1 December

1761     Marie Tussaud (born), French sculptor, founded Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum (died 1850)

1824     United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1862     In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865     Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1866     George Everest (died), Welsh geographer and surveyor, namesake of Mt. Everest (born 1790)

1885     First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas (United States).

1913     Mary Martin (born), American actress and singer (died 1990)

1913     The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.

1919     Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom (she had been elected to that position on November 28).

1933     Lou Rawls (born), American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (died 2006)

1935     Woody Allen (born), American screenwriter, director, and actor

1945     Bette Midler (born), American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress

1948     Taman Shud Case: The body of an unidentified man is found in Adelaide, Australia, involving an undetectable poison and a secret code in a very rare book; the case remains unsolved and is “one of Australia’s most profound mysteries.”

1949     Pablo Escobar (born), Colombian drug lord (died 1993)

1952     The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.

1955     In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1960     Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.

1964     J. B. S. Haldane (died), English-Indian geneticist (born 1892)

1969     The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

1969     The first legislation to limit aircraft noise levels at airports is introduced in U.S. Federal Air Regulation, Part 36.

1981     The AIDS virus is officially recognized.

1988     Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1990     Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.

2006    Bruce Trigger (died), Canadian archaeologist (born 1937)

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EO Smith

Interests include biological anthropology, evolution, social behavior, and human behavior. Conducted field research in the Tana River National Primate Reserve, Kenya and on Angaur, Palau, Micronesia, as well as research with captive nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Institute for Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.
EO Smith
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