Historical Events on Monday, 1st December

01/12/2020

The Arecibo Telescope collapses.

The Arecibo Telescope was a 305 m (1,000 ft) spherical reflector radio telescope built into a natural sinkhole at the Arecibo Observatory located near Arecibo, Puerto Rico. A cable-mounted, steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals were mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish. Completed in November 1963, the Arecibo Telescope was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, until it was surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Guizhou, China. Decommissioning the Arecibo Telescope was announced in November 2020, and the telescope collapsed in December 2020.

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01/12/2019

Arsenal Women 11–1 Bristol City Women breaks the record for most goals scored in a FA Women's Super League match, with Vivianne Miedema involved in ten of the eleven Arsenal goals.

The women's association football match between Arsenal Women and Bristol City Women was played at Arsenal's home venue, Meadow Park, Borehamwood, on 1 December 2019. It was part of the 2019–20 Football Association Women's Super League and finished in an 11–1 victory for the home team. It became the highest-scoring game in the league's history, surpassing Liverpool's 9–0 victory over Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2013.

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The outbreak of coronavirus infection begins in Wuhan.

The global COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other parts of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed it as having become a pandemic on 11 March. The WHO declared that the public health emergency caused by COVID-19 had ended in May 2023.

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01/12/2018

The Oulu Police informed the public about the first offence of the much larger child sexual exploitation in Oulu, Finland.

In December 2018, it transpired that adult men, all of whom had arrived in Finland as asylum seekers or refugees, were grooming, and raping and otherwise sexually abusing, girls under 15 years of age in Oulu, Finland. One victim ended up committing suicide. The Oulu Police Department warned young girls and parents, while emphasizing that "not all people with foreign backgrounds are dishonest or criminals".

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01/12/2011

The Alma-Ata Metro was opened.

Almaty Metro is a rapid transit/metro system in Almaty, the largest city and a former capital of Kazakhstan. The first line of the system was opened on 1 December 2011, after more than 23 years of construction. A 2.9-kilometre (1.8 mi), two-station extension of the Metro to Moskva station opened on 18 April 2015, followed by a 3.1 kilometres (1.9 mi), two-station extension to Bauyrzhan Momyshuly on 30 May 2022. As of October 2025, this is the only metro system in Kazakhstan, although the much-delayed Astana Light Metro is expected to open soon.

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01/12/2009

The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in the European Union.

The Treaty of Lisbon is a European agreement that amends the two treaties which form the constitutional basis of the European Union (EU). The Treaty of Lisbon, which was signed by all EU member states on 13 December 2007, entered into force on 1 December 2009. It amends the Maastricht Treaty (1992), known in updated form as the Treaty on European Union (2007) or TEU, as well as the Treaty of Rome (1957), known in updated form as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007) or TFEU. It also amends the attached treaty protocols as well as the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM).

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01/12/2006

The law on same-sex marriage comes into force in South Africa, legalizing same-sex marriage for the first time on the African continent.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in South Africa since the Civil Union Act, 2006 came into force on 30 November 2006. The decision of the Constitutional Court in the case of Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie on 1 December 2005 extended the common-law definition of marriage to include same-sex spouses—as the Constitution of South Africa guarantees equal protection before the law to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation—and gave Parliament one year to rectify the inequality in the marriage statutes. On 14 November 2006, the National Assembly passed a law allowing same-sex couples to legally solemnise their union 229 to 41, which was subsequently approved by the National Council of Provinces on 28 November in a 36 to 11 vote, and the law came into effect two days later.

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01/12/2005

As a result of the merger of the Perm Oblast and the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug, a new subject of the Russian Federation, the Perm Krai, was created.

Until 1 December 2005, Perm Oblast was a federal subject of Russia in Privolzhsky (Volga) Federal District. According to the results of the referendum held in October 2004, Perm Oblast was merged with Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug to form Perm Krai.

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01/12/2001

The United Russia political party was founded.

