December 1
Today is observed as a
Day Without Art, an annual event to raise AIDS awareness. Coincides with
World AIDS Day.
There are
30 days remaining in 2016.
There are
23 days until Christmas.
Events
1824 –
United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the
Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 –
Shaw University, the first
historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1913 –
Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
1941 – World War II:
Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941 – World War II:
Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and
Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs
Administrative Order 9, creating the
Civil Air Patrol.
1952 – The
New York Daily News reports the news of
Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of
sex reassignment surgery.
1955 –
American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the
Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1958 – The
Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the
Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1960 –
Paul McCartney and
Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first
draft lottery since World War II is held in the United States.
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.
1990 –
Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.
Births
1761 – Marie Tussaud (founded Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum); 1886 – Rex Stout (author of
Nero Wolfe detective novels); 1913 – Mary Martin (
Peter Pan, South Pacific, Larry Hagman's mother); 1923 – Dick Shawn; 1929 – David Doyle (
Charlie's Angels); 1933 – Lou Rawls♪ ♫; 1934 – Billy Paul♪ ♫; 1935 – Woody Allen; 1939 – Lee Trevino; 1940 – Richard Pryor
; 1944 – Eric Bloom
(Blue Oyster Cult); 1944 – John Densmore
(The Doors); 1944 – Michael Hagee; 1945 – Bette Midler♪ ♫; 1946 – Jonathan Katz; 1946 – Gilbert O'Sullivan♪ ♫; 1947 – Elizabeth Baur (
Ironside); 1951 – Obba Babatundé; 1951 – Jaco Pastorius
; 1951 – Treat Williams; 1957 – Chris Poland♪ ♫(Megadeth); 1957 – Vesta Williams♪ ♫; 1960 – Carol Alt; 1961 – Jeremy Northam; 1967 – Nestor Carbonell (
Lost, Suddenly Susan); 1970 – Jonathan Coulton♪ ♫
; 1970 – Sarah Silverman; 1975 – Isaiah "Ikey" Owens
(The Mars Volta); 1977 – Brad Delson♪ ♫(Linkin Park); 1985 – Chanel Preston (porn actress)
Deaths
1866 – George Everest (namesake of Mt. Everest); 1935 – Bernhard Schmidt (invented the Schmidt camera); 1947 – Aleister Crowley; 1954 – Fred Rose♪ ♫; 1973 – David Ben-Gurion (namesake of Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport); 2008 – Paul Benedict (neighbor 'Bentley' on
The Jeffersons, The Number Painter on
Sesame Street)