December 1 in History

December 1 spans 63 recorded events across recorded history, from 800 to 2020. Below is a curated digest of the most significant moments tied to this date.

Holidays and observances on December 1

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Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision grant

1989 — Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.

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Historical Events 63 events 800 – 2020

More major events on December 1

The featured story and these ranked highlights form a quick summary. Every recorded event remains available in the chronology below.

  1. 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. Source
  2. 1834 Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Source

Did you know

In 1989, Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state. This featured entry focuses on the immediate decision and its direct historical impact.

Did you know

East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany on 3 October 1990. This helps explain why the event mattered beyond the initial announcement.

Did you know

Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a socialist workers' and peasants' state. This clarifies the institutional and public response around the event.

Did you know

In 1989, Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state had consequences that extended beyond the first headline. The key context is the institutions involved, the policy shift, and how the public response evolved afterward.

Did you know

In 1989, Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state had consequences that extended beyond the first headline. The key context is the institutions involved, the policy shift, and how the public response evolved afterward.


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800 Apostolic_Palace

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.
1420 Henry V of England

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

Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1413 until his death in 1422. His victory at Agincourt in 1415 and his conquest of Normandy gave England the upper hand in the Hundred Years' War and led, by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, to his recognition as heir and regent of France. This was the high-water mark of the English cause in the war. Celebrated in William Shakespeare's Henriad as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England, Henry was also a forceful ruler at home, restoring public order, working closely with Parliament, and enforcing a strict religious orthodoxy. Henry of Monmouth was the eldest son of Henry IV, and became heir apparent and Prince of Wales after his father seized the throne from Richard II in 1399. During his father's reign, he gained military experience in Wales against the Glyndŵr rebellion and in fighting the powerful Percy family of Northumberland, and played an important part at the Battle of Shrewsbury when only 16. As his father's health declined, Henry took an increasingly central role in government, though disagreements between the two men led to political conflict. Henry succeeded to the throne after his father's death in March 1413 and revived the long-standing English claim to the French throne. In 1415, Henry renewed active warfare with France, opening the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War (1415–1453). His first campaign successfully besieged Harfleur and won a celebrated victory at Agincourt, which strengthened his position in England and lent weight to his claim. A second expedition from 1417 set out to conquer Normandy, recovering for the English crown a duchy lost two centuries earlier; by 1419, his army stood before Paris. Exploiting the civil war that divided France, and allying with Burgundy after the murder of Duke John the Fearless, Henry was able to impose the Treaty of Troyes on Charles VI. The treaty made him regent and heir to the French throne, disinherited the king's own son, the Dauphin Charles, and provided for his marriage to Charles's daughter Catherine of Valois. It envisaged a union of the two crowns in Henry's person on Charles's death. But Henry died in August 1422, seven weeks before the ailing Charles VI, and was succeeded by his only son, the infant Henry VI. At home, Henry restored order after the turbulence of his father's reign, strengthening the enforcement of justice and working closely with Parliament. He promoted the use of English in royal government and upheld a strict orthodoxy, crushing the Lollard movement and helping to end the Western Schism at the Council of Constance. His later fame has rested above all on his military prowess, on which there has been near-unanimity since his own day. Contemporary French and Burgundian verdicts ranged from admiration for his discipline and prudence to portrayals of a vainglorious tyrant. Modern scholars are divided in their assessments, some condemning Henry as a warmonger whose ambition bankrupted his realm, others reckoning him the greatest of England's kings. Much of the debate turns on his French conquests and how far he was to blame for their loss under his son. His biographer Christopher Allmand concludes that Henry's gifts as a ruler showed most clearly not on the battlefield but in the governing of England, and that the fuller the reckoning of his reign, the higher he stands.
1577 Christopher Hatton

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

Sir Christopher Hatton (12 December 1540 – 20 November 1591) 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.
1640 Iberian Union

