| Halley was tutored privately in his home for many years until he entered Saint Pauls School. There, he excelled in all he did, becoming the captain of the school at the age of 15. At the age of 17, he entered Queen's College Oxford, already an expert astronomer. He carried with him the wonderful collection of astronomical instruments purchased for him by his father. |
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| The earliest reference to this flag is apparently the raising of it on board the Continental ship "Alfred" on December 3, 1775 at Philadelphia supposedly by John Paul Jones. The flag was made by Margaret Manny of Philadelphia; she was paid one pound, two shillings and eight pence for her work on December 2, 1775. |
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| Due to the sorry state in which dentistry found itself, 15 dentists came together in New York City on Dec. 3, 1834, and organized the first dental society in the United States, the Society of Dental Surgeons of the City and State of New York. Hayden was chosen as president, Parmly as vice president, and Brown was named the recording secretary, being elected president in 1839. Unfortunately, the dispute over the propriety of the use of amalgam in practice -- termed the "Amalgam War" -- led to the demise of the organization a few years later. |
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| After Douglass escaped, he wanted to promote freedom for all slaves. He published a newspaper in Rochester, New York, called The North Star. It got its name because slaves escaping at night followed the North Star in the sky to freedom. Douglass's goals were to "abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people, and hasten the day of freedom to the Three Millions of our enslaved fellow countrymen." |
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| After the 1901 season, the Milwaukee Brewers franchaise, charter members of the American League, moved to St. Louis and became the Browns - a name that recalled the glorious history of Chris von der Ahe's Brown Stockings. In their first St. Louis season, the Browns finished second. |
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| In 1900, most Americans sincerely believed there was no problem that a little "Yankee know-how" and a dash of common "American" decency couldn't fix. George M. Cohan's writing reflected this jingoistic exuberance, expressing it as no other playwright or songwriter had. At first, New York critics did not know what to make of his shows, but the American public swiftly embraced him as one of their own. |
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| In 1913, the Federal League played in several smaller market cities with few former major leaguers, but in 1914, Joe Tinker led the way for ML players to pursue bigger paychecks in the upstart league. On December 3, 1914, Walter Johnson signed a two-year contract with the Chi-Feds, for the 1915 and 1916 seasons. Chi-Feds owner Charles Weeghman, one of the principals in the Federal League, refused to disclose the amount he would pay Johnson, but it was speculated to be in the neighborhood of $40,000 for two seasons, making "Barney" one of the highest paid players in the game. Johnson had tested the waters and thought better of it. Reportedly he felt if he jumped to the Feds, he would let his teammates and fans down, but it's also likely that he feared a legal battle which he was ill-suited to finance. |
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| Herbert T. Kalmus developed the first feasible motion picture film-color process, Technicolor. This early "two-color" system is used for the first for this film. Anna Mae Wong was cast as Lotus Flower, the lead roll in "The Toll of the Sea" (1922), a film based on Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly". It was the first feature to be filmed in Technicolor's two-color subtractive process. |
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| The New York State Boxing Commission revoked his boxing card after Sharkey knocked down referee Eddie Purdy during a match. Sharkey was the American world heavyweight-boxing champion from June 21, 1932, when he defeated Max Schmeling in 15 rounds at Long Island City, N.Y., until June 29, 1933, when he was knocked out by Primo Carnera in six rounds in New York City. |
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| When he was 25 years old, his jazz-influenced "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York's Aeolian
Hall at the concert, "An Experiment in Music." Gershwin followed this success with his orchestral work "Piano
Concerto in F, Rhapsody No. 2" and "An American in Paris". At its premier in New York's Carnegie Hall the work was well received, but the reviews were mixed which many critics unable to classify it as jazz or classical. Indeed, there was a great variety of opinion among Gershwin's contemporaries; Stravinsky thought the work was one of genius, whereas Sergei Prokofiev disliked it intensely. |
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| Alka-Seltzer was introduced in 1931 by Miles Laboratories (purchased by Bayer in 1979). The product was originally used by some consumers as a remedy for hangovers. Alka-Seltzer's effervescent (fizzing) tablets release their active ingredients when dissolved in water. Each Alka-Seltzer tablet, which comes in origianl, lemon-lime, and cherry flavors, contains 1,916 milligrams of sodium bicarbonate, 1,000 milligrams of citric acid, and 325 milligrams of aspirin. |
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| Connie Mack sells C Mickey Cochrane to Detroit for $100,000 and catcher Johnny Pasek. Cochrane is named Detroit manager. The spark of the Athletics' championship teams of 1929-30-31, he had an average batting mark of .346 for those three years. Led Detroit to two league championships and a World Series title in 1935." Cochrane's lifetime .320 average is the highest of any ML catcher. |
