1,000-plus "log-house city" from 600 acres of New Jersey woodland.
Life was similarly bleak for the war-weary civilian population. With an economy weakened by war, household income declined 40 percent. Farmers faced raids from the British and their Indian allies. Merchants lost foreign trade. Even a great victory, such as the capture of British General John Burgoyne's army in October 1777, led to 7,800 more mouths to feed. As in 1776, the troops were eager to go home and many did. Although enlistment papers showed 16,000 men in Washington's ranks, only 3,600 men stood ready to accept his commands. Even those remaining were unable to sustain combat since they lacked sufficient horses to move their artillery. With their currency rendered worthless, the army relied upon requisitions from farmers to supply themselves. Military-civilian relations strained under demands on farmers and shopkeepers to sell at a loss and because of the now-professional army's disdain for civilians. Without paper money, Congress could not pay the army. Without fair pay, farmers stopped planting. By spring, the Continental Army stood at risk of dissolution.
The British army faced a similar crisis. Civilians at home no longer shared British King George III's determination to keep the colonies within the empire. They too suffered from lost trade and increased debt endemic to war. To fill the royal army, the crown had to tolerate Catholics, which engendered religious violence. The war of attrition was quickly becoming one of contrition for both sides.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morristown,_New_Jersey#Eighteenth_century
1775 Peter Muhlenberg (1746–1807) was appointed colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Muhlenberg
1824 House of Representatives begins to end election deadlock. The contest for President in 1824 was one of the closest--and most bitterly contested--elections in U.S. history. John Quincy Adams was ultimately declared the winner. But another candidate, Andrew Jackson, won the popular vote. No candidate (there were four in all) won the number of electoral votes needed to be declared President. Therefore, the House of Representatives had to decide who the President would be. Adams won in the House by one vote. Jackson claimed Adams and another presidential candidate, Henry Clay, made a deal to make sure Adams won.
1831 The coldest December of record in the northeastern U.S. commenced. Temperatures in New York City averaged 22 degrees, with just four days above freezing, and at Burlington VT the temperature never did get above freezing. The Erie Canal was closed the first day of December, and remained closed the entire month. (David Ludlum)
1841 The first steamboat engine built in America for a screw-propelled vessel, installed on the Vandalia, was launched. It was designed by John Ericsson and built by Captain Sylvester Doolittle. The engine had two vertical cylinders with a diameter of 14-in and a stroke of 22-in. Ericsson had previously built two engines for British ships. The Vandalia was the first screw-propelled vessel on the Great Lakes. Unlike the pioneer screw-steamers in England, which were towing vessels, the Vandalia was built to carry passengers and freight through the canals. The Vandalia, demonstrated that propellers could pass easily through the narrow locks where side-wheelers could not.
1843 First chartered mutual life insurance company opens. The New England Mutual Life Insurance Company (1835) issued its first policy in 1844 and the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (1842) began operation in 1843; at least fifteen more mutuals were chartered by 1849.
1857 A U.S. patent was issued to Ephraim Ball for his mower design, which became the first widely successful of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers. This "Ball's Ohio Mower" greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers. Ball began inventing with a turn-top stove. Then in 1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. His invention of the "Ball's Blue Plough" sold well, and in 1851 he joined with others to expand with a larger company with factories in Canton, Ohio. After his "Ohio Mower" he continued inventing farm machinery. The "World Mower and Reaper," and "Buckeye Machine" (1858) sold extensively. He followed these with the "New American Harvester," of which to10,000 were produced annually (1865).«
www.todayinsci.com/B/Ball_Ephraim/BallEphraim.htm
1858 The Lutheran Hospital Association was organized in Saint Louis.
1860 The second 1860 The second Michigan Synod was organized in Detroit.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=M&word=MICHIGANSYNOD
1864 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.
1878 First White House telephone installed. First telephone installed for Rutherford B. Hayes, using the phone number "1." And to whom did the commander-in-chief place his first call? Alexander Graham Bell, of course, who was waiting for the call some 13 miles away from the White House. The president's first words were said to have been, "Please speak more slowly." President Hayes did not use it very often, however, because there were not many other telephones in Washington.