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 and French territory, 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. As a personal union, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Crown of Castile and the states of the Crown of Aragon remained independent states, sharing only a single monarch. The kings from the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg were the only element that connected the multiple kingdoms and territories, ruled by the six separate government councils of Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Italy, Flanders-Burgundy, and the Indies. For periods, Portugal maintained a viceroy, appointed by the king, although the turnover was often rapid; in the 60 years of the Union, the country had 13 viceroys and four regency councils (see List of viceroys of Portugal). Similar viceroys were appointed in Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and other kingdoms of the Union. The governments, institutions, and legal traditions of each kingdom remained independent of one another. Alien laws (Leyes de extranjería) determined that a national of one kingdom was a foreigner in all other kingdoms. Possessing territories in all known continents of the time, the Iberian Union was the most wide-spread empire of the early modern era. The Union led to Portugal's involvement in the Dutch Revolt against Spain. The Dutch Republic in turn saw the union as a justification to start targeting Portuguese colonies and would weaken Portugal's overseas empire in the Orient.
1662 John Evelyn

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

John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary (or memoir) spanned the period of his adult life from 1640, when he was a student, to 1706, the year he died. He did not write daily at all times. The many volumes provide insight into life and events at a time before regular magazines or newspapers were published, making diaries of greater interest to modern historians than such works might have been at later periods. Evelyn's work covers art, culture and politics, including the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell's rise and eventual natural death, the last Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London in 1666. John Evelyn's Diary was first published posthumously in 1818, but over the years became overshadowed by that of Samuel Pepys (published from 1825 onwards). Pepys wrote a different kind of diary, in the same era but covering a much shorter period, 1660–1669, and in much greater depth. Evelyn wrote on many subjects, but increasingly focussed on gardening, and he left a huge manuscript on the subject that was not printed until 2001. He published several translations of French gardening books, and his Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees (1664) was highly influential in its plea to landowners to plant trees, of which he believed the country to be dangerously short. Sections from his main manuscript were added to editions of this, and also published separately.
1768 Slave_ship

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.
1821 José Núñez de Cáceres

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 (March 14, 1772 – September 11, 1846) 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. Before its independence, while Spain exercised a perfunctory rule over the east side of Hispaniola, Núñez de Cáceres pioneered the use of literature as a weapon for social protest and anti-colonial politics. He was also the first Dominican fabulist and one of the first criollo storytellers in Spanish America. Many of his works appeared in his own satirical newspaper, El Duende, the second newspaper created in Santo Domingo. He was only president of the short-lived Republic of Spanish Haiti, which existed from December 1, 1821, to February 9, 1822. This period was known as the ephemeral independence because it quickly ended with the Haitian Military Occupation of Santo Domingo.
1822 Pedro I of Brazil

Pedro I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.

Dom Pedro I (12 October 1798 – 24 September 1834), known in Brazil and in Portugal as "the Liberator" (Portuguese: o Libertador) or "the Soldier King" (o Rei Soldado) in Portugal, was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil from 1822 to 1831 (under the name of Pedro I) and King of Portugal in 1826 (under the name of Pedro IV). Born in Lisbon, Pedro was the fourth child of King Dom John VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina, and thus a member of the House of Braganza. When the country was invaded by French troops in 1807, he and his family fled to Portugal's largest and wealthiest colony, Brazil. The outbreak of the Liberal Revolution of 1820 in Lisbon compelled Pedro I's father to return to Portugal in April 1821, leaving him to rule Brazil as regent. He had to deal with challenges from revolutionaries and insubordination by Portuguese troops, all of which he subdued. The Portuguese government's threat to revoke the political autonomy that Brazil had enjoyed since 1808 was met with widespread discontent in Brazil. Pedro I chose the Brazilian side and declared Brazil's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822. On 12 October, he was acclaimed Emperor and by March 1824 had defeated all armies loyal to Portugal. A few months later, Pedro I crushed the short-lived Confederation of the Equator, a failed secession attempt by provincial rebels in Brazil's northeast. A secessionist rebellion in the southern province of Cisplatina in early 1825, and the subsequent attempt by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata to annex it, led the Empire into the Cisplatine War. In March 1826, Pedro I briefly became king of Portugal before abdicating in favor of his eldest daughter, Dona Maria II. The situation worsened in 1828 when the war in the south resulted in Brazil's loss of Cisplatina. During the same year in Lisbon, Maria II's throne was usurped by Prince Dom Miguel, Pedro I's younger brother. The Emperor's concurrent and scandalous sexual affair with Domitila de Castro tarnished his reputation. Other difficulties arose in the Brazilian parliament, where a struggle over whether the government would be chosen by the monarch or by the legislature dominated political debates from 1826 to 1831. Unable to deal with problems in both Brazil and Portugal simultaneously, on 7 April 1831 Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son Dom Pedro II, and sailed for Europe. Pedro I invaded Portugal at the head of an army in July 1832. Faced at first with what seemed a national civil war, he soon became involved in a wider conflict that enveloped the Iberian Peninsula in a struggle between proponents of liberalism and those seeking a return to absolutism. Pedro I died of tuberculosis in September 1834, just a few months after he and the liberals had emerged victorious. He was hailed by both contemporaries and posterity as a key figure who helped spread the liberal ideals that allowed Brazil and Portugal to move from absolutist regimes to representative forms of government.
1824 1824 United States presidential election

