December 2nd

The House voted to censure Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., for financial and fundraising misconduct.

Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.

A power-sharing cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat down together for the first time in Northern Ireland.

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

Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily won the first free all-German elections since 1932.

Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head an Muslim nation.

Doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center performed the first implant of a permanent artificial heart in a human. Barney Clark lived 112 days with the device.

Four American churchwomen were raped, murdered and buried in El Salvador. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.).

Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established.

The Boeing 747 jumbo jet debuted.

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

The Senate voted to condemn Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.".

The first controlled nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated at the University of Chicago.

LaGuardia Airport in New York City opens its doors. The airport was named after New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia. American Airlines was the first carrier to regularly provide passenger service.

First skull of Peking man found, 50 km out of Peking at Tsjoe Koe Tien.

Abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harper's Ferry.

Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

President James Monroe outlined his famous doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.

Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor of France in Paris by Pope Pius VII.