1884 Elfego Baca battles Anglo cowboys. Elfego Baca, legendary defender of southwestern Hispanos, manages to hold off a gang of 80 cowboys who are determined to kill him.
The trouble began the previous day, when Baca arrested Charles McCarthy, a cowboy who fired five shots at him in a Frisco (now Reserve), New Mexico, saloon. For months, a vicious band of Texan cowboys had terrorized the Hispanos of Frisco, brutally castrating one young Mexican man and using another for target practice. Outraged by these abuses, Baca gained a commission as deputy sheriff to try to end the terror. His arrest of McCarthy served notice to other Anglo cowboys that further abuses of the Hispanos would not be tolerated.
The Texans, however, were not easily intimidated. The morning after McCarthy's arrest, a group of about 80 cowboys rode into town to free McCarthy and make an example of Baca for all Mexicans. Baca gathered the women and children of the town in a church for their safety and prepared to make a stand. When he saw how outnumbered he was, Baca retreated to an adobe house, where he killed one attacker and wounded several others. The irate cowboys peppered Baca's tiny hideout with bullets, firing about 400 rounds into the flimsy structure. As night fell, they assumed they had killed the defiant deputy sheriff, but the next morning they awoke to the smell of beef stew and tortillas--Baca was fixing his breakfast.
A short while later, two lawmen and several of Baca's friends came to his aid, and the cowboys retreated. Baca turned himself over to the officers, and he was charged with the murder of one of the cowboys. In his trial in Albuquerque, the jury found Baca not guilty because he had acted in self-defense, and he was released to a hero's welcome among the Hispanos of New Mexico. Baca was adored because he had taken a stand against the abusive and racist Anglo newcomers. Hugely popular, Baca later enjoyed a successful career as a lawyer, private detective, and politician in Albuquerque.
1885 First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas (USA).
1896 The temperature at Kipp, MT, rose 30 degrees in just seven minutes, and 80 degrees in a matter of a few hours. A thirty-inch snow cover was melted in half a day. (The Weather Channel)
1896 First certified public accountants receive certificates (New York). In 1896, New York State passed the first accountancy law, which required testing the qualifications of those who wished to practice as public accountants. The first examination was administered in December 1896. This led to the issuance of a state license to practice as a CPA.
1903 "The Great Train Robbery", the first Western film, released. The film is only twelve minutes long, but it is a milestone in film making. The film used a number of innovative techniques including parallel editing, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.
1909 First Christmas Club payment made, to Carlisle Trust Company, Pennsylvania. The idea was originated by Merkel Landis, the bank's treasurer.
1913 A six day front range snowstorm began. It produced a record total of 46 inches at Denver CO. (David Ludlum)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Town_(organization)
1921 US Post Office establishes philatelic agency. In 1911, the Post Office Department began transferring to the USNM holdings of stamps and related objects from its Postal Museum. This collection eventually amounted to some two hundred thousand items, mostly consisting of domestic and foreign stamps, envelopes, and postal cards as well as albums of models, photographs of Post Office facilities, and die proofs. The Post Office Department agreed to make periodic transfers of United States issues and foreign stamps to the Smithsonian, to insure the continual growth of what became known as the National Postage Stamp Collection. From 1913 to 1921, Joseph B. Leavy served as the first Philatelist of the Collection. The Collection was organized as the Section of Philately in the Division of History through 1947, and became the Division of Philately in the new Department of History in 1948.
1924 George/Ira Gershwin's musical "Lady Be Good" premieres in New York NY. Critical reception to the Broadway opening fell just short of raves, with most of the papers hailing the new show as "the best musical in town." All the reviews singled out the "startling" Gershwin score and the performances of the Astaires as the highlights of the new show. Many critics noted the cleverness of the placement of the title song, which was not sung by Dick or Jack to his girl, but by the lead comic, Watty, as a plea for Susie to participate in his masquerade. Four other solid hits emerged from e score: "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Half-Of-It, Dearie, Blues," "So Am I," and "Little Jazz Bird."
1925 World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty is signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements.