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 (with each state delegation casting one vote) to elect John Quincy Adams as president. The Democratic-Republican Party had won six consecutive presidential elections and by 1824 was the only national political party. However, as the election approached, the presence of multiple viable candidates resulted in there being multiple nominations by the contending factions, signaling the splintering of the party and an end to the Era of Good Feelings, as well as the First Party System. Adams won New England, Jackson and Adams split the mid-Atlantic states, Jackson and Clay split the Western states, and Jackson and Crawford split the Southern states. Jackson finished with a plurality of the popular vote (there was no popular vote in six states including New York, the most populous state), and also of the electoral vote (due to the Three-fifths Compromise), while the other three candidates each finished with a significant share of the votes. Clay, who had finished fourth, was eliminated. Adams was the first son of a former president to become president. This is one of two presidential elections (along with the 1800 election) that have been decided in the House. It is also one of five elections in which the winner did not achieve at least a plurality of the national popular vote and the only election in which the candidate who received the most electoral votes from the Electoral College did not win the election. It is also, to date, the election with the lowest popular vote percentage for an elected president (32.7%).
1828 Juan Lavalle

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

Juan Galo Lavalle (Spanish pronunciation: [xuˈan ˈɡalo laˈβaʎe]; 17 October 1797 – 9 October 1841) was an Argentine military and political figure from the Unitarian Party.
1834 Cape_Colony

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).
1862 American Civil War

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 (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by Southern states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with a Union victory, dissolution of the Confederacy and the national abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States. The Confederate States seized United States forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate States bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederate river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Union general Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval Union blockade of Confederate ports, the Union army marshaled resources and the manpower to attack the Confederate States army from all directions. That led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery (except as punishment for a crime) and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, reunite by bringing the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed black slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States, and it remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Interest continues in the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in U.S. history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.
1865 Shaw University

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. The main campus resides on 24 acres in the East Raleigh-South Park Historic District in downtown Raleigh. Shaw also owns and operates a 35-acre farm located on Rock Quarry Rd. Historical buildings, which either currently (Estey Hall) or previously (Shaw Hall) reside on campus, were designed by the famed Raleigh architect George S. H. Appleget and feature a Second Empire and Italianate architectural styles. Other architectural styles present on campus are Leonard Hall, a twin-turret Romanesque Revival style building, and several buildings featuring Brutalist style architectures. Along with Howard University, Hampton University, Lincoln University and Virginia Union University, Shaw was a co-founding member of the NCAA Division II's Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Conference, the oldest African American athletic association in the U.S. The university has won CIAA championships in football, basketball (women's and men's), tennis (women's and men's) and volleyball.
1878 Rutherford B. Hayes

President Rutherford B.

Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes ( ; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) 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. Hayes won the Republican nomination in the 1876 United States presidential election. Upon election, Hayes pledged to serve only one term. In the disputed general election, he defeated Democratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden while losing the popular vote. Neither candidate initially secured enough electoral votes to win, but Hayes prevailed after a Congressional Commission awarded him 20 contested electoral votes in the alleged Compromise of 1877. The electoral dispute was reportedly settled in an agreement between Southern Democrats and Whiggish Republican businessmen whereby Hayes would be president but end both federal support for Reconstruction and the military occupation of the former Confederacy, though the existence of such a deal remains heavily disputed. Hayes's administration was influenced by his belief in meritocratic government and equal treatment without regard to wealth, social standing, or race. One of the defining events of his presidency was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which Hayes resolved by calling in the U.S. Army against the railroad workers. It remains the deadliest conflict between workers and strikebreakers in American history. As president, Hayes implemented modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland–Allison Act of 1878, which put silver money into circulation and raised nominal prices, but Congress overrode his veto. Hayes also arbitrated a territorial dispute between Argentina and Paraguay after the Paraguayan War and appointed John Marshall Harlan to the U.S. Supreme Court. His policy toward western Native Americans anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887. At the end of his term, Hayes kept his pledge not to run for reelection and retired to his home in Ohio. Historians and scholars generally rank Hayes as an average to below-average president.
1900

Nicaragua sells canal rights to U.S.

for $5 million. The canal agreement fails in March 1901. Great Britain rejects the amended treaty.
1913 Buenos Aires Underground

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

The Buenos Aires Underground (Spanish: Subterráneo de Buenos Aires), locally known as Subte (Spanish: [ˈsuβte]), is a rapid transit system that serves the area of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first section of this network (Plaza de Mayo–Plaza Miserere) 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 2026, Buenos Aires is the only Argentine city with a metro system. Currently, the underground network's six lines—A, B, C, D, E, and H—comprise 56.7 kilometers (35.2 mi) of routes that serve 90 stations. The network is complemented by the 7.4-kilometre-long (4.6 mi) Line P, an 18 station light rail line. Traffic on subterranean lines moves on the left because Argentina drove on the left at the time the system opened. Over a million passengers use the network, which also provides connections with the city's extensive commuter rail and bus rapid transport networks. The network expanded rapidly during the early decades of the 20th century; by 1944, its main routes were completed, with the addition of its newest line occurring as late as 2007. The pace of expansion fell sharply after the Second World War. In the late 1990s, expansion resumed at a quicker pace, and four new lines were planned for the network. Despite this, the network's expansion has been largely exceeded by the transportation needs of the city and is said to be overcrowded. In 2015, two modernization plans were presented: City of Buenos Aires Law 670, proposing the creation of 3 new lines (F, G, and I), and the PETERS plan, wherein 2 lines were to be created and the I line would have been postponed for future expansion, plus several other route amendments. However, since 2019, there have been no expansions under construction, for the first time in half a century. The entire network was nationalized in 1939, remaining in state hands and operation until the mid-1990s, when it entered into a concession model. The previously state-operated lines were offered as 20-year concessions to interested private parties; the two complementary lines were also included in this privatization, and all were operated by Metrovías from 1995 to 2021, though the network and rolling stock remain the property of the City of Buenos Aires. In December 2021, "Emova Movilidad S.A." took over the concession of the Buenos Aires Underground for 12 years. Emova is also part of the Roggio Group, associated with former operator Metrovías.
1913 Crete

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

Crete is the largest and most populous island of Greece, the 89th 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.
1916 Noemvriana

An armed confrontation in Athens between the Kingdom of Greece and the Allied Powers, arising from a dispute over Greece's neutrality in World War I, followed by reprisals and riots against Greek supporters of the Allies marking the height of the National Schism.

