Today's 3 December Major Events in History

Photo for the article Today's 3 December Major Events

735 Maya city of Dos Pilas attacks and conquers the larger and older city of Seibal
741 St Zachary selected as Catholic Pope to succeed Gregory III [or Dec 5]
1347 Pope Clement VI declares Roman tribunal Cola di Rienzo as heretics

1557 1st Covenant of Scottish protestants form
1586 Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia
1639 1st annulment by court decree passes
1676 Battle of Lund (Scanian War): Swedish army of 8,000 defeats much larger joint Danish/Dutch force of 13,000

Halley Awarded Degree

1678 Edmond Halley receives a MA from The Queen's College in Oxford after an appeal to King Charles II

1685 Charles II bars Jews from settling in Stockholm, Sweden
1689 The first recorded successful separation of conjoined twins Elisabet and Catherina Meijerin is carried out by Swiss surgeon Johannes Fatio in Basel [1]
1694 English parliamentary election set for every 3 years
1699 Baron Jacob Hop appointed treasurer-general of the Hague

Earth Confirmed as Ellipsoid

1736 Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton's theory that the earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere

1775 First official US flag raised (Grand Union Flag) aboard naval vessel USS Alfred
1818 Illinois becomes 21st state USA (Admission day)

1833 Oberlin College in Ohio, the first truly coeducational college, opens
1834 First US dental society organized (NY)
1835 First US mutual fire insurance company issues first policy (Rhode Island)
1844 RC Society Apostole of Prayer forms

1854 Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences

1856 Irishman James Kelly (24) and British soldier Jack Smith (34) fight longest bareknuckle boxing bout - 6 hours and 15 minutes, at Fiery Creek, Victoria, Australia [1] [2]

Knoxville Siege Abandoned

1863 Confederate General James Longstreet abandons his siege at Knoxville, Tennessee

1864 Skirmish at Thomas' Station, Georgia

First Black Jury

1868 Lawyers for Confederate President Jefferson Davis argue before US judges Salmon Chase and John Underwood to have treason charges dismissed as unconstitutional double jeopardy [1]

1872 English Assyriologist George Smith reads his translation of The Great Flood from the "Epic of Gilgamesh" to the Society of Biblical Archaeology, with striking similarities to the later flood of Noah in "Genesis"
1878 Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah, Israel

1883 48th US Congress (1883-85) convenes
1901 At the MLB meeting, the Milwaukee Brewers franchise is officially dropped from the American League and replaced by the St. Louis Browns
1903 The Sultanate of Aceh's Panglima Polim surrenders to Dutch Army Captain Hendrikus Colijn at Atjeh
1907 George M. Cohan's musical "Talk of the Town" premieres in NYC

Elgar's 1st Symphony

1908 Edward Elgar's 1st Symphony in A performed by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter, premieres in Manchester, England

1910 Neon lights are first publicly displayed at the Paris Auto Show

Air Conditioning

1911 Willis Carrier presents his influential "Rational Psychrometric Formulae", on air conditioning to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers - makes air conditioning possible

1912 First Balkan War: The Naval Battle of Elli takes place.
1912 Gerrit Brinkman becomes 1st Dutch traffic officer
1912 Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece & Bulgaria sign weapons pact
1914 Dutch army opens fire on interned Belgian soldiers: 8 killed
1915 General Joseph Joffre becomes Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies
1917 After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge finally opens to traffic after two prior collapses
1917 The Supreme Allied War Council, meeting at Versailles to define war aim, fails to reach an agreement
1920 Turkey & Armenia agree to peace treaty
1923 First Congressional open session broadcast via radio (Washington, D.C.)

