12 History Lessons + 6 Births & 7 Deaths for December 3, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1800 – Battle of Hohenlinden: French forces under General Moreau decisively defeat the Austrians near Munich, helping force an armistice that ends the War of the Second Coalition.
- 1901 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt sends a lengthy State of the Union message to Congress urging that powerful business trusts be regulated “within reasonable limits.”3
- 1910 – French engineer Georges Claude first publicly demonstrates modern neon lighting at the Paris Motor Show, paving the way for neon signs worldwide.
- 1947 – Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire premieres on Broadway, becoming one of the most influential American dramas of the 20th century.
- 1967 – Surgeon Christiaan Barnard performs the world’s first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1971 – Pakistan launches pre-emptive air strikes on India, marking the start of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which leads to the creation of Bangladesh.
- 1979 – Eleven fans are killed in a crowd crush outside Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum while trying to enter a concert by The Who, prompting changes to festival seating policies.
- 1984 – The Bhopal disaster begins as toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaks from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in India, killing thousands and injuring hundreds of thousands.
- 1989 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet off Malta and declare that the Cold War is coming to an end.
- 1992 – A test engineer sends the world’s first SMS text message (“Merry Christmas”) over the Vodafone network; the UN also begins observing International Day of Persons with Disabilities on this date.
- 1994 – Sony releases the original PlayStation game console in Japan, launching a hugely successful global gaming brand.
- 1997 – Representatives of 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty in Canada, agreeing to ban anti-personnel landmines, although major powers like the U.S., Russia, and China do not sign.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1960 – Julianne Moore, American actress and children’s author, acclaimed for emotionally complex roles in films like Still Alice and Far from Heaven (65).
- 1960 – Daryl Hannah, American actress and environmental activist known for Splash, Blade Runner, and Kill Bill (65).
- 1968 – Brendan Fraser, American-Canadian actor and Oscar winner whose work ranges from The Mummy franchise to The Whale (57).
- 1979 – Tiffany Haddish, American stand-up comedian and actress who broke out in Girls Trip and has since become a major comedy star (46).
- 1985 – Amanda Seyfried, American actress and singer known for Mean Girls, Mamma Mia!, and her Emmy-winning turn in The Dropout (40).
- 1994 – Lil Baby (Dominique Armani Jones), American rapper whose albums and mixtapes have made him a leading voice in modern trap and Southern hip-hop (31).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1894 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist and travel writer, author of Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (44).
- 1910 – Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader and founder of Christian Science and The Christian Science Monitor (89).
- 1999 – Madeline Kahn, American actress and comedian famed for Mel Brooks films like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein (57).
- 1999 – Scatman John (John Paul Larkin), American musician who fused scat singing with Eurodance on hits like “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” (57).
- 2000 – Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning American poet and longtime Illinois Poet Laureate, a major voice in 20th-century Black literature (83).
- 2011 – Dev Anand, legendary Indian film actor, producer, and director known as Bollywood’s “Evergreen Star” (88).
- 2015 – Scott Weiland, American rock singer and frontman of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, who died while on tour (48).
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