The Noemvriana (Greek: Νοεμβριανά, "November Events") was an armed confrontation in Athens in December [O.S. November] 1916 between the Kingdom of Greece and the Allied Powers, arising from a dispute over Greece's neutrality in World War I, and followed by reprisals and riots against Greek supporters of the Allies. The immediate crisis began in May 1916, when the Greek fortress of Roupel, on the northern border, was surrendered to the Central Powers, mainly Bulgarian forces. This raised concerns among the Allies of a secret alliance between the Greek government and the Central Powers. The Allies feared that the Central Powers, with Greek support, might launch an attack against the Franco-British army that had been invited to Thessaloniki by former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos to assist Serbia and bivouacked there since late 1915. Diplomatic negotiations between King Constantine I and the Allies took place in mid-1916, with the King advocating for Greek neutrality, which would favor the Central Powers. The Allies demanded the demobilization of the Greek army to ensure Greece's neutrality after the surrender of Fort Roupel. However, the failure of negotiations, combined with the Bulgarian Army's advance in Macedonia, led to a military coup by pro-Allied Greek officers supporting Venizelos in Thessaloniki. Supported by the Allies, in October 1916, Venizelos established a provisional government in northern Greece to form an army to reclaim territories lost to Bulgaria, thus splitting Greece into two factions. The involvement of the Hellenic Army alongside the Allies and the country's division sparked anti-Allied protests in Athens. In late October, King Constantine and the Allies reached a secret agreement on the war material compensation, but pressure from his military advisers forced the King to abandon it. On 1 December [O.S. 18 November] 1916, the Allies landed a small contingent in Athens to enforce their demands – surrender of war material equivalent to the ones lost at Roupel – but met with organized resistance. An armed confrontation ensued until a temporary compromise was reached. The next day, after the Allied forces evacuated, royalist mobs rioted in Athens, targeting Venizelos's supporters. The violence lasted two or three days after 1 December and became known as the Noemvriana, named after the November date in the Old Style calendar. This event drove deep social cleavage between the two sides and marked the height of the National Schism. After Noemvriana, the Allies intensified efforts to remove King Constantine I. A naval blockade was imposed, isolating royalist areas, leading the population of Athens to starve. Following Constantine's abdication in June 1917, his son, King Alexander, ascended the throne, and Greece was united under Venizelos's leadership. Greece then joined the Allies in World War I, providing numerical superiority on the Macedonian front. In 1918, the Greek army had helped secure an Allied victory in the Balkans, contributing to the liberation of Serbia and the defeat of the Central Powers.
1918 Transylvania

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.
1918 Kingdom of Iceland

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

The Kingdom of Iceland (Icelandic: Konungsríkið Ísland; Danish: Kongeriget Island) was an associated state of Denmark (prior to its invasion by Nazi Germany) 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.
1918 Kingdom of Yugoslavia

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 (lit. 'Land of the South Slavs') due to its origins. The preliminary kingdom was formed in late 1918 by the unification of the Kingdom of Serbia, which was previously independent, with the Kingdom of Montenegro, and the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, mainly the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (encompassing what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina and most of what are now the states of Croatia and Slovenia) as well as Banat, Bačka and Baranja. The regions of Kosovo and what is today North Macedonia had become parts of Serbia prior to the unification. The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević, which previously ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I, who became the first king of Yugoslavia, reigning until his death in 1921. He was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who had been regent for his father. In 1929, he established the 6 January Dictatorship, and soon renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia. In 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), during his visit to France. The crown passed to his 11-year-old son, Peter. Alexander's cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941, when Peter II came of age following a coup d'etat that reversed Yugoslavia's accession to the Tripartite Pact. The royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers. In April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and, later, by all the Allies, was established in London. In 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government. This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić (on behalf of the Kingdom) and Josip Broz Tito (on behalf of the Yugoslav Partisans).
1919 Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor

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 Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) 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. After her second husband succeeded to his father's peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics as a member of the Unionist Party (now the Conservative Party) and, at the by-election caused by his elevation, won his former seat of Plymouth Sutton in 1919, becoming the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons. During her time in Parliament, Astor was an advocate for temperance, welfare, education reform and women's rights. She was also an ardent anti-Catholic and anti-communist, and received criticism for her antisemitism and sympathetic view of Nazism. Astor served in Parliament until 1945 when she was persuaded to step down, as her outspokenness had made her a political liability in the final years of the Second World War. She retired from politics and largely withdrew from public life following the death of her husband. Astor died in 1964 at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire and was interred at her family estate at Cliveden.
1924 National_Hockey_League

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 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.
1924

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.
1934 Sergei Kirov

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 (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) 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. On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Nikolaev and several alleged accomplices were convicted in a show trial and executed less than 30 days later. Kirov's assassination was used by Stalin as a reason for starting the Moscow trials and the Great Purge.
1939 World_War_II

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, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. 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.
1939 Finnish Democratic Republic