1926 Groundbreaking ceremonies were held for Bob Jones College at Panama City, Florida. It later relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, and is known as Bob Jones University.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University
1930 NHL drops 20 minute slashing-about-the-head penalty
1936 EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtain patent on soilless culture of plants. In 1935, the first large hydroponicum was established in Montebello, Cal., by Ernest W. Brundin and Frank F. Lyon, who installed a circulating system. They were issued a U.S. patent on 1 Dec 1936 for a "system of water culture." They incorporated on 19 Oct 1937 as the Chemi-Culture Company. Benefits of chemiculture include higher yields in less space, can be used even in desert gardening, quicker growth and attracts least diseases. The word hydroponics was coined in the early 1930s, by Professor Gericke at U.C.L.A. to describe the growing of plants with their roots suspended in water containing mineral nutrients. It comes from two Greek words: "hydro" (water) and "ponos" (to work, labor).
1942 Gasoline rationed in US. Gasoline rationing reduced the number of miles the average citizen drove and thus conserved rubber. Voluntary gas rationing proved ineffective and by the Spring of 1942, seventeen Eastern states had instituted some form of mandatory gas rationing. By December mandatory controls extended across the entire country. On average, motorists who used their cars for "nonessential" purposes were restricted to 3 gallons of gas a week.
1945 Burl Ives made his concert debut. He appeared at New York’s Town Hall. In 1944, after medical discharge from the forces, Ives played a long stint at New York's Cafe Society Uptown nightclub, and appeared on Broadway with Alfred Drake in Sing Out Sweet Land, a "Salute To American Folk And Popular Music". For his performance, Ives received the Donaldson Award as Best Supporting Actor. During the following year, he made a concert appearance at New York's Town Hall. Also in that year he made his first movie, Smoky, with Fred MacMurray and Anne Baxter, and appeared with Josh White in a full-length feature about folk music. We lovingly listen every year for the voice of this old-time radio personality as the narrator and banjo-pickin' snowman in TV's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Butts' first attempts to sell his game to established game manufacturers were failures, but he didn't give up. He and his partner, game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules and design of the game, and renamed it SCRABBLE. The name, which means "to grope frantically," was trademarked in 1948.
1948 Piet Roozenburg becomes world champion checker player.
1952 The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
1956 Frank Robinson (NL) & Luis Aparicio (AL) voted Rookie of the Year.
1957 Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed Sullivan Show. Buddy Holly and The Crickets perform That'll Be The Day and Peggy Sue on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan calls Buddy back on stage after the second song for an impromptu interview and to solicit another "very nice hand for these Texas youngsters."
By 1957 and 'You Send Me', Cooke already had orchestration and female backing vocals on his recordings. 'Wonderful World' and 'Only Sixteen' soon followed and regular placings on the pop charts became common place.
1958 The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in Chicago, Illinois, kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 12 nations sign a treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica. The primary purpose of the Antarctic Treaty is to ensure "in the interests of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord." To this end it prohibits military activity, except in support of science; prohibits nuclear explosions and the disposal of nuclear waste; promotes scientific research and the exchange of data; and holds all territorial claims in abeyance. The Treaty applies to the area south of 60o South Latitude, including all ice shelves and islands.
1959 The first color photograph of Earth received from outer space. In 1959, the first color photograph of the earth from outer space was taken from the nose of a Thor missile launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The data capsule containing the camera was recovered 16 Feb 1960 on the beach of Mayaguana Island, Bahama Islands, approximately 1,700 miles from the take-off point.
1964 Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1969 US government holds its first draft lottery since WWII. A lottery drawing - the first since 1942 - was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event determined the order of call for induction during calendar year 1970, that is, for registrants born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. There were 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates placed in a large glass container and drawn by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective Service law. With radio, film and TV coverage, the capsules were drawn from the container, opened, and the dates inside posted in order. The first capsule - drawn by Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) of the House Armed Services Committee - contained the date September 14, so all men born on September 14 in any year between 1944 and 1950 were assigned lottery number 1. The drawing continued until all days of the year had been paired with sequence numbers.
