December 3

December 3 is the 337th day (338th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 28 days remaining.

Table of contents

1 Events
2 Births
3 Deaths
4 Holidays and observances
5 See also

Events

1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state
1828 - U.S. presidential election, 1828: Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected President of the United States.
1901 - US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
1912 - First Balkan War ends - Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long war.
1917 - After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic (the bridge partially collapsed on August 29, 1907 and September 11, 1916).
1929 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover announces to Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash are behind the nation and the American people have regained faith in the economy.
1944 - Civil war breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.
1947 - Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.
1964 - Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and massive sit-in at the administration building protesting the UC Regents' decision to forbid Vietnam War protests on UC property.
1967 - At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky becomes the first human to receive a heart transplant, but dies 18 days later from double pneumonia. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.
1967 - The luxury train 20th Century Limited completes its last run from New York City to Chicago, Illinois (the train was inaugurated on June 15, 1902).
1970 - October Crisis: In Montreal, Quebec, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released by the Front de Lib�ration du Qu�bec terrorist group after being held hostage for 60 days. Police negotiate his release and in return the Government of Canada grants five terrorists from the FLQ's Chenier Cell their request for safe passage to Cuba.
1973 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
1976 - Patrick Hillery becomes the sixth President of Ireland.
1979 - In Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert kills eleven fans (band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show).
1982 - A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri that would 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, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
1989 - Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end (some commentators from both nations exaggerated the wording and independently declared the Cold War over).
1990 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with a Boeing 727 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers aboard flight 1482.
1992 - UN Security Council Resolution 794 is unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid gets distributed and establishing peace in Somalia.
1992 - The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil runs aground in a storm while on approach to La Coru�a, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.
1997 - In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.
1999 - After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 miles, Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.
1999 - NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

Births

1755 - Gilbert Stuart, painter (d. 1828)
1826 - George McClellan, Union general (d. 1885)
1838 - Cleveland Abbe, meteorologist (d. 1916)
1838 - Octavia Hill, English housing and open-space activist (d. 1912)
1842 - Ellen Swallow Richards, American scientist (d. 1911)
1857 - Carl Koller, eye surgeon (d. 1944)
1857 - Joseph Conrad, writer (d. 1924)
1883 - Anton Webern, composer (d. 1945)
1895 - Anna Freud, psychoanalyst (d. 1982)
1899 - Ikeda Hayato, Japanese prime minister (d. 1965)
1900 - Richard Kuhn, German biochemist, winner 1938 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1967)
1903 - John von Neumann, mathematician (d. 1957)
1911 - Nino Rota, composer (d. 1979)
1923 - Wolfgang Neuss, cabaretist and actor (d. 1989)
1925 - Ferlin Husky, country music singer
1927 - Andy Williams, singer
1930 - Jean-Luc Godard, film director
1931 - Franz Josef Degenhardt, author and singer
1934 - Viktor Gorbatko, cosmonaut
1937 - Bobby Allison, automobile racer
1942 - Alice Schwarzer, journalist
1948 - Ozzy Osbourne, singer
1949 - John Akii-Bua, hurdler
1949 - Mickey Thomas, singer ("Jefferson Starship")
1951 - Rick Mears, automobile racer
1960 - Daryl Hannah, actor
1960 - Julianne Moore, actor
1965 - Katarina Witt, figure skater
1968 - Brendan Fraser, actor

Deaths

1894 - Robert Louis Stevenson, actor
1919 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painter
1941 - Christian Sinding, composer
1949 - Maria Ouspenskaya, actor
1980 - Oswald Mosley, British politician
1995 - Robertson Davies, author
1997 - Kathy Acker, author
1999 - Madeline Kahn, actor, comedian
2002 - Glenn Quinn, actor
2002 - Peter L�witsch, actor
2003 - David Hemmings, British actor

Holidays and observances

Saint Francis Xavier feast day