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| After a brief stint with Harry James, Sinatra joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1940 where he rose to fame as a singer. His vast appeal to the "bobby soxers," as teenage girls were called, revealed a whole new audience for popular music, which had appealed mainly to adults up to that time. It was as a featured singer with Dorsey that Sinatra made his earliest film appearances, such as the 1942 Eleanor Powell/Red Skelton comedy, Ship Ahoy in which the uncredited singer performed a couple of songs. He later signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist with some success, particularly during the musicians' recording strikes. Vocalists were not part of the musician union and were allowed to record during the ban by using a cappella vocal backing. |
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| In 1944, owing to player shortages caused by World War II, the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers merged for one year and were known as the "Card-Pitts," or derisively as the "Carpets" as they were winless that season. |
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| "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened Dec. 3 1947 and sent shockwaves through the theater community. The play opened to a half-hour's standing ovation. One reviewer wrote, "'Williams is certainly the Eugene O'Neill of teh present period.'" The play ran for 855 performances. |
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| The Pumpkin Papers consist of sixty-five pages of retyped secret State Department documents, four
pages in Hiss's own handwriting of copied State Department cables, and five rolls of developed and undeveloped 35 mm
film. The film included fifty-eight frames, mostly photos of State and Navy Department documents. The name "Pumpkin Papers" comes from the fact that the rolls of 35 mm film were found wrapped in waxed paper inside a hollowed-out pumpkin on Whittaker Chambers's Maryland farm. In response to a HUAC subpoena, Chambers on the evening of December 2, 1948 dramatically led two HUAC investigators to the patch, where the film had been placed by Chambers only the previous day. |
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| The director of the WACs, Colonel Mary A. Hallaren, became the first commissioned female officer in the U.S. Army. The WACs still were not equal. They were limited in numbers, had no command authority over men, were restricted from combat training and duties, had additional restrictions on claiming dependents, and aside from their Director, no woman could be promoted above the rank of lieutenant colonel. |
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| It was producer Lee Gillette who thought of teaming Wakely up with songstress Margaret Whiting in what proved to be a very successful partnership. Their first song together, the infidelity story "Slippin' Around," set the pattern for their partnership, the effervescent Whiting and the smooth, laid-back Wakely -- who, by that time, was becoming known as the Bing Crosby of country & western music -- balancing each other perfectly. "Slippin' Around" spent 17 weeks at the number one spot on the country charts and a week at the number one pop chart position, and the two had nine subsequent hits together, including "Wedding Bells" and "When You and I Were Young Maggie Blues." |
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| After the Cleveland Browns, in their first NFL game, beat the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles, 35-10, Philadelphia coach Greasy Neale criticized them for passing too much. In a rainy rematch, the Browns didn't throw a single pass but still beat the Eagles, 13-7. Ironically, Cleveland's only touchdown came when Warren Lahr intercepted one of Philadelphia's 23 pass attempts and ran it into the endzone. Cleveland Browns' Horace Gillom sets club record with 12 punts |
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| The original "Kismet" was a huge hit in 1953. Based on the works of 19th Century Russian composer Alexander Borodin (the opera Prince Igor), Kismet's plot was very loosely based on a 1911 melodrama, revamped into a comedy by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis. The original starred the Alfred Drake as Hajj, the beggar poet of ancient Baghdad. |
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| But after the Eisenhower administration took power, McCarthy continued his attacks, even suggesting that the President's nominees for important ambassador positions were disloyal or subversive. Republican leaders could not persuade McCarthy, a member of their own party, to halt his attacks on a Republican administration. The news media gave McCarthy significant attention, but his charges never led to a single indictment or conviction. "I just won't get into a pissing contest with that skunk," the President declared. |
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| In eleven days following its release, 400,000 singles are sold. Demand for the song was so great, that Capitol geared all its pressing plants nationwide to meet the deluge of orders. In Twenty-four days, over one million records were sold, and "Sixteen Tons" became the fastest-selling single in Capitol's history. By November, it had captured the top spot on every major record chart in the country, and by December 15 (less than two months after it's release) more than 2,000,000 copies were sold, making it the most successful single ever recorded. |
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| A high school legend at famed Overbrook High School in the heart of Philadelphia, Chamberlain was the most coveted schoolboy recruit in the country. He opted for the storied basketball program at the University of Kansas, where he led the Jayhawks into the 1957 NCAA finals, losing in triple overtime to top-ranked North Carolina. Chamberlain scored 52 points and grabbed 31 rebounds against Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1956. |
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| Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. Robert Goulet also got rave reviews. "Camelot" had a run of 873 performances. "Camelot" was the follow up to Lerner and Loewe's smash hit "My Fair Lady". This musical is based on T.H. White's novel "The Once and Future King". Seven weeks after its Toronto opening, "Camelot" opened in New York, on December 3, 1960 and was appraised as being the most lavish spectacle ever seen on Broadway. It had the biggest advanced sales in Broadway history up to that time. |