1971 Cubs release Ernie Banks & sign him as a coach. He will always be "Mr. Cub," the most popular player the Cubs ever had. His sunny personality is legend, as is his refrain on a sunny day: "Let's play two!" The first black player on the Cubs, Banks came up as a shortstop, where he won consecutive MVP awards, but actually played more games at first base. He is also one of a handful of Hall of Famers never to get into postseason play.
1974 TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport killing all 92 people on-board.
1974 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1975 Lambda Theta Phi - The first Latino fraternity is established in New Jersey.
1976 The American Bible Society published Good News Bible.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/GNB_Logo.png
1977 The isolation of the bacterium Legionella pneumophila that was the cause of Legionnaire's Disease, was described in a scientific paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. They had first announced that they had sufficient laboratory evidence to implicate a bacterium on 18 Jan 1977 as responsible for an outbreak of this disease in Philadelphia in 1976, largely among people attending a state convention of the American Legion, which led to the name "Legionnaires' Disease." After the bacterium causing the illness was named, the name of the illness was changed to legionellosis.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaire%27s_Disease
1978 President Carter more than doubles national park system size. The Alaska Lands Act protected more than 97 million acres of pristine wilderness--an area larger than the whole state of California--and doubled the size of the National Park and Wildlife Refuge System.
1981 Abdul-Jabbar passes Oscar Robertson as NBA’s second all-time leading scorer. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers passed Oscar Robertson to become the NBA's second all-time leading scorer, behind Wilt Chamberlain. Abdul-Jabbar finished the season with over 28,000 career points and eventually surpassed Chamberlain for the top spot.
1981 The AIDS virus is officially recognized
1982 At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
1985 A storm produced more than six inches of snow from the Northern and Central Plains to parts of Michigan, with 36.4 inches reported at Marquette MI. Many roads were blocked by snow. A family was stranded for 25 hours south of Colome SD. Drifts twelve feet high were reported in north central Nebraska. (The Weather Channel)
1987 A powerful storm hit the northwestern U.S. Winds gusted to 80 mph at Cape Disappointment WA, and reached 94 mph at Cape Blanco OR. Thunderstorms in western Washington State produced wind gusts to 60 mph, and dime size hail at Hoquiam. Stevens Pass, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, received seven inches of snow during the morning hours. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Squalls in the Great Lakes Region produced up to a foot of snow in Ashtabula County OH, up to ten inches in Erie County PA, and up to a foot of snow in western New York State. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Heavy snow blanketed the mountains of New Mexico, with 12 inches reported at the Angel Fire Ski Basin. Strong northerly winds ushering cold air into the north central U.S. gusted to 55 mph at Devils Lake ND. Low pressure over the Gulf of Alaska produced wind gusts to 69 mph at Kodiak Island. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1989 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II met at the Vatican, announcing an agreement to reestablish diplomatic ties. Gorbachev also denounced seventy years of religious oppression in his country.
1997 Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS
1999 An international team of scientists announced it had sequenced the first human chromosome. By November 1999, the public HGP had sequenced one billion bases, or one third of the human genome. By December 1999, the public HGP had claimed the first human chromosome sequence, which it published in Nature. It was the work of one of the largest international collaborations to date. More than two hundred researchers working at the Sanger Centre in Britain, together with genome centers in the U.S. and Keio University in Japan, described most of the entire sequence of chromosome 22.
2001 Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
2002 Heavy lake effect snow fell downwind of the U.S. Great Lakes. Buffalo, New York reported 16 inches of snow, with thundersnow reported late in the afternoon. While the eastern U.S. experienced much colder than normal temperatures on December 1, much of Alaska was basking in above average warmth. Many daily temperature records were set across this region through the beginning of the month.
2004 Tom Brokaw signed off as anchor of NBC News after 21 years. Along with the two other pillars of the so-called "Big Three"-- Peter Jennings (ABC) and Dan Rather (CBS) - Brokaw had ushered in the era of the TV news anchor as lavishly compensated, globe-trotting star in the 1980s. He closed his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC by saying: "That's Nightly News for this Wednesday night. I'm Tom Brokaw. You'll see Brian Williams here tomorrow night; and I'll see you along the way."