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

The Finnish Democratic Republic (Finnish: Suomen kansanvaltainen tasavalta or Suomen kansantasavalta, Swedish: Demokratiska Republiken Finland, Russian: Финляндская Демократическая Республика, romanized: Finlyandskaya Demokraticheskaya Respublika), also known as the Terijoki Government (Finnish: Terijoen hallitus), was a short-lived puppet state of the Soviet Union in occupied Finnish territory from December 1939 to March 1940. The Finnish Democratic Republic was established by Joseph Stalin upon the outbreak of the Winter War and headed by Otto Wille Kuusinen to govern Finland after Soviet conquest. The Finnish Democratic Republic was only recognised by the Soviet Union and nominally operated in Soviet-occupied areas of Finnish Karelia from the de facto capital of Terijoki. The Finnish Democratic Republic was portrayed by the Soviet Union as the official socialist government of Finland capable of restoring peace, but lost favor as the Soviets sought rapprochement with the Finnish Government. The Finnish Democratic Republic was dissolved and merged into the Karelo-Finnish SSR upon the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty.
1941 Hirohito

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.

Hirohito (29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989), also known by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa, was Emperor of Japan from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. He is the longest-reigning non-legendary emperor in Japanese history as well as one of the world's longest-reigning monarchs. The Shōwa era that corresponded to his reign was initially characterized by heightened Japanese nationalism and militarism, developments which culminated in Japan's entry into World War II as an Axis power. After Japan's defeat in the war and under pressure from the victorious Allied powers, he renounced his divinity as Emperor via the Humanity Declaration and sanctioned a new Constitution for Japan based on parliamentary government and pacifism. Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako (later Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei). When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito's father ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, and Hirohito was proclaimed Crown Prince of Japan in 1916, making him the heir apparent. In 1921, he made an official visit to six European countries, marking the first time a Japanese crown prince had traveled abroad. Due to his father's ill health, Hirohito became Sesshō of Japan (regent) that same year. In 1924, he married Princess Nagako Kuni, with whom he later had seven children: Shigeko, Sachiko, Kazuko, Atsuko, Akihito, Masahito and Takako. He became emperor upon his father's death in 1926. As Japan's head of state, Emperor Hirohito oversaw the rise of militarism in Japanese politics. In 1931, he raised no objection when Japan's Kwantung Army staged the Mukden incident as a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria. Following the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, tensions steadily grew between Japan and the United States. After Hirohito formally sanctioned his government's decision to go to war against the U.S. and its allies on 1 December 1941, Japan entered World War II upon its military's attack on Pearl Harbor as well as its invasion of American and European colonies in Asia and the Pacific. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria and Korea, Hirohito called upon the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJAF) to surrender in a radio broadcast on 15 August 1945. While historians agree Hirohito was involved to at least some extent in Japan's military strategy and war crimes during the conflict, the degree of that involvement remains disputed. Following Japan's surrender, Emperor Hirohito was never prosecuted for war crimes at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), even though the war had been waged in his name. After the surrender, Japan came under Allied occupation, administered primarily by the United States. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, believed that a cooperative emperor would facilitate a peaceful occupation and support U.S. postwar objectives. MacArthur therefore excluded any evidence from the tribunal that could have incriminated Hirohito or other members of the Imperial House of Japan. In 1946, Hirohito was pressured by the Allies to renounce his divinity. Under Japan's post-war constitution, drafted by U.S. officials and enacted in 1947, his role as emperor was redefined as "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People". He died at Fukiage Ōmiya Palace, aged 87, of a duodenal cancer (adenocarcinoma). He was succeeded by his elder son, Akihito, beginning the Heisei era.
1941 Fiorello La Guardia

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 (born Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia; December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947) 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 progressive 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. Born to a family of Italian immigrants in New York City, La Guardia quickly became interested in politics at a young age. Before his mayoralty, La Guardia represented Manhattan in the U.S. House of Representatives and later served in the New York City Board of Aldermen. Amidst the Great Depression, La Guardia campaigned on his support for Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal programs and won the 1933 election. As mayor during the Great Depression and World War II, La Guardia unified the city's transit system; expanded construction of public housing, playgrounds, parks, and airports; reorganized the New York Police Department; and implemented federal New Deal programs within the city. He pursued a long series of political reforms, curbing the power of the powerful Irish-controlled Tammany Hall political machine that controlled the Democratic Party in Manhattan, replacing its influence with merit-based employment and promotion in bureaucracy. La Guardia was a highly visible national political figure. His support for the New Deal and relationship with President Roosevelt crossed party lines, brought federal funds to New York City, and cut off patronage to La Guardia's Tammany enemies. La Guardia's WNYC radio program "Talk to the People", which aired from December 1941 until December 1945, expanded his public influence beyond the borders of the city.
1952 New_York_Daily_News