The All-Russian Political Party "United Russia" is the ruling political party of Russia. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 325 of the 450 seats in the State Duma as of 2022, having constituted the majority in the chamber since 2007.

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01/12/2000

Vicente Fox Quesada is inaugurated as the president of Mexico, marking the first peaceful transfer of executive federal power to an opposing political party following a free and democratic election in Mexico's history.

Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican businessman and politician who served as the 62nd president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. After campaigning as a right-wing populist, Fox was elected president on the National Action Party (PAN) ticket in the 2000 election. He became the first president not from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since 1929, and the first elected from an opposition party since Francisco I. Madero in 1911. Fox won the election with 43 percent of the vote. Considered a social-welfare promoter, along with Julio Frenk Mora, he formulated, signed and implemented the Seguro Popular which helped circa 55 million independent workers.

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01/12/1997

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

Bihar is a state in Eastern India. It is the second largest state by population, the 12th largest by area, and the 14th largest by GDP in 2024. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Bengal to the east, and Jharkhand to the south. Bihar is split by the river Ganges, which flows from west to east. On 15 November 2000, a large chunk of southern Bihar was ceded to form the new state of Jharkhand. Around 11.27% of Bihar's population live in urban areas as per a 2020 report. Additionally, almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, giving Bihar the highest proportion of young people of any Indian state. The official language is Hindi, which shares official status alongside that of Urdu. The main native languages are Maithili, Magahi and Bhojpuri, but there are several other languages being spoken at smaller levels.

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Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal opens fire at a group of students in Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, killing three and injuring five.

The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, on December 1, 1997, when 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of students, killing three and injuring six.

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01/12/1991

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

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the north; Poland and Slovakia to the west; Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro. The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian. Ukraine covers an area of 603,628 km2 (233,062 sq mi) with an estimated total population of 32.8 million in 2025.

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01/12/1990

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

The Channel Tunnel is a 50.46-kilometre (31.35-mile) railway tunnel beneath the English Channel which connects Folkestone in the United Kingdom with Coquelles in northern France. Opened in 1994, it remains the only fixed link between Great Britain and the European mainland.

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01/12/1989

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.

The 1989 Philippine coup attempt was the most serious attempted coup d'état against the government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino and part of a series of coup attempts against her. It was staged beginning December 1, 1989, by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines belonging to the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) and soldiers loyal to former President Ferdinand Marcos. Metro Manila was shaken by this Christmas-time coup, which almost seized Malacañang Palace. It was completely defeated by the Philippine government by December 9, 1989.

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

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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01/12/1988

World AIDS Day is proclaimed worldwide by the UN member states.

World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988, is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and mourning those who have died of the disease. The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The HIV virus attacks the immune system of the patient and reduces its resistance to other diseases. Government and health officials, non-governmental organizations, and individuals around the world observe the day, often with education on AIDS prevention and control.

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Benazir Bhutto, is named as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader to lead a Muslim nation.

Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman who served as the prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired or co-chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007.

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01/12/1984

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.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the U.S. and is organized into mission directorates for Science, Space Operations, Exploration Systems Development, Space Technology, Aeronautics Research, and Mission Support. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS) and the ongoing multi-national Artemis program.

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01/12/1981

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

Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 was a charter flight, operated with a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, which brought Yugoslavian tourists to Corsica. On 1 December 1981, on its final approach, the plane crashed into Mont San Petru; all of the 180 passengers and crew died. The crash is the first, and the deadliest, major aviation accident involving an MD-80 model aircraft.

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01/12/1974

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

Trans World Airlines Flight 514 was a domestic scheduled flight of Trans World Airlines from Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio, to Washington National Airport. On December 1, 1974, the Boeing 727-231 serving the flight was diverted to Washington Dulles International Airport but crashed into Mount Weather, Virginia. All 92 occupants aboard, 85 passengers and 7 crew members, died. In stormy conditions late in the morning, the aircraft was in controlled flight and struck a low mountain 25 nautical miles northwest of its revised destination.