Births
1798 Albert Barnes, in Rome, New York, American Presbyterian clergyman and Bible scholar,(d 24 Dec 1870).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Barnes_(theologian)
1807 Joseph Getchell Binney, Boston, Massachusetts, Baptist pastor and American Board (Congregationalist) missionary to the Karens in Burma, (d. 26 Nov 1877). He was also president of George Washington University from 1855 to 1858.
1846 William Henry Holmes (d 1933) American archaeologist, artist, and museum director who helped to establish professional archaeology in the United States. He was a geologist and outstanding illustrator who turned to archaeology while working for the U.S. Geological Survey (1875) and became an expert on southwestern Indian art and prehistoric ceramics and stone implements. His knowledge of geology, archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology made him a master in the scientific documentation of landscapes. His achievements included important publications on Indian cultures in prehistory and on Mayan civilization at Chichen Itza. He was chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1902-09) and director of the National Gallery of Art (1920-32).
1847 Christine Ladd-Franklin (d 1930) (née Ladd) American scientist and logician known for contributions to the theory of colour vision accounting for the development of man's color sense which countered the established views of Helmholtz, Young, and Hering. Her position was that color-sense developed in stages. Ladd- Franklin's conclusions were particularly useful in accounting for color-blindness in some individuals. In logic, she published an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula (1883)
1880 William Frederick Arndt, Missouri Synod exegete and Greek lexicographer, was born in Mayville, Wisconsin (d. 25 February 1957, Cambridge, England).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=A&word=ARNDT.WILLIAMFREDERICK
1886 Rex Todhunter Stout (d 1975) American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair).
1912 Minoru Yamasaki (d 1986) American architect, best known for his design of the twin towers of the World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of "romanticized modernism".
1913 Mary Martin, American actor and singer (d. 1990)
1923 Stansfield Turner, American admiral and 12th Director of Central Intelligence
1925 Martin Rodbell (d 1998) American biochemist who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in the 1960s of natural signal transducers called G-proteins that help cells in the body communicate with each other. He shared the prize with Alfred G. Gilman, who later proved Rodbell's hypothesis, by isolating the G-protein, which is so named because it binds to nucleotides called guanosine diphosphate and guanosine triphosphate, or GDP and GTP. Prior to Rodbell's research, scientists believed that only two substances--a hormone receptor and an interior cell enzyme--were responsible for cellular communication. Rodbell, however, discovered that the G-protein acted as an intermediate signal transducer between the two.
1933 Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls (d 2006) American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game". Rawls released more than 70 albums, sold more than 40 million records, appeared as an actor in motion pictures and on television, and voiced-over many cartoons.
1940 Richard Pryor, American comic and actor (d. 2005)
1941 Stephen Benton (d 2003) American physicist who was a pioneer in medical imaging and fine-arts holography. His fascination with optical phenomena began with the 3-D glasses he used as an 11-year-old to watch te 1953 movie "House of Wax." In 1968, he invented the "rainbow holograms" as seen on credit cards while working for Polaroid Corporation. He turned to academia as an assistant professor at Harvard (1968) and later a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1985 where he helped set up the Spatial Imaging Group and headed the M.I.T. media art and sciences program. Benton was a pioneer in natural light holography as a artistic medium, and was a curator at the Museum of Holography in Manhanttan until it closed in 1992
1944 Michael W. Hagee, 33rd Commandant of the United States Marine Corps
Deaths
1882 Titus Coan, American Presbyterian missionary to Hawaii, died in Hilo, Hawaii (b. 1 Feb 1801).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Coan
1975 Nellie Fox, American baseball player (b. 1927)
1987 James Baldwin, American writer (b. 1924)
1991 George Joseph Stigler, American economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (b. 1911)
2002 Dave McNally, American baseball player (b. 1942)
Christian Feast day:
Castritian
St. Eligius
St. Edmund Campion
Nicholas Ferrar (Episcopal Church (United States))
akaCG
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/12/12_01.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/dec01.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_01
www.history.com/this-day-in-history
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1201.htm