Agatha Christie Disappears

1926 Detective novelist Agatha Christie mysteriously disappears for 11 days

1926 Manchester Guardian (German Reichswehr/Red Army work together)

Bruins Streak begins

1929 Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1, the first win of an NHL record 14-game winning streak, and a 22-game home winning streak

1930 Airborn chemicals combine with fog to kill 60 (Meuse Valley, Belgium)
1930 Otto Ender forms Austrian government

1932 Gen Kurt von Schleicher becomes chancellor of Germany
1933 As part of a famous MLB fire sale of players, Philadelphia A's owner Connie Mack sells catcher Mickey Cochrane to Detroit for $100,000; Cochrane is immediately named Tigers manager

Arthur Currie's Funeral

1933 Funeral of WWI commander Sir Arthur Currie with 150,000 people lining the streets of Montreal - largest Canadian funeral at the time

1933 Joe Lilliard QBs Chic Cardinals; last NFL black until 1946
1934 Italian colonial Tripoli & Cyrenaica annexed to Libya
1934 KYW-AM in Chicago Ill moves to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1938 AAUs decides to continue linear measuring system over metric
1941 Adolf Hitler views occupied Poltava in Ukraine
1943 9th Heisman Trophy Award: Angelo Bertelli, Notre Dame (QB)

Requiem

1943 Howard Hanson conducts premiere of his 4th Symphony ("Requiem") with the Boston Symphony; wins Pulitzer Prize for Music, 1944

1943 World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy begins
1944 Britain's Home Guard ('Dad's Army') is officially stood down at a special farewell parade in Hyde Park, London.
1944 British order to disarm causes general strike in Greece
1944 Hungarian death march of Jews ends
1944 Mussert puts Seyss-Inquart plan for small Nazi-Europe
1944 Temporary merger of 2 NFL teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cardinals, dissolves at finish of season; WWII ends before start of 1945 season, so both teams resume normal operations
1944 The Greek Civil War breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between communists and royalists
1944 US 5th Armoured division occupies Brandenburg Hurtgenwald
1946 12th Heisman Trophy Award: Glenn Davis, Army (HB)

1948 "Pumpkin Papers" come to light (claimed to be from Alger Hiss)
1948 1st US woman army officer not in medical corps sworn in
1948 Chinese refugee ship "Kiangya" explodes in East China Sea killing 1,100
1949 KRLD (now KDFW) TV channel 4 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (CBS) begins broadcasting
1950 Cleveland Browns last NFL team with no-pass game (beat Philadelphia 13-7)
1952 First TV broadcast in Hawaii
1952 Marcos Perez Jiménez elected president of Venezuela
1953 Premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich' 5th String Quartet in Leningrad

Republican Party Communists

1953 US President Dwight Eisenhower criticizes Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy for saying communists are in the Republican Party

1953 Webb Pierce records single "In the Jailhouse Now" (Billboard Song of the Year, 1955)

Prayers of Kierkegaard

1954 Samuel Barber's cantata "Prayers of Kierkegaard" premieres

1954 William Walton's opera "Troilus & Cressida" premieres in London
1955 KTVE TV channel 10 in Monroe-El Dorado, LA (NBC) begins broadcasting
1956 Australian 4 x 200m freestyle relay team of Kevin O'Halloran, John Devitt, Murray Rose & Jon Henricks swim world record 8:23.6 to take the gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics; Rose's 2nd of 3 gold at the Games

Chamberlain's Varsity Debut

1956 Basketball icon Wilt Chamberlain makes his much anticipated varsity debut; scores 52 points and grabs 31 rebounds, breaking both all-time Kansas records in an 87–69 win against Northwestern

1956 Britain and France pull troops out of Egypt
1956 KFSA (now KFSM) TV channel 5 in Ft Smith, AR (CBS) 1st broadcast
1957 23rd Heisman Trophy Award: John Crow, Texas A&M (HB)
1958 Indonesian parliament accepts nationalisation of Dutch businesses
1959 State of emergency in Cyprus ends

