Daily History Lesson – December 3
1818 – Illinois became the 21st state to enter the United States of America.
1894 – Author Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44.
1947 – A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. The show would run for more than 800 performances, turning Marlon Brando into an overnight star. Jessica Tandy won a Tony Award for her performance, and Williams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
1960 – Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. Richard Burton and Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. The show had a run of 873 performances.
1964 – Police arrested 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley who had stormed the administration building the previous day and staged a massive sit-in.
1967 – 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky received the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Washkansky, a South African grocer dying from chronic heart disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical operation.
Eighteen days after the operation, Washkansky died of double pneumonia. His new heart, however, beat strongly to the end.
1984 – In the early morning hours, one of the worst industrial disasters in history begins when a pesticide plant located in the densely populated region of Bhopal in central India leaked a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air. Of the estimated one million people living in Bhopal at the time, 2,000 were killed immediately, at least 600,000 were injured, and at least 6,000 have died since.
1991 – After months of bruising political attacks in which he had become the symbol of the increasing disarray in President George H.W. Bush’s domestic policy team, White House Chief of Staff – and former New Hampshire Governor – John Sununu resigned (although it later became clear he was forced out).
1997 – In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries signed the Ottawa Treaty, prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People’s Republic of China, and Russia did not sign the treaty.
1999 – Actress Madeline Kahn (Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, Nixon and a two-time Academy Award nominee: Blazing Saddles and Paper Moon) died of ovarian cancer at the age of 57.
1999 – NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere.
A post-mortem analysis determined the most likely cause of the mishap was premature termination of the engine firing prior to the Lander touching the surface, causing it to strike the planet at a high velocity.
1999 – Tori Murden became the first woman and the first American to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. After rowing 2,962 miles in 81 days, Murden eased her 23-foot boat, American Pearl, to the dock at Fort-du-Bas on the French Carribean island of Guadeloupe.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2015 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.