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

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231 was a Northwest Airlines charter flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, to Buffalo International Airport, Buffalo, New York, where it was to pick up the Baltimore Colts professional football team. On December 1, 1974, the Boeing 727 serving the flight crashed in Harriman State Park near Stony Point, New York, just north of the New York City area.

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01/12/1973

Papua New Guinea gains self-government from Australia.

Papua New Guinea (PNG), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. It has a land border with Indonesia to the west and maritime borders with Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Its capital is Port Moresby. The country's 462,840 km2 (178,700 mi2) includes a large mainland and hundreds of islands.

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01/12/1971

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

The Cambodian Civil War was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the Khmer Rouge, supported by North Vietnam and China, against the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which had succeeded the kingdom after a coup, both supported by the United States and South Vietnam. The conflict was part of the Vietnam War.

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Purge of Croatian Spring leaders starts in Yugoslavia at the meeting of the League of Communists at the Karađorđevo estate.

The Croatian Spring, or Maspok, was a political conflict that took place from 1967 to 1971 in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, at the time part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As one of six republics comprising Yugoslavia at the time, Croatia was ruled by the League of Communists of Croatia (SKH), nominally independent from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ), led by President Josip Broz Tito. The 1960s in Yugoslavia were marked by a series of reforms aimed at improving the economic situation in the country and increasingly politicised efforts by the leadership of the republics to protect the economic interests of their respective republics. As part of this, political conflict occurred in Croatia when reformers within the SKH, generally aligned with the Croatian cultural society Matica hrvatska, came into conflict with conservatives.

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01/12/1969

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

The United States ran a draft, a system of conscription, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the peacetime years before the Vietnam War. It was administered by the Selective Service System. In the second half of 1965, with American troops pouring into Vietnam, there was a substantial expansion of the US armed forces, and this required a dramatic increase in the number of men drafted each month.

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01/12/1964

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

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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01/12/1963

Nagaland, became the 16th state of India.

Nagaland is a state in the north-eastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south, and the Naga Self-Administered Zone of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar (Burma) to the east. Its capital city is Kohima and its largest city is the twin Chümoukedima–Dimapur. The state has an area of 16,579 square kilometres (6,401 sq mi) with a population of 1,980,602 as per the 2011 Census of India, making it one of the least populated states in India.

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01/12/1960

Patrice Lumumba is arrested by Mobutu Sese Seko's men on the banks of the Sankuru River, for inciting the army to rebellion.

Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the First Congolese Republic from June until September 1960, following the May 1960 election. Lumumba was the leader of the Congolese National Movement (MNC) from 1958 until his assassination in 1961. Ideologically an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, he played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic.

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01/12/1959

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.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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01/12/1958

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

The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country located in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi). As of 2024, it has a population of 5,357,744, consisting of about 80 ethnic groups. Having been a French colony under the name Ubangi-Shari, French is its official language, with Sango, a Ngbandi-based creole language, as the national and co-official language. Its capital and largest city is Bangui, which is on the southern border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

On Monday, December 1, 1958, a fire broke out at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago, Illinois, shortly before classes were to be dismissed for the day. The fire originated in the basement near the foot of a stairway. The elementary school was operated by the Archdiocese of Chicago and had an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students. A total of 92 pupils and three nuns ultimately died when smoke, heat, fire, and toxic gases cut off their normal means of escape through corridors and stairways. Many more were injured when they jumped from second-floor windows which, because the building had a raised basement, were nearly as high above ground as a third floor would be on level ground, approximately 25 feet (7.6 m).

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01/12/1955

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.

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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01/12/1952

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

The Daily News is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the Illustrated Daily News. It was the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid format, and reached its peak circulation in 1947, at 2.4 million copies a day. For much of the 20th century, the paper operated out of the historic art deco Daily News Building with its large globe in the lobby. Today's Daily News is not connected to the earlier New York Daily News, which shut down in 1906.

