This Day in History – December 1, 2011

1750 – 1st American school to offer manual training courses opens, Maryland 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.  The contest is between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Harris Crawford & Henry Clay.  Adams is declared by the House as the new PotUS. 1835 – Hans Christian Andersen published his 1st book of fairy tales 1864 – 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. 1868 – John D Rockefeller begins anti oil war 1878 – 1st White House telephone installed 1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas (United States). 1891 – James Naismith creates the game of basketball 1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line. 1917 – Boys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan, west of Omaha NE 1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom (she had been elected to that position on November 28). 1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of sexual 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. 1957 – Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed Sullivan Show 1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago, Illinois, 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. 1959 – The 1st color photograph of Earth received from outer space 1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson. 1964 – Houston Colt .45s change name to Astros 1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II. 1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport killing all 92 people on board. 1976 – Sex Pistols using profanity on TV, gets them branded as “rotten punks” 1978 – President Carter more than doubles national park system size 1981 – The AIDS virus is officially recognized. 1984 – 50th Heisman Trophy Award: Doug Flutie, Boston College (QB) 1988 – Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan. 1989 – 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. 1989 – Cold War: East Germany’s parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state. 1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed. 1992 – Amy Fisher sentenced 5-15 years for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco 1997 – Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS 2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA’s purchase by American Airlines. 2009 – The Treaty of Lisbon, which amends the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, which together comprise the constitutional basis of European Union, comes into effect.  ]]]]> ]]>