December 2

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

December is:

Church Library Month

Born on this Day

• 1853: French Artist George Seurat (some sources 1859)
  

• 1859: French painter Georges Seurat (Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte)
  

• 1863: Circus co-founder Charles Ringling
  

• 1899: The conductor John Barbirolli was born.
  

• 1904: Journalist Hy Gardner
  

• 1906: Engineer Peter Carl Goldmark, the inventor of the long-playing record
  

• 1909: Actress June Clyde
  

• 1914: Actor Ray Walston
  

• 1914: Musician Eddie Sauter
  

• 1915: Actor-playwright Adolph Green (screen writer: collaborated with Betty Comden: Singin' in the Rain, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
  

• 1917: Actor Ezra Stone (Feinstone)
  

• 1918: Bandleader Milton Delugg
  

• 1922: Actor Leo Gordon
  

• 1923: Opera singer Maria (Kalogeropoulou) Callas
  

• 1924: Former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig
  

• 1925: Actress Julie Harris (Knots Landing, I Am a Camera, Member of the Wedding)
  

• 1931: Former Attorney General Edwin Meese the Third
  

• 1950: Country singer John Wesley Ryles
  

• 1952: Rock singer Michael McDonald
  

• 1952: Actor Keith Szarabajka
  

• 1954: Actor Dan Butler
  

• 1954: N-B-C news broadcaster Stone Phillips
  

• 1955: Actor Dennis Christopher
  

• 1956: Actor Steven Bauer
  

• 1960: Rock musician Rick Savage (Def Leppard)
  

• 1962: Tennis Hall-of-Famer Tracy Austin
  

• 1968: Rock musician Nate Mendel (Foo Fighters)
  

• 1968: Rock singer Jimi (cq) Haha (Jimmie's Chicken Shack)
  

• 1970: Rapper Treach (Naughty By Nature)
  

• 1973: Tennis player Monica Seles 
  

• 1978: Singer Nelly Furtado
  

• 1981: Singer Britney Spears 
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0537: Death of St. Silverius, Pope
  

• 1001: Danish settlers in England massacred
  

• 1431: Henry VI, King of England, crowned King of France at Paris
  

• 1547: Death of Hernando Cortez
  

• 1804: Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
  

• 1816: 1st savings bank in US opens as the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society
  

• 1823: President Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
  

• 1859: Abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Today's History Focus
  

• 1909: J.P. Morgan acquires majority holdings in Equitable Life Co.
  

• 1918: Armenia proclaims independence from Turkey.
  

• 1921: The first successful helium dirigible, C-7, makes a test flight in Portsmouth, Virginia.
  

• 1926: The first aluminum street cars were put in service in Cleveland, Ohio this day.
  

• 1927: The Model A Ford was introduced as the successor to the Model T. The price of a Model A roadster was $395.
  

• 1932: "The Adventures of Charlie Chan" was first heard this day on the NBC-Blue radio network. The Chinese detective became even more popular on the movie screen between 1937 and 1940.
  

• 1942: The Atomic Age was born when scientists demonstrated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at a laboratory below the stands at the University of Chicago football stadium.
  

• 1950: Vic Toweel, of South Africa, set a record for knockdowns - in a title fight in Johannesburg, South Africa. He floored Danny O'Sullivan of England 14 times in 10 rounds before the bantamweight fight was stopped. During a post-fight interview, O'Sullivan told reporters, "Adkeivhaep oi er," then, keeled over, again.
  

• 1952: Denver's KOA-TV transmitted, for 49 stations on the NBC network, the first human birth to be seen on TV. It was a part of the program, "The March of Medicine."
  

• 1952: Keeping his campaign promise, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Korea to promote a settlement to end hostilities in that war-ravaged country.
  

• 1952: George Jorgensen, a former G.I. who had gone to Denmark in 1950, prepared to return to the U.S. - as Christine Jorgensen. George had undergone 2,000 hormone injections and six operations performed by sex change surgeons.
  

• 1954: The Senate voted to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin) for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."
  

• 1961: Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.
  

• 1965: A weird piece of performance art was put on at UCLA. "Playable Music Number 4" by Nam June Paik calls for a performer to cut his arm slowly with a razor. An enthusiastic member of the audience is said to have yelled, "Encore! Encore! Use your throat!"
  

• 1967: Cardinal Francis Spellman died in New York at age 78.
  

• 1967: Singer Jimmie Rodgers ("Honeycomb", "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine") was found in a car in Los Angeles, near death, suffering from a fractured skull. He had been the victim of a "mysterious assault."
  