1st Non-Japanese Judo Champion

1961 Dutchman Anton Geesink becomes the first non-Japanese judo world champion

1961 George Blanda of Houston Oilers kicks 55-yard field goal
1961 US performs underground nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1962 1963 NFL Draft: Terry Baker from Oregon State first pick by Los Angeles Rams
1962 Edith Sampson is sworn in as the first Black female judge in the state of Illinois
1962 Pravda criticizes western art
1964 KHQL (now KCAN) TV channel 8 in Albion, NB (ABC) begins broadcasting
1964 Police arrests 800 sit-in students at University of California at Berkeley
1965 "Rubber Soul", the sixth studio album by the Beatles, is released in the United Kingdom
1965 The Beatles begin final UK concert tour in Glasgow, Scotland
1965 USSR launches Luna 8; it crashes on the Moon
1966 Television pop group "The Monkees" make their live concert debut at the Honolulu International Centre Arena, in Hawaii
1966 US performs underground nuclear test at Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Assassination Attempt on Bob Marley

1967 Assassination attempt made on Bob Marley and others during concert rehearsals in Jamaica

1967 Australian Derek Clayton runs world marathon record 2:09:36.4 at the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan
1967 Final run of "20th Century Limited," famed New York-Chicago luxury train

First Human Heart Transplant

1967 South African surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs the world's first human-to-human heart transplant, on Louis Washkansky, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town; he survives for 18 days

Elvis' Comeback Special

1968 Elvis Presley's Comeback Special airs on NBC, his 1st live performance in seven years, re-launching his singing career

1968 MLB Rules Committee adopts a series of changes designed to increase amount of offensive run production; decreases strike zone size and lowers height of pitcher's mound from 15" to 10"; changes are successful
1970 Claude Ruel resigns as coach of the NHL Montreal Canadiens; replacement Al MacNeil leads Habs to a Stanley Cup championship 5 months later
1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1971 India invades West Pakistan claiming hundreds of lives and starting the full scale Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
1972 Convair 990A charter crashes in Tenerife Canary Island, 155 die
1973 Pioneer 10 passes Jupiter (1st fly-by of an outer planet) [Dec 4-GMT]
1975 Laos falls to communist forces; Lao People's Democratic Rep proclaimed
1976 Patrick J Hillery elected President of Ireland
1979 11 members of the audience trampled to death during a stampede to claim unreserved seats for a concert by The Who at The Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, Ohio
1979 45th Heisman Trophy Award: Charles White, Southern California (RB)
1979 Christie's in Geneva auctions a thimble for a record $18,400
1979 Iran accepts constitution
1979 Shadow Traffic begins broadcasting in the New York City metropolitan area
1980 Don Sutton, the winningest pitcher in Los Angeles Dodgers history, signs a 4-year contract with Houston; Astros career shortened by a patellar fracture; returns to Dodgers in 1988 after stints with 3 other MLB clubs
1980 NY Federal jury finds Reps Thompson D-NJ & Murphy, D-NY, guilty
1981 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

Frances

1982 "Frances", film depicting life of actress Frances Farmer and starring Jessica Lange, first released in the US

1982 35.7 cm rainfall at Big Fork, Arkansas (state record)
1982 77°F highest December temperature ever recorded in Cleveland, Ohio
1982 After losing his world welterweight boxing titles to Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns wins WBC Super Welterweight crown in a majority points decision over Wilfred Benitez at Superdome, New Orleans
1983 49th Heisman Trophy Award: Mike Rozier, Nebraska (RB)
1983 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
1984 Bhopal disaster: A Union Carbide pesticide plant leaks 45 tons of methyl isocyanate and other toxic compounds in Bhopal, India, officially killing 2,259 - other estimates are as high as 16,000 (including later deaths) and over half a million injured

Do They Know It's Christmas

1984 The single "Do They Know It's Christmas," written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and sung by an all-star cast under the banner of Band Aid, is released in the UK

1985 23rd Shuttle Mission (61-B)-Atlantis 2-lands at Edwards AFB
1988 54th Heisman Trophy Award: Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State (RB)
1988 NY Lotto pays $45 million to twelve winner (#s are 1-8-13-18-28-48)

