by Associated Press Wednesday, December 3 by The Associated Press, Associated Press - 25 November 2014 19:15-05:00 Today is Wednesday, December 3, the 337th day of 2014. There are 28 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1621 - Galileo perfects the telescope. 1694 - Triennial Bill becomes law in England, providing for new Parliament to be elected every third year. 1775 - Lieutenant John Paul Jones hoists the first seagoing American flag on the newly commissioned continental Naval ship, the Alfred. 1808 - Madrid surrenders to Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces. 1810 - British capture Mauritius from French. 1828 - Andrew Jackson is elected the seventh president of the United States. 1912 - Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro sign an armistice. 1944 - U.S. forces cross Saar River in Germany in World War II. 1948 - The House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee announces former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers produced a microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm. 1952 - U.N. General Assembly adopts India's proposal for Korean armistice. 1958 - Dutch businesses are nationalized in Indonesia. 1961 - United States deploys troops along border between East and West Berlin as East Germany begins strengthening Berlin Wall. 1962 - London is blanketed by one of the worst fogs in years, and scores of people die of sulfur dioxide poisoning before fog lifts four days later. 1964 - Police arrest some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in. 1967 - Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, perform the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lives 18 days with the new heart. 1970 - British envoy James R. Cross is rescued after being held by Quebec terrorists in Canada for almost two months. 1971 - India declares state of emergency as Pakistani planes attack northwestern India in dispute over Kashmir. 1975 - Communists take control of Laos and declare end to 600-year-old monarchy. 1979 - Christie's auction house in New York sets a record, selling a thimble for $18,400. 1984 - More than 4,000 people die after a cloud of gas escapes from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. 1988 - Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in first official act, calls for release of about 1,000 political prisoners and commutes all death sentences. 1990 - Two jets taxiing for a takeoff at Detroit airport collide killing nine people. 1991 - Alann Steen, an American held hostage for nearly five years, is released by Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Beirut. 1992 - A spill of millions of gallons of crude oil off the coast of La Coruna, Spain, threatens ecological disaster. 1993 - The United States and Ukraine fail to resolve a dispute over Ukraine's stockpile of more than 1,000 long-range nuclear warheads. 1996 - A bomb explodes on a commuter train in Paris, killing four people and injuring 86. 1997 - South Korea strikes a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a record $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy; representatives of more than 120 nations gather in Ottawa, Canada, to sign a treaty banning land mines. 1998 - Making their first collective decision about monetary policy, 11 European nations cut interest rates in a surprise move to fight the global economic slowdown. 1999 - Tori Murden, a Kentucky lawyer, becomes the first American — and first woman — to row 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) across the Atlantic alone. 2000 - Pakistan offers a truce to Indian soldiers along the disputed Kashmir border. 2001 - Israel attacks Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in response to suicide bombings by the militant group Hamas that killed 25 people. 2002 - World Food Program warns the U.N. Security Council that a record 38 million people are at risk of starvation in Africa. The southern nations of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia and Mozambique are among the worst affected. 2004 - President Alvaro Uribe signs the final order Friday to extradite Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, leader of the once-feared feared Cali drug cartel and the most powerful Colombian trafficker to ever face trial in the United States. 2006 - Separate clashes between rival political activists and police in Bangladesh leave one man dead and dozens injured, as a major political alliance stages a nationwide transport blockade to force electoral reforms. 2007 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez loses a constitutional vote that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely. 2008 - Russia says it is sending a warship through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II, a short journey loaded with symbolic weight: the destroyer will dock at a former U.S. naval base, showcasing Russia's growing influence in the region. 2009 - Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he is willing to talk with the Taliban chief in a bid to bring peace to the country if the move has the backing of the United States and other international partners. 2010 — Aircraft from Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Britain dump sea water and flame retardant, battling a woodland inferno in Israel that has killed dozens, displaced thousands and ravaged one of the Holy Land's most prized forests. 2011 — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confidently predicts that his country will achieve stability and remain independent of its giant neighbor Iran even without an American troop presence that is ending within weeks. 2012 — President Barack Obama warns Syria that the use of chemical weapons would be "totally unacceptable" and that the country's leaders would be held accountable. 2013 — French scientists looking into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dismiss poisoning by radioactive polonium, his widow says, contradicting earlier findings by a Swiss lab. Today's Birthdays: Aaron Ludwig Holberg, Danish philosopher-poet (1684-1754); Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857-1924); Anna Freud, Austrian psychoanalyst (1895-1982); Andy Williams, U.S. Singer (1927--2012); Jean-Luc Godard, French film director (1930--); Ozzy Osbourne, British rock singer (1948--); Daryl Hannah, U.S. actress (1960--); Julianne Moore, U.S. actress (1960--). Thought For Today: There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat — Chinese proverb.1 News Topics: General news, International incidents, International agreements, Presidential elections, Territorial disputes, Government and politics, World War II, War and unrest, International relations, National elections, Elections, Events People, Places and Companies: Benazir Bhutto, Alvaro Uribe, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, Hugo Chavez, Hamid Karzai, Nouri al-Maliki, Barack Obama, Yasser Arafat, Joseph Conrad, Andy Williams, Jean-Luc Godard, Ozzy Osbourne, Daryl Hannah, Julianne Moore, Pakistan, United States, Canada, Kashmir, Spain, South Asia, Middle East, Turkey, Southern Africa, Asia, North America, India, Western Europe, Europe, Africa Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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