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| Presley's career momentum was interrupted by a two-year Army stint in Germany, where he met his future wife, Priscilla. For much of the Sixties, he occupied himself with movie-making and soundtrack-recording. His albums of sacred songs, such as How Great Thou Art, stand out from this otherwise fallow period. |
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| Oilers defeat previously unbeaten San Diego 33-13 before Houston's largest crowd, 37,845. Charles Hennigan catches 10 passes for 214 yards and three TDs. George Blanda hits on 20 of 34 attempts for 351 yards and four TDs and kicks AFL-record 55-yard field goal. |
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| Their famed manager, Brian Epstein discovered the Beatles when, as manager of a Liverpool record store, he was stumped by a request for a single called "My Bonnie". He didn't have the record in stock, and after doing a little research, discovered who was responsible for the single - Tony Sheridan with the Beatles. At that point in their career, the Beatles were a leather-clad rock cover band who were known for drinking and spewing obsenities on stage. Epstein persuaded them that they needed him as a manager and, after John agreed, completely changed their image. He made them clean up their stage act and wear suits everywhere they went. He promised they'd be bigger than Elvis. |
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| The New Vaudeville Band could almost be described as the band that never was- or at least nearly never was. They were almost entirely the brainchild of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Geoff Stephens. He had written a good song, 'Winchester Cathedral' and thought it would sound best if played in the fashion of a 1930s dance band. So he hired a group of session musicians and recorded it. |
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| Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first human heart transplant on 3 December 1967. The patient, 53-year-old dentist Louis Washkansky, was given the heart of a 25-year-old auto crash victim named Denise Darvall. Washkansky died from infection 18 days later, but the transplant made Barnard one of the world's most famous surgeons. |
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| The 20th Century Limited was a passenger train operated by the New York Central (NYC) railroad.
The train was operated between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago,
Illinois, along the railroad's famed "Water Level Route" along the Hudson River and the southern shore of Lake Erie.
The NYC inaugurated this train as direct competition to the Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited. Making few
station stops along the way and as few breaks for water and coal as possible, trains on this route routinely could
make the 800-mile journey in only fifteen and one-half hours. Known for its speed as well as for its style, passengers walked to and from the train on a plush, red carpet which was rolled out at station stops and specially designed for the 20th Century Limited. The locomotive and passenger cars were designed in an Art Deco style in blues and grays. |
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| Derek Clayton was the 1st to finish a marathon in under 2 hours 10 minutes when he ran 2 hours 9:36.4 on December 3, 1967 in Fukuoka, Japan. |
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| The Baseball Rules Committee made several major changes to the game resulting in the most modifications to be implemented at one time in the history of the game. They included: the pitcher's mound being lowered from fiteen inches to ten, the strike zone being decreased from the shoulders-to-knees to armpits-to-knees, tighter enforcement and penalties for illegal pitches, extra-inning ties resuming from the point of interruption instead of being replayed and finally the study of artificial surfaces on ball fields and the pros and cons of turf. |
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| The O'Kaysions got their start on a small first-time North Carolina record label, where they recorded their biggest hit "Girl Watcher" . The record became a regional hit and was picked up by ABC Records before becoming a national hit. "Girl Watcher" was listed in the Top 10 for nine weeks and in the Top 100 for twenty-six weeks. |
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| On November 26, 1973 the encounter with Jupiter began. On that date Pioneer 10 detected a sudden change in the inter-planatary medium as the spacecraft crossed the point -the bow shock- at which the magnetic presence of Jupiter first becomes evident. At noon, the next day, Pioneer 10 entered the Jovian magnetosphere at a distance of 96 RJ from the planet. By December 2, the spacecraft had crossed the orbit of Callisto, the outermost of the large Galilean satellites. December 3, 1973 Pioneer 10 reached its closest point to Jupiter, 130,000 Km above ten Jovian cloud tops. |
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| "Rumours", by Fleetwood Mac, was replaced at the top spot by the album
"Simple Dreams", sung by Linda Ronstadt. "Rumours" proved that the success of Fleetwood Mac was no fluke. Christine McVie sounded particularly vital on "You Make Loving Fun," and "Over My Head". The Byrds touch is Lindsey Buckingham's province, and it's used most successfully on the single, "Go Your Own Way," which employs acoustic guitar backing throughout. Mick Fleetwood's drumming adds a new dimension to this style. Simple Dreams follows the formula concocted by producer Peter Asher almost five years ago -- a dash of country, a dash of J.D. Souther, a dash of old-time rock 'n' roll. The duet with Dolly Parton on "I Never Will Marry" will break your heart. The inclusion of Roy Orbison and Joe Melson's "Blue Bayou" and the Mexican-flavored Warren Zevon tune "Carmelita" suggests that Ronstadt is trying to follow in Jimmy Buffett's country-and-ocean wake. | |
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| Boone is best known for her 1977 cover of the movie theme of "You Light Up My Life," which sold 4 million copies and spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the charts. (The song was lip-synced in the film by Didi Conn, performing to vocals recorded by Kacey Cisyk.) Boone also reached No. 1 on the country charts a few years later with "Are You on the Road to Lovin' Me Again". She was a major presence on the Christian-music scene in the 1980s, winning two Dove Awards to add to her three Grammys. |
