This Day in History – December 6
Today is the 340th day of 2021. There are 25 days left in the year
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1998: Six years after staging a bloody coup attempt, former Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez is elected president of Venezuela, dealing a blow to the establishment that ruled the country for 40 years.
OTHER EVENTS
1534: Spanish conquistadors establish presence in Quito, an Inca city in the Andes.
1732: The first play in American colonies is acted by professional players in New York, USA.
1735: First recorded appendectomy is performed by Claudius Amyand at St George’s Hospital in London.
1768: First edition of Encyclopedia Brittanicais published in Scotland.
1787: Laurens Pieter van de Speigel is appointed Dutch pension advisor.
1790: The US Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland for the second and final time.
1857: British forces recapture Cawnpore in India.
1864: Battle of Deveaux’s Neck, South Carolina.
1865: 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery.
1866: Chicago water supply tunnel 3,227m into Lake Michigan completed.
1884: Army engineers complete construction of the Washington Monument.
1897: London becomes the world’s first city to host licensed taxicabs.
1906: Self-government is granted in Transvaal and Orange River colonies in what is now South Africa.
1907: The frontier between Uganda and East Africa is defined.
1916: Bucharest, the capital of Romania, falls to German troops.
1917: The Republic of Finland is proclaimed; collision between Belgian and French ammunition ships at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, takes 1,600 lives.
1921: Britain signs peace treaty with Ireland establishing the Irish Free State, and Ireland accepts Dominion status.
1929: Women’s suffrage begins in Turkey.
1941: US President Franklin D Roosevelt appeals to Japan’s Emperor Hirohito for peace — one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He also authorises the Manhattan Project, which results in the creation of the atomic bomb.
1956: Nelson Mandela and 156 others arrested for political activities in South Africa.
1957: America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blows up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1959: UN General Assembly says Togoland should receive independence.
1966: Britain calls for UN sanctions against rebellious Rhodesia, including ban on oil shipments.
1973: Gerald Ford, sworn-in as first unelected US vice-president, succeeds Spiro Agnew who resigned over corruption allegations.
1978: A referendum approves the constitution returning Spain to a democracy.
1984: Death toll rises to 1,600 from gas leak from US-built pesticide plant in Bhopal, India.
1987: Bangladesh government dissolves Parliament amid opposition campaign to topple President Hussain Mohammad Ershad’s Administration.
1990: General Hussain Mohammad Ershad, who ruled Bangladesh for nine years after coming to power in a coup, steps down at the height of a pro-democracy movement. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announces release of all foreign hostages.
2004: Islamic militants set off explosives and shoot their way into the heavily guarded US consulate in Jiddah — a bold assault that shows Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on terrorists has not succeeded.
2006: After decades of dictatorship and wars, Congo swears in its first freely elected president since 1960, installing Joseph Kabila, the son of a rebel leader, who promises a new era of order.
2008: Amsterdam unveils plans to close brothels, sex shops, and marijuana cafés in its ancient city centre as part of a major effort to drive organised crime out of the tourist haven.
2009: Delegates converge for the grand finale of two years of tough, sometimes bitter, negotiations on a climate change treaty, as UN officials calculated that pledges offered in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping global warming under control.
2010: A French court convicts Continental Airlines and one of its mechanics of manslaughter for setting off a chain of events that sent a supersonic Concorde crashing into a hotel outside Paris a decade ago, killing 113 people and marking the beginning of the sleek jet’s demise.
2011: In Afghanistan’s first major sectarian assault since the fall of the Taliban regime a decade ago, a suicide bomber slaughters 56 Shiite worshippers and wounds more than 160 others outside a Shiite shrine in the capital.
2017: US President Donald Trump officially recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, announcing plans to move US embassy there.
2020: US President Donald Trump orders about 700 troops withdrawn from Somalia.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, French physicist and chemist (1778-1850); Joyce Kilmer, US poet (1886-1918); Ira Gershwin, US lyricist of Broadway musicals and films (1896-1983); Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, Nobel laureate (1898-1987); Alfred Eisenstaedt, US photojournalist (1898-1995); James Braddock, US boxer (1905-1974); Peter Handke, Austrian novelist and playwright (1942- ); Dave Brubeck, US jazz pianist (1920-2012)
— AP