On This Day — 1 December
2000s
2020
The Arecibo Telescope collapses.
Arecibo Telescope
2019
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.
Arsenal Women 11–1 Bristol City Women
2019
The outbreak of coronavirus infection begins in Wuhan.
COVID-19 pandemic
2018
The Oulu Police informed the public about the first offence of the much larger child sexual exploitation in Oulu, Finland.
Oulu child sexual exploitation scandal
2011
The Alma-Ata Metro was opened.
Almaty Metro
2009
The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in the European Union.
Treaty of Lisbon
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 in South Africa
2005
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.
Perm Oblast
2001
The United Russia political party was founded.
United Russia
2000
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
1900s
1997
In the Indian state of Bihar, Ranvir Sena attacks the CPI (ML) Party Unity stronghold Lakshmanpur-Bathe, killing 63 lower caste people.
Bihar
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.
1997 Heath High School shooting
1991
Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
Ukraine
1990
Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet beneath the seabed.
Channel Tunnel
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 Philippine coup attempt
1989
Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
Cold War
1988
World AIDS Day is proclaimed worldwide by the UN member states.
World AIDS Day
1988
Benazir Bhutto, is named as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader to lead a Muslim nation.
Benazir Bhutto
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.
NASA
1981
Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.
Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308
1974
TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
TWA Flight 514
1974
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231
1973
Papua New Guinea gains self-government from Australia.
Papua New Guinea
1971
Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
Cambodian Civil War
1971
Purge of Croatian Spring leaders starts in Yugoslavia at the meeting of the League of Communists at the Karađorđevo estate.
Croatian Spring
1969
Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
Vietnam War draft
1964
Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
Vietnam War
1963
Nagaland, became the 16th state of India.
Nagaland
1960
Patrice Lumumba is arrested by Mobutu Sese Seko's men on the banks of the Sankuru River, for inciting the army to rebellion.
Patrice Lumumba
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.
Cold War
1958
The Central African Republic attains self-rule within the French Union.
Central African Republic
1958
The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.
Our Lady of the Angels School fire
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 that city's bus boycott.
Civil rights movement
1952
The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.
New York Daily News
1941
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
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.
Fiorello La Guardia
1939
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
1939
The Soviet Union establishes the Finnish Democratic Republic puppet state in Terijoki.
Finnish Democratic Republic
1934
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 Kirov
1924
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.
National Hockey League
1924
A Soviet-backed communist 1924 Estonian coup d'état attempt fails in Estonia.
1924 Estonian coup attempt
1919
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 Astor, Viscountess Astor
1918
Transylvania unites with Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28) and thus concluding the Great Union.
Transylvania
1918
Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
Kingdom of Iceland
1918
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
1913
The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the Southern Hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation.
Buenos Aires Underground
1913
Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.
Crete
1900
Nicaragua sells canal rights to U.S. for $5 million. The canal agreement fails in March 1901. Great Britain rejects the amended treaty.
1800s
1878
President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House.
Rutherford B. Hayes
1865
Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Shaw University
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.
American Civil War
1834
Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
Cape Colony
1828
Argentine general Juan Lavalle makes a coup against governor Manuel Dorrego, beginning the Decembrist revolution.
Juan Lavalle
1824
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.
1824 United States presidential election
1822
Pedro I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.
Pedro I of Brazil
1821
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
Before 1800
1768
The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøya in Norway.
Slave ship
1662
Diarist John Evelyn records skating on the frozen lake in St James's Park, London, watched by Charles II and Queen Catherine.
John Evelyn
1640
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.
Iberian Union
1577
Courtiers Christopher Hatton and Thomas Heneage are knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Christopher Hatton
1420
Henry V of England enters Paris alongside his father-in-law King Charles VI of France.
Henry V of England
800
A council is convened in the Vatican, at which Charlemagne is to judge the accusations against Pope Leo III.
Apostolic Palace