by Associated Press Tuesday, December 9 by The Associated Press, Associated Press - 1 December 2014 19:03-05:00 Today is Tuesday, Dec. 9, the 343rd day of 2014. There are 22 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1625 - England and United Provinces agree to subsidize Denmark's King Christian IV in his campaign against Germany. 1793 - Noah Webster establishes New York City's first daily newspaper. 1884 - Ball-bearing roller skates are patented in the United States. 1905 - Separation of church and state in France is decreed. 1940 - British 8th Army opens offensive in North Africa in World War II. 1941 - China declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy. 1946 - Indian Constituent Assembly is boycotted by Muslim League. 1951 - The United States invokes its Trading with the Enemy Act to prevent Chinese people in the United States from sending money to Communist China under extortion threats. 1962 - Tanganyika becomes republic within British Commonwealth. 1967 - The United States withdraws the last of three C-130 transport planes it sent to Congo in July to help the Kinshasa government airlift troops to suppress a rebellion of white mercenaries and Katangese soldiers. 1972 - North Vietnam and Soviet Union conclude agreement for economic and military aid to Hanoi. 1975 - Death toll is put at 160 in two days as war rages between Muslims and Christians in Beirut, Lebanon. 1976 - U.N. General Assembly calls for Middle East peace conference in Geneva with Palestine Liberation Organization taking part. 1982 - South African troops stage a pre-dawn raid on Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, in an effort to kill suspected members of the African National Congress, the black nationalist group banned in South Africa. 1987 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meets with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington one day after the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms treaty is signed. 1988 - West Germans demand curbs on NATO military flights over their densely populated country. 1990 - Poles elect Solidarity labor union founder Lech Walesa as president in free elections. 1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev calls new Commonwealth of Independent States "illegal and dangerous." 1992 - Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Britain announce they are separating but have no plans to divorce. 1993 - Fighting continues in Sarajevo as international mediators fail to revive negotiations on ending war in Bosnia. 1994 - After 25 years of violence, the Irish Republican Army sits down with British officials to talk peace; U.S. President Bill Clinton fires Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after learning she had told a conference that masturbation should be discussed in school as a part of human sexuality. 1995 - In India, 75 million children get polio vaccines in an attempt to eradicate the crippling disease. 1996 - Riot police chase protesting students through the streets of Rangoon, Burma, and the military government closes universities. 1997 - Spain softens its long-standing claim on the British colony of Gibraltar, saying it can accept shared sovereignty. 1998 - British Home Secretary Jack Straw rules that Spain can start proceedings to extradite former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Chile withdraws its ambassador from Britain. 1999 - U.S. Army private Calvin N. Glover, convicted of bludgeoning fellow soldier Barry Winchell to death, is sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors accused Glover of homophobia. 2000 - The United Nations' top anti-narcotics official says the Taliban government in Afghanistan is succeeding in slowing the cultivation of opium poppies for the first time since the radical Islamic movement seized power four years earlier. 2001 - The United States discloses a video in which Osama bin Laden says he was pleasantly surprised by the extent of damage from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. 2002 - The Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement sign a peace agreement to end the rebel group's 26-year-old separatist insurgency in Aceh province, which left as many as 30,000 people dead. 2003 - A female suicide bomber blows herself up outside the National Hotel across from Moscow's Red Square, killing five others and raising fears of a new wave of terror attacks in the heart of the Russian capital. 2004 - Canada's Supreme Court rules that gay marriage is constitutional, a landmark opinion allowing the federal government to call on Parliament to legalize same-sex unions nationwide. 2006 - A daylong artillery exchange between Sri Lanka's military and Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the island's east drives thousands of Sinhalese from their villages. 2007 - The world's top two polluters, the United States and China, say they are not ready to commit to mandatory caps on global-warming gases at the U.N. climate conference in Bali. 2008 - Masked youths and looters maraud through Greek cities for a fourth night in an explosion of rage triggered by the police shooting of a teenager that has unleashed the most violent riots in a quarter century. 2009 - Iraq's Western-backed government — facing intense pressure to address security lapses after suicide bombings killed 127 people in the capital — orders a shake-up in the country's military leadership. 2010 — In Britain's worst political violence in years, furious student protesters rain sticks and rocks on riot police, vandalize government buildings and attack a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, after lawmakers approved a controversial hike in university tuition fees. 2011 — European leaders agree to redefine their continent — hoping that by joining their fiscal fortunes they might stop a crippling debt crisis, save the euro currency and prevent worldwide economic chaos. Britain says no, risking isolation. 2012 — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez heads back to Cuba for a third cancer surgery after naming his vice president as his choice to lead the country if the illness cuts short his presidency. 2013 — American and British intelligence operations have been spying on gamers across the world, media outlets report, saying that the world's most powerful espionage agencies sent undercover agents into virtiual universes to monitor activity in online fantasy games such as "World of Warcraft." Today's Birthdays: John Milton, English poet (1608-1674); Karl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist (1742-1786); Claude-Louis Ertholle, French chemist (1748-1822); Kirk Douglas, U.S. actor (1916--); Bob Hawke, former Australian prime minister (1929--); Judi Dench, British actress (1934--): Beau Bridges, U.S. actor (1941--); John Malkovich, U.S. actor (1953--). Thought For Today: The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small — Mary Webb, Scottish religious leader (c. 1881-1927). News Topics: General news, Diplomacy, War and unrest, Government and politics, Terrorist attacks, Suicide bombings, Riots, Crime, Peace process, International relations, Terrorism, Political and civil unrest People, Places and Companies: Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Lech Walesa, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, Jack Straw, Augusto Pinochet, Osama bin Laden, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Hugo Chavez, John Milton, Kirk Douglas, Bob Hawke, Judi Dench, Beau Bridges, John Malkovich, United Kingdom, China, Chile, Indonesia, United States, Aceh, Washington, Middle East, Western Europe, Europe, Greater China, East Asia, Asia, South America, Latin America and Caribbean, Southeast Asia, North America, Sumatra, Pennsylvania Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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