• 1970: The U.S. Senate votes to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
  

• 1970: The Environmental Protection Agency began operating under director William Ruckelshaus.
  

• 1972: Motown's Temptations reached the #1 spot on the top 40 charts this day with "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone". It was the fourth #1 hit for the Temptations, joining "My Girl" (1965), "I Can't Get Next to You" (1969) and "Just My Imagination" (1971).
  

• 1982: In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device. He died on March 23, 1983.
  

• 1984: Dan Marino connected for four touchdown passes and set an NFL record for TD passes in a season (40). Miami's Dolphins lost the game, however, to the Los Angeles Rams 45-34. It marked the Dolphins' first home loss of the season following six wins.
  

• 1984: In a speech to Egypt's Parliament, Jordan's King Hussein criticized the U.S.-sponsored Camp David peace accords and insisted the PLO be a full partner in Middle East peace talks.
  

• 1985: The highest-rated "Monday Night Football" telecast was seen this night on ABC-TV. The Miami Dolphins beat the Chicago Bears 38-24. The Miami win snapped a 12-game winning streak of the Bears.
  

• 1985: A Philippine civilian court acquitted armed forces chief Gen. Fabian C. Ver and 25 other defendants of charges related to the 1983 shooting death of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino.
  

• 1986: President Ronald Reagan announced that former CIA official Frank Carlucci would be his new national security adviser, succeeding Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, who resigned as the Iran-Contra affair unraveled.
  

• 1987: After a chaotic six-and-a-half-hour meeting that had begun the night before, the Chicago City Council elected Eugene Sawyer acting mayor, succeeding the late Harold Washington.
  

• 1988: Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan.
  

• 1988: The space shuttle "Atlantis" was launched on a secret four-day mission.
  

• 1989: President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev held the first talks of their wind-tossed Malta summit aboard the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky.
  

• 1989: V.P. Singh was sworn in as prime minister of India.
  

• 1990:, Chancellor Hekmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily won the first free all-German elections since 1932.
  

• 1990: Composer Aaron Copland died in North Tarrytown, New York, at age 90. 
  

• 1990: Actor Bob Cummings died in Woodland Hills, California, at age 82.
  

• 1990: The Midwest section of the U.S. braced for a massive earthquake predicted by Iben Browning. Nothing happened.
  

• 1991: American hostage Joseph Cicippio, held captive in Lebanon for more than five years, was released.
  

• 1991: Testimony began in West Palm Beach, Florida, in the trial of William Kennedy Smith, for the rape of Patricia Bowman at his family's estate.
  

• 1992: Germany's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Maastricht Treaty on European unity.
  

• 1992: The space shuttle "Discovery" blasted off with five astronauts and a spy satellite aboard.
  

• 1993: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.
  

• 1993: The space shuttle "Endeavour" blasted off on a mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope.
  

• 1993: An unemployed man opened fire at a California unemployment agency in Oxnard, California, killing three workers; he killed a police officer during a chase that ended in Ventura, where the man himself was gunned down.
  

• 1994: The government agreed not to seek a recall of allegedly fire-prone General Motors pickup trucks, striking a deal with GM under which the automaker would spend more than $51 million on safety and research.
  

• 1994: Reputed "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss was convicted in Los Angeles of three counts of pandering.
  

• 1994: In Pensacola, FL, Paul Hill was given two life sentences for murdering a doctor and security guard outside an abortion clinic in July 1994. Hill was convicted of violating the new federal law protecting abortion clinics.
  

• 1995: Financier Charles Keating Junior, a central figure in the most notorious savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s, won a new federal trial because jurors had learned of his prior fraud conviction in state court before convicting him of fraud and racketeering.
  

• 1995: In Baumholder, Germany, President Clinton told 4,000 American troops who were on their way to Bosnia-Herzegovina for peacekeeping duty to strike "immediately and with decisive force" if threatened.
  

• 1995: NASA launched a U.S.-European observatory on a $1 billion dollar mission to study the sun.
  

• 1997: Attorney General Janet Reno declined to seek an independent counsel investigation of telephone fund-raising by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, concluding they did not violate election laws, a decision that drew jeers from Republicans. 
  

• 1999: Relative calm took over in Seattle, where a meeting of the World Trade Organization was greeted earlier with sometimes violent demonstrations. 
  

• 1999: In Northern Ireland, a power-sharing Cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat down together for the first time.
  

• 1999: All six Republican presidential hopefuls, including Texas Gov. George W. Bush, debated in Manchester, N. H.           
   

Today's History Focus

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