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01/12/1941

World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives his tacit approval to the decision of the imperial council to initiate war against the United States.

Emperor Shōwa , known colloquially by his personal name Hirohito, was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains the longest-reigning emperor in Japanese history and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world. As emperor during the Shōwa era, Hirohito presided over the rise of Japanese militarism, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Asia-Pacific theater of World War II, and the nation's postwar economic miracle.

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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.

Fiorello Henry La Guardia was an American attorney and politician who served as the 100th mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He previously represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1923 to 1933. He was known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive, rotund stature. A member of the Republican Party, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by parties other than his own, especially parties on the left under New York's electoral fusion laws. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him as the best big city mayor in American history.

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01/12/1939

World War II: A day after the beginning of the Winter War in Finland, the Cajander III Cabinet resigns and is replaced by the Ryti I Cabinet, while the Finnish Parliament move from Helsinki to Kauhajoki to escape the Soviet airstrikes.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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The Soviet Union establishes the Finnish Democratic Republic puppet state in Terijoki.

The Finnish Democratic Republic, also known as the Terijoki Government, was a short-lived puppet state of the Soviet Union in occupied Finnish territory from December 1939 to March 1940.

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01/12/1934

Sergei Kirov is assassinated, paving way for the repressive Great Purge, and Vinnytsia massacre by General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.

Sergei Mironovich Kirov was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Kirov became an Old Bolshevik and personal friend to Joseph Stalin, rising through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ranks to become head of the party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo.

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01/12/1924

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

The National Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams, 25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional ice hockey league in the world. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) views the Stanley Cup as one of the "most important championships available to the sport". The league's headquarters have been in New York City since 1989, when it moved from Montreal; the league also has offices in Toronto and Montreal.

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A Soviet-backed communist 1924 Estonian coup d'état attempt fails in Estonia.

The 1924 Estonian coup d'état attempt was a failed coup attempt in Estonia on 1 December 1924, conducted by the Comintern, and staged by the Communist Party of Estonia and Bolsheviks who in most part had been infiltrated from the Soviet Union. Of the 279 actively participating pro-communist rebels, 125 were killed in action, later more than 500 people were arrested. Estonian government forces lost 26 men.

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01/12/1919

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

Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia, and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906.

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01/12/1918

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

Transylvania is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. The region's natural border to the east and south is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west it is the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north-east.

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

The Kingdom of Iceland was an associated state of Denmark and kingdom under a personal union that was established by the Act of Union signed on 1 December 1918. It lasted until 17 June 1944 when a national referendum established the republic of Iceland in its place. The Parliament of Iceland asked that Denmark represent Iceland internationally, and day-to-day matters were delegated to a Danish plenipotentiary for Icelandic affairs based in Reykjavík, and – after the German invasion of Denmark in 1940 – a regent was appointed.

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

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and was colloquially known as "Yugoslavia" due to its origins.

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01/12/1913

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

The Buenos Aires Underground, locally known as Subte, is a rapid transit system that serves the area of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first section of this network opened in 1913, making it the 13th earliest subway network in the world and the first underground railway in Latin America, the Southern Hemisphere, and the Spanish-speaking world, with the Madrid Metro opening nearly six years later, in 1919. As of 2025, Buenos Aires is the only Argentine city with a metro system.

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

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 90th largest island in the world, and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete is located approximately 100 km (62 mi) south of the Peloponnese, and about 300 km (190 mi) southwest of Anatolia. Crete has an area of 8,450 km2 (3,260 mi2) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi). It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Sea of Crete to the north and the Libyan Sea to the south. Crete covers 260 km from west to east but is narrow from north to south, spanning three degrees of longitude but only half a degree of latitude.

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01/12/1900

Nicaragua sells canal rights to U.S. for $5 million. The canal agreement fails in March 1901. Great Britain rejects the amended treaty.