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| The December 3, 1979 Who concert tragedy in Cincinnati, Ohio, ranks as the most horrific rock concert incident in the United States. Eleven rock fans were crushed to death and scores injured because of gross crowd management failings. |
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| In his 42 years as head coach of the Blue Demons from 1942-84, the man known simply as "Coach" compiled a record of 724-354 (.671). In his storied career, 13 of his teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament and seven of his squads played in the National Invitational Tournament. Coach Ray Meyer won his 700th college game when the freshman center Dallas Comegys scored 21 points to spark DePaul to a 69-66 victory over Illinois State. Meyer, 69 years old, became only the fifth major-college coach and the first in 20 years to reach the 700-victory plateau |
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| A founding member of the Commodores, he was the heart of that group's most memorable music, and steered the group from its funky roots to an uber-popular pop/soul sound, resulting in hit after hit from 1976-81. If Lionel Richie made its creator a star, the follow-up Can't Slow Down made him a superstar. Boasting five Top Ten singles, including the number ones "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello," Can't Slow Down hit number one, eventually sold over ten million copies, and won the 1984 Grammy for Album of the Year. |
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| Harry Stevens was 103 years old when he married Thelma Lucas at the Caravilla Retirement Home in Beloit, Wisconsin, on Dec 3, 1984. Like Munro, Stevens spouse was 19 years his senior; Thelma was 84. |
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| Off the coast of Malta in a Soviet ship named the Maxim Gorky, U.S. President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met within weeks of the fall of the Berlin Wall to discuss the rapid changes in Europe. Bush expressed support for perestroika and other reforms in the Eastern bloc, and both men recognized the lessening of tensions that had defined the Cold War. No agreements were signed at the summit, but to some it marked the end of the Cold War. |
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| George Brett pinch hits a single in Kansas City's finale, a 5-2 loss to Cleveland, to end the season at .329 and win the AL batting crown, his 3rd in three decades. Willie McGee's .335 wins the National League batting title despite having been traded out of the league in August. He hits .324 overall. McGee signed as a free agent with the Giants, ending his 3-month stint across the bay with Oakland. |
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| Boyz II Men are the most commercially successful RB group of all time. They've sold ludicrous numbers of records and been involved in three of the longest-running number-one pop singles in history, and they've done it as a unit of equals. In fact, their four-part harmonies blend so smoothly that most of the general public would be hard pressed to name any of the group's individual members. |
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| "1776" is the title of a Broadway musical and the 1972 film. Peter Stone wrote its book and Sherman Edwards the music and lyrics. Peter H. Hunt directed the movie, which starred William Daniels as John Adams, Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson and Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin. Although it tells the story of what happened at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1776 leading up to the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence and it accurately portrays the serious personal and political issues at stake -- usually in the characters' own words, written by them at the time -- it remains a musical comedy. |
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| Latrell Sprewell will live in infamy as the player who attacked and threatened to kill
his coach. During a Golden State Warriors practice in 1997, Sprewell snapped, choking P.J. Carlesimo before returning
about 20 minutes later to continue the assault. NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended Sprewell for 82 games before
an arbitrator reduced the sentence to 68 games, costing Sprewell $6.4 million and his shoe deal with Converse. Sprewell deemed the punishment too harsh. "I wasn't choking P.J. that hard," Sprewell told "60 Minutes". "I mean, he could breathe." | |
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| Tori Murden, a 36-year-old adventuress from Louisville, Ky., rowed American Pearl through tranquil waters to Fort-du-Bas on the southeast coast of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. It took 81 days, 2,961 miles and one punishing tropical storm after leaving Los Gigantes on Tenirife, the largest island in the Azores off the coast of Africa. Having tried again from the opposite direction, armed with the same grit and determination and willingness to face the unknown, she succeeded. It was approximately the same route Columbus sailed on his second western voyage in 1493-but without the manpower and companionship he enjoyed. |
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1678 Edmund Halley receives Master of Arts degree
from Queen's College, Oxford
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1775 First official US flag raising (aboard naval
vessel Alfred)
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1834 First US dental society organized (New York)
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1835 First US mutual fire insurance company issues
first policy (Rhode Island)
1847 Frederick Douglass publishes first issue
of his newspaper "North Star"
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1901 Milwaukee franchaise moves to St Louis
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1907 George M. Cohan's musical "Talk of the
Town" premieres in New York
More ...