1991 Muslim Shi'ites in Beirut, Lebanon release US political hostage Alann Steen [1]
1991 White House Chief of Staff John Sununu resigns
1992 The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching La Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo
1992 UN Security Council passes Resolution 794 authorizing US led allied forces to intervene in war-torn Somalia to restore order and allow humanitarian aid to be delivered
1995 England cricket wicket keeper Jack Russell dismisses Clive Eksteen with his record 11th catch in 2nd Test v South Africa in Johannesburg
1995 Naeem Akhtar takes 10-28 for Rawalpindi B against Peshawar
1995 Northwestern South Carolina begins using new area code 864
1997 "1776" opens at Gershwin Theater NYC
1997 Golden State Warriors terminates guard Latrell Sprewell's four-year, $32 million NBA contract for attacking coach P.J. Carlesimo
1999 NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere
1999 Ottawa Senators' right wing Kevin Dineen becomes 5th player in NHL history to score 300 career goals and record 2,000 penalty minutes; picks up a misconduct penalty in 7-4 loss to NJ Devils
1999 Worcester cold storage and warehouse fire in Worcester, Massachusetts claims lives of 6 firefighters

2005 XCOR Aerospace makes first manned rocket aircraft delivery of US Mail in Mojave, California.
2007 Devastating winter storms cause Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, closing 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days, resulting in at least eight deaths and billions of dollars of damage
2009 Patrick Kane signs a five-year, $31.5 million contract extension with the Chicago Blackhawks
2014 Australian Rugby star David Pocock is arrested after protesting against a coal mine under construction in an Australian national forest
2014 Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot dead unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, resigns
2014 Protests erupt in cities across the US after a grand jury decides not to charge the New York City police officer who killed Eric Garner with a choke-hold
2015 US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces all combat roles in US armed forced will be opened to women
2016 US army decides it will not allow an oil pipeline to be built in North Dakota, after months of protests by The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
2017 First pizza party in space held by astronauts of the International Space Station

Attenborough's Dire Warning

2018 David Attenborough warns collapse of civilisation and the natural world on the horizon at UN climate summit in Poland

2018 Dutch court in Arnhem rejects a man's request to be legally recognized as 20 years younger
2018 Seven-year old Ryan of Ryan Toysreview is the year's highest-paid YouTube star, earning $22 million

NATO's 70th Anniversary

2019 70th anniversary of NATO marked by gathering in London of world leaders and reception by Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace

Harris Ends Presidential Campaign

2019 Kamala Harris ends her campaign to be the Democratic candidate for president

Spotify's Most Streamed

2019 Spotify says Drake is the most streamed star of the 2010s with 28 billion streams, while Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" is the most streamed track with 2.4 billion streams

2019 World leaders discussing US President Donald Trump in unflattering terms at NATO reception caught on camera and goes viral
2020 AT&T Inc’s Warner Bros studio announces all its 2021 movies will stream online the same day they appear in theatres because of the pandemic
2020 “I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” warns Dr. Robert Redfield, head of US CDC about the months ahead with COVID-19
2022 FBI investigate a targeted attack on two electricity substations in North Carolina which closes schools and leaves around 40,000 without power for days [1]

Trump: Terminate All Rules

2022 Former US President Donald Trump calls in a Truth Social post for the "termination" of all rules, including the US Constitution, to overturn the 2020 election, which he again falsely claims that he won. [1]

2022 Mosconi Cup nine-ball pool, Las Vegas, Nevada: two-time defending champions Team Europe dominate US, 11-7; MVP: Joshua Filler (Germany)
2023 Indonesia's Mount Marapi, on island of Sumatra, erupts 3km into the air, killing 23 people [1]
2023 Israeli ground forces begin offensive in southern Gaza, north of Khan Younis after a seven-day ceasefire expires [1]

2024 Namibia elects its first woman president, vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah

Martial Law

2024 South Korean president President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law for the first time in 50 years, prompting an emergency vote against it by the National Assembly [1]