This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

The world carries on, and, so must we all.

December 3

1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.

1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.

1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.

1919 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.

1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released.

1964 – Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property. [Guess they should have banned banned protest protests, huh?]

1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).

1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, and plays a concert two days later.

1979 – In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert.

1982 – A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.

1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague. [The message said "Merry Christmas".]

1994 – The PlayStation was released in Japan.

1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

2005 – XCOR Aerospace makes the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.

2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid (162173 Ryugu) to collect rock samples.

Births

1826 – George B. McClellan; 1842 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury (yeah, that one); 1925 – Ferlin Husky♪ ♫; 1927 – Andy Williams♪ ♫; 1934 – Nicolas Coster; 1937 – Bobby Allison; 1948 – Ozzy Osbourne♪ ♫; 1949 – Mickey Thomas♪ ♫(Jefferson Starship, Starship); 1951 – Rick Mears; 1952 – Benny Hinn; 1960 – Daryl Hannah (Splash, Clan of the Cave Bear); 1960 – Julianne Moore; 1963 – Terri Schiavo; 1965 – Katarina Witt; 1968 – Brendan Fraser; 1968 – Montell Jordan♪ ♫; 1980 – Anna Chlumsky

Deaths

311 – Diocletian; 1552 – Francis Xavier; 1888 – Carl Zeiss (yeah, the lens guy); 1894 – Robert Louis Stevenson; 1910 – Mary Baker Eddy; 1919 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1981 – Walter Knott (founded Knott's Berry Farm); 1989 – Connie B. Gay♪ ♫(founded the Country Music Association); 1999 – Madeline Kahn; 2014 – Ian McLagan(Small Faces, Faces); 2015 – Scott Weiland♪ ♫(Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver)