November 30
3340 BC: The earliest known record of a solar eclipse was carved on a stone in present-day Ireland.
1929: Born this day: TV host and production magnate Dick Clark (founded Dick Clark Productions, died 2012); and Sesame Street co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney.
1936: The Crystal Palace of London—built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the first building ever that needed no interior lights because it had glass walls and ceilings—was destroyed by fire.
1940: Lucille Ball married Desi Arnaz in Greenwich, Conn.
2007: Stunt motorcyclist Evel Knievel, a native of Butte, Mont., died in Clearwater, Fla., at age 69.
December 1
1885: Dr Pepper was first served at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
1918: The Kingdom of Iceland became a sovereign state of the Danish kingdom. (It became the independent Republic of Iceland in 1944.) Transylvania and the Kingdom of Romania united to form the Great Union. Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia united to form what would become Yugoslavia.
1952: The New York Daily News reported the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first case of sex change surgery.
1981: The AIDS virus was officially recognized.
1984: NASA conducted the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner was purposely crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of airline crashes.
December 2
1919: Canadian millionaire Ambrose Small, 56, disappeared without a trace. He was last seen at 5:30 p.m. at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario.
1924: Congress created the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission
1927: After 19 years of producing only the Ford Model T, Ford Motor Company unveiled the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
1939: New York City’s La Guardia Airport opened.
1961: Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared in a nationally broadcast speech that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt communism.
1991: Canada and Poland became the first nations to recognize the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union.
2001: Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
December 3
1818: Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.
1910: Modern neon lighting was first demonstrated by Georges Claude (1870-1960) at the Paris Motor Show.
1992: A test engineer for Sema Group in Paris, France, used a personal computer to send the world’s first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.
1999: NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander as the spacecraft entered the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere. Engineers speculate that the craft struck the Martian surface at high velocity and was destroyed.
2005: XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif., made the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail, from Mojave to California City, Calif., both in Kern County.
December 4
1674: Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shore of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek Indians. (The mission grew into the city of Chicago.)
1783: U.S. Gen. George Washington bid farewell to his officers, at Fraunces Tavern in New York City.
1786: Mission Santa Barbara was dedicated at what is now Santa Barbara, Calif.
1881: The first edition of the Los Angeles Times was published.
1943: In a rare move, President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed down a federal agency, the Works Progress Administration, because of high wartime employment in the United States.
1945: The U.S. Senate voted 65-7 for United States participation in the United Nations, which had been established on Oct. 24.)
1954: The first Burger King (renamed from Insta-Burger King) opened in Miami, Fla.
December 5
1492: Christopher Columbus (1450-1506) became the first European in recorded history to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
1766: James Christie (1730-1803), founder of now-world famous Christie’s Auction House, held his first auction, in London, England.
1782: Martin Van Buren, eighth president, was born in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was the first U.S. president born in the U.S.A. (Died 1862.)
1945: A squadron of five U.S. Navy planes, designated Flight 19, disappeared without a trace between the Bimini Islands and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., becoming the first of many disappearances in the so-called Bermuda Triangle.
1969: The ARPANET network, the precursor to the internet, was established.
December 6
1865: The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery.
1877: The first edition of the Washington Post was published.
1884: The Washington Monument was completed.
1897: London became the world’s first city to license taxicabs.
1947: The Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated.
1948: Born this day: U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla. (in office 1981-2005); and actress JoBeth Williams (Stir Crazy, Poltergeist, Frasier).
1967: Adrian Kantrowitz (1918-2008) performed the first human heart transplant in the United States, at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. 1973: The U.S. House of Representatives voted 387-35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States, following the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew. (The Senate had confirmed Ford 92-3 on Nov. 27.)
ON THIS DAY… NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 6
November 30 – NATIONAL PERSONAL SPACE DAY
Advocating for our boundaries is not easy, but it is an important factor that contributes to our healing.
December 1 – NATIONAL
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS DAY
Before the invention of electric lights, families would balance candles on the branches of their Christmas trees—a risky practice that naturally led to several house fires.
December 2 – NATIONAL BARTENDERS DAY
Bartenders have a rich history: They have been around since ancient times across cultures. And with over half a million bartenders in the U.S. year.
December 3 – CANDLE DAY
Stock up on your favorite calming scents for the lowest prices of the year. The day only comes around once annually, so make sure it’s on your calendar!
December 4 – NATIONAL DICE DAY
we’re celebrating by … rolling dice and playing with dice! Can you believe that dice have been around for over 5,000 years?
December 5 – WALT DISNEY DAY
We all grew up watching cartoons and movies by Disney, and they are an essential part of our childhood.
December 6 – NATIONAL MINERS DAY
To recognize their efforts, Congress has declared December 6 National Miners Day. Why? Our entire economy depends on them.