December 1

1640 – Portugal acclaims João IV as King of Portugal ending the personal union of Portugal and Spain by King Philip III of Spain.

1821 – José Núñez de Cáceres wins the independence of the Dominican Republic from Spain and names the new territory the Republic of Spanish Haiti.

1822 – Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.

1824 – In the U.S. presidential election, since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes, the House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in the race between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford. (John Quincy Adams is elected)

1862 – In his State of the Union Address, President Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered 10 weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1878 – President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House

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

1924 – The National Hockey League’s first United States based franchise, the Boston Bruins, plays their first game in league play at home

1941 – At an imperial conference, Emperor Hirohito gives the final approval to initiate “War against the United States, United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.”

1955 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws.

1958 – A fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago kills 92 children and 3 nuns.

1959 – The U.S. and 11 other countries that were active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58 sign the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

1964 – President Johnson and his top ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.

1969 – During the Vietnam War, the first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 passengers and crew aboard, and Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport killing the 3 crew on the jet chartered to pick up the Baltimore Colts football team in Buffalo, New York

1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, where a remote controlled Boeing 720 airliner is deliberately crashed at Rogers Dry Lake in California’s Mojave Desert, in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.

1989 – East Germany’s parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in state government.

1997 – At the Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, teenager Michael Carneal opens fire on a group of praying students, killing 3 and wounding 5 before surrendering to the school’s principal.

2019 – The first known case of COVID-19 is seen in China.

2020 – The Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico collapses