12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for December 2, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, ending the republican era that followed the French Revolution.
- 1823 – U.S. President James Monroe delivers his annual message to Congress, laying out the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers against further colonization in the Western Hemisphere.
- 1852 – The Second French Empire is formally established as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte becomes Emperor Napoleon III, transforming the French Republic into an empire.
- 1908 – The toddler Puyi is formally enthroned in Beijing as the Xuantong Emperor, becoming the last emperor of China.
- 1939 – LaGuardia Airport in New York City opens for commercial operations, quickly becoming one of the busiest urban airports in the United States.
- 1942 – Physicist Enrico Fermi and his team achieve the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, ushering in the nuclear age.
- 1954 – The U.S. Senate votes 67–22 to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy for conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions,” effectively ending his era of anti-communist hearings.
- 1970 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially begins operation, consolidating federal environmental responsibilities in a single agency.
- 1971 – The United Arab Emirates is formally founded as a federation of six emirates (a seventh joins in 1972), marking the birth of the modern UAE.
- 1982 – Surgeons at the University of Utah implant the first permanent artificial heart (the Jarvik-7) into patient Barney Clark, who survives 112 days with the device.
- 1984 – The Bhopal disaster begins overnight in India as toxic gas leaks from a Union Carbide pesticide plant, in what becomes one of the world’s worst industrial accidents.
- 2001 – Energy giant Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, triggering one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history and sweeping reforms in accounting and corporate governance.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1945 – Penelope Spheeris, American film director and producer best known for The Decline of Western Civilization documentaries and Wayne’s World (80).
- 1959 – Boman Irani, Indian actor and comedian, a prominent character actor in Hindi cinema with roles in films like Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and 3 Idiots (66).
- 1968 – Lucy Liu, American actress and producer, known for Ally McBeal, Charlie’s Angels, and Kill Bill, and a trailblazer for Asian American representation in Hollywood (57).
- 1973 – Monica Seles, Serbian-American former tennis star, nine-time Grand Slam singles champion and former world No. 1 (52).
- 1978 – Nelly Furtado, Canadian singer-songwriter behind hits like “I’m Like a Bird,” “Promiscuous,” and “Say It Right” (47).
- 1981 – Britney Spears, American pop icon often dubbed the “Princess of Pop,” whose albums like …Baby One More Time and Oops!… I Did It Again defined late-’90s and early-2000s pop (44).
- 1991 – Charlie Puth, American singer-songwriter and producer known for “See You Again,” “Attention,” and his perfect-pitch pop craftsmanship (34).
Today’s Deaths
- 1814 – Marquis de Sade, French nobleman and controversial writer whose explicit, transgressive works gave rise to the term “sadism” (74).
- 1859 – John Brown, American abolitionist whose violent resistance to slavery and raid on Harpers Ferry led to his execution and further inflamed tensions before the U.S. Civil War (59).
- 1986 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-American bandleader, actor, and producer best known as Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy and as a pioneering TV studio head (69).
- 1990 – Aaron Copland, American composer whose works like Appalachian Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man helped define a distinctly “American” classical sound (90).
- 1993 – Pablo Escobar, infamous Colombian drug lord and leader of the Medellín Cartel, killed in a rooftop shootout with security forces in Medellín (47).
- 2014 – Jean Béliveau, legendary Montreal Canadiens centre and Hockey Hall of Famer, regarded as one of the greatest players in NHL history (83).
- 2020 – Rafer Johnson, American decathlete, 1960 Olympic gold medalist, and later humanitarian and actor, who also lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1984 Los Angeles Games (86).
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