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01/12/1878

President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States, serving from 1877 to 1881. He served as Cincinnati's city solicitor from 1858 to 1861 and was known as a staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court proceedings. At the start of the Civil War, Hayes left a fledgling political career to join the Union army. He was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862. Hayes earned a reputation for bravery in combat, rising in the ranks to serve as brevet major general. After the war, he was a prominent member of the "Half-Breed" faction of the Republican Party. Hayes served in Congress from 1865 to 1867 and was elected governor of Ohio, serving two consecutive terms from 1868 to 1872 and half of a third two-year term from 1876 to 1877 before his swearing-in as president.

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01/12/1865

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

Shaw University is a private historically Black university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded on December 1, 1865, Shaw University is the oldest HBCU to begin offering courses in the Southern United States. The school had its origin in the formation of a theological class of freedmen in the Guion Hotel. The following year it moved to a large wooden building, at the corner of Blount and Cabarrus Streets in Raleigh, where it continued as the Raleigh Institute until 1870. In 1870, the school moved to its current location on the former property of Confederate General Barringer and changed its name to the Shaw Collegiate Institute, in honor of Elijah Shaw. In 1875, the school was officially chartered with the State of North Carolina as Shaw University.

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01/12/1862

American Civil War: In his second State of the Union Address, President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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01/12/1834

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

The Cape Colony, also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, then became the Cape Province, which existed even after 1961, when South Africa had become a republic, albeit temporarily outside the Commonwealth of Nations (1961–94).

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01/12/1828

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

Juan Galo Lavalle was an Argentine military and political figure from the Unitarian Party.

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01/12/1824

United States presidential election: 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.

Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 26 to December 2, 1824. Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford were the primary contenders for the presidency. The result of the election was inconclusive, as no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote. In the election for vice president, John C. Calhoun was elected with a comfortable majority of the vote. Because none of the candidates for president garnered an electoral vote majority, the U.S. House of Representatives, under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment, held a contingent election. On February 9, 1825, the House voted to elect John Quincy Adams as president.

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01/12/1822

Pedro I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.

Dom Pedro I, known in Brazil and in Portugal as "the Liberator" or "the Soldier King" in Portugal, was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil from 1822 to 1831 and King of Portugal in 1826.

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01/12/1821

José Núñez de Cáceres wins the independence of the Dominican Republic from Spain and names the new territory the Republic of Spanish Haiti.

José Núñez de Cáceres y Albor was a Dominican revolutionary and writer. Known for being the leader of the first Dominican independence movement against Spain in 1821, his actions preceded the Dominican War of Independence.

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01/12/1768

The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøya in Norway.

Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast in West Africa.

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01/12/1662

Diarist John Evelyn records skating on the frozen lake in St James's Park, London, watched by Charles II and Queen Catherine.

John Evelyn, an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, has become best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.

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01/12/1640

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.

The Iberian Union or the Hispanic Monarchy, describes the period from 1580 to 1640 in which the Monarchy of Spain under the Habsburg dynasty, then the personal union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, brought in personal union also the Kingdom of Portugal. It incorporated the entire Iberian Peninsula except Andorra, as well as Portuguese and Spanish overseas possessions, under the Spanish Habsburg monarchs Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV. The union began after the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 and the ensuing War of the Portuguese Succession, and lasted until the Portuguese Restoration War, during which the House of Braganza was established as Portugal's new ruling dynasty with the acclamation of John IV as the new king of Portugal.

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01/12/1577

Courtiers Christopher Hatton and Thomas Heneage are knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Sir Christopher Hatton was an English politician, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England. He was one of the judges who found Mary, Queen of Scots guilty of treason.

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01/12/1420

Henry V of England enters Paris alongside his father-in-law King Charles VI of France.

Henry V, also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's Henriad plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England.

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01/12/0800

A council is convened in the Vatican, at which Charlemagne is to judge the accusations against Pope Leo III.

The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the building as the Palace of Sixtus V, in honor of Pope Sixtus V, who built most of the present form of the palace.

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