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 outlet 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.
1955 Civil_rights_movement

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 Mahatma 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.
1958 Central_African_Republic

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

The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country 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 CAR 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, Sango is its national language and was also its co-official language alongside French. Its capital and largest city is Bangui, which sits on the country's southern border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
1958 Our_Lady_of_the_Angels_School_fire

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).
1959 Cold_War

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.
1960 Patrice_Lumumba

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, independence leader, and revolutionary who served as the first prime minister of the First Congolese Republic from June until September 1960, following his party's success in 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.
1963 Nagaland

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.
1964 Vietnam_War

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. 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.
1969 Vietnam_War_draft

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

The Vietnam War Draft was a military draft implemented under the Selective Service System, drafting over 1.7 million men to serve in the Vietnam War. During the peacetime years before the Vietnam War, a draft existed, while many soldiers were joined on a voluntary basis. In the second half of 1965, with American troops entering 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.
1971 Cambodian_Civil_War

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 by the Khmer Rouge against the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Following the March 1970 coup, the conflict shifted as the Khmer Rouge and forces loyal to Norodom Sihanouk, now supported by North Vietnam and China, fought against the Khmer Republic, which was supported by the United States and South Vietnam.
1971 Croatian_Spring

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.
1973 Papua_New_Guinea

Papua New Guinea gains self-government from Australia.

Papua New Guinea (PNG), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island nation 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.
1974 TWA_Flight_514

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.
1974 Northwest_Orient_Airlines_Flight_6231

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.
1981 Inex-Adria_Aviopromet_Flight_1308

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 Yugoslav 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.
1984 NASA

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, as well as research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into three mission directorates: Human Spaceflight, Research and Technology, and Science. Established in 1958 amid the Space Race, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the US 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 multinational Artemis program.
1988 World_AIDS_Day

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.
1988 Benazir_Bhutto

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 stateswoman who twice 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 the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from 1982 until her assassination in 2007.
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.
1990 Channel_Tunnel

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

The Channel Tunnel, sometimes referred to as the Chunnel, 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.
1991 Ukraine

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 Ukraine's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro. The official language is Ukrainian. Ukraine covers about 600,000 km2 (230,000 sq mi), with around 32 million people.
1997 Bihar

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 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. It is the second largest state by population, the 12th largest by area, and the 14th largest by GDP in 2024. Bihar's official languages are Hindi and Urdu. The main native languages are Maithili, Magahi and Bhojpuri, but there are several other languages being spoken at smaller levels.
1997

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.
2000 Vicente_Fox

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.
2001 United_Russia

The United Russia political party was founded.

The All-Russian Political Party "United Russia" is the ruling political party of Russia since 2001. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 349 of the 450 seats in the State Duma as of 2026, having constituted the majority in the chamber since 2007. Its nationalist and Eurosceptic ideology is inconsistent and embraces specific officials, all of whom support Vladimir Putin. Although in 2009 it proclaimed Russian conservatism as its official ideology, it appeals mainly to pro-Putin and non-ideological voters, and is often classified by political scientists as a "big-tent party", or as a "party of power", rather than an organisation that is primarily based upon a political ideology.
2005 Perm_Oblast

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.
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.
2009 Treaty_of_Lisbon

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).
2011 Almaty_Metro

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. Until Astana Light Metro opened on 16 May 2026, this was the only metro system in Kazakhstan.
2018 Oulu_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

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".
2019 Arsenal_Women_11–1_Bristol_City_Women

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.
2019 COVID-19_pandemic

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, while noting that COVID-19 continued to be a global health threat.
2020 Arecibo_Telescope

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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