1914 Walter Johnson accepts money from Federal
League
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1922 First successful technicolor movie (Tall
of the Sea), shown in New York
More ...
1923 First Congressional open session broadcast
via radio (Washington DC)
1924 Prizefighter Jack Sharkey loses his boxing
license
More ...
1925 "Concerto in F," by George Gershwin,
premieres at Carnegie Hall
More ...
1931 Alka Seltzer goes on sale
More ...
1933 Joe Lilliard QBs Chicago Cardinals; last
NFL black until 1946
1933 Connie Mack sells Mickey Cochrane to Detroit
Tigers for $100,000
More ...
1938 AAU's decides to continue linear measuring
system over metric
1944 Frank Sinatra was in the Columbia Records
studio recording "Old Man River"
More ...
1944 NFL Cardinals-Pittsburgh merger dissolves
More ...
1947 Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar
Named Desire" premieres in New York NY
More ...
1948 "Pumpkin Papers" come to light
(claimed to be from Alger Hiss)
More ...
1948 First US woman army officer not in medical
corps sworn-in
More ...
1949 "Slipping Around" by Margaret Whiting
& Jimmy Wakely topped the charts.
More ...
1950 Cleveland Browns last NFL team with no-pass
game (beat Philadelphia 13-7)
More ...
1953 "Kismet" opens at Ziegfeld Theater
NYC for 583 performances
More ...
1953 Eisenhower criticizes McCarthy for saying
communists are in Republican party
More ...
1955 "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie
Ford topped the charts
More ...
1956 Wilt Chamberlain's first collegiate basketball
game (scores 52)
More ...
1960 "Camelot" opened at the Majestic
Theatre in New York City
More ...
1960 "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by
Elvis Presley topped the charts
More ...
1961 George Blanda of Houston Oilers kicks 55-yard
field goal
More ...
1961 Beatles meet future manager Brian Epstein
More ...
1966 "Winchester Cathedral" by the New
Vaudeville Band topped the charts
More ...
1967 First human heart transplant performed (Dr
Christiaan Barnard, South Africa)
More ...
1967 Final run of "20th Century Limited",
famed New York-Chicago luxury train
More ...
1967 Derek Clayton runs world record marathon
(2:09:36.4)
More ...
1968 Baseball rules change to favor hitters
More ...
1968 The O’Kaysions received a gold record
for "Girl Watcher"
More ...
1973 The National Hockey League put an end to
the reserve clause in future player contracts.
1973 Pioneer 10 passes Jupiter (first fly-by of
an outer planet)
More ...
1977 "Simple Dreams", sung
by Linda Ronstadt captures #1 spot
More ...
1977 "You Light Up My Life" by Debbie
Boone topped the charts
More ...
1979 11 trampled to death at Cincinnati Who concert
More ...
1979 Christie's auctions a thimble for a record
$18,400
1983 In his last season as basketball coach
of DePaul, Ray Meyer won game #700
More ...
1983 "All Night Long (All Night)" by
Lionel Richie topped the charts
More ...
1984 Oldest groom - Harry Stevens, 103, weds Thelma
Lucas, 83, in Wisconsin
More ...
1988 "Baby I Love Your Way - Freebird Medley"
by Will to Power topped the charts
1989 George Bush & Mikhail Gorbachev end summit
in Malta
More ...
1990 NL batting champ Willie McGee signs as a
free agent with the Giants
More ...
1994 "On Bended Knee" by Boyz II Men
topped the charts
More ...
1996 James and Jovee Coulter patented a glow in
the dark glove.
1997 "1776" opens at Gershwin Theater
NYC
More ...
1997 Latrell Sprewell attacks his coach P J Carlesimo
More ...
1999 Tori Murden of the US rows across the Atlantic Ocean.
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