03 December History
- 1468 - Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano succeed their father, Piero de Medici, as rulers of Florence, Italy.
- 1762 - France cedes to Spain all lands west of the Mississippi–the territory known as Upper Louisiana.
- 1818 - Illinois admitted into the Union as the 21st state.
- 1800 - The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Hohenlinden, near Munich.
- 1847 - Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney establish the North Star, and anti-slavery paper.
- 1862 - Confederate raiders attack a Federal forage train on the Hardin Pike near Nashville, Tenn.
- 1863 - Confederate General James Longstreet moves his army east and north toward Greeneville. This withdrawal marks the end of the Fall Campaign in Tennessee.
- 1864 - Major General William Tecumseh Sherman meets with slight resistance from Confederate troops at Thomas Station on his march to the sea.
- 1906 - The U.S. Supreme Court orders Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders extradited to Idaho for trial in the Steunenberg murder case.
- 1915 - The United States expels German attaches on spy charges.
- 1916 - French commander Joseph Joffre is dismissed after his failure at the Somme. General Robert Nivelle is the new French commander in chief.
- 1918 - The Allied Conference ends in London where they decide that Germany must pay for the war.
- 1925 - The League of Nations orders Greece to pay an indemnity for the October invasion of Bulgaria.
- 1926 - British reports claim that German soldiers are being trained in the Soviet Union.
- 1950 - The Chinese close in on Pyongyang, Korea, and UN forces withdraw southward.
- 1965 - The National Council of Churches asks the United States to halt the massive bombings in North Vietnam.
- 1977 - The State Department proposes the admission of 10,000 more Vietnamese refugees to the United States.
- 1979 - Eleven are dead and eight injured in a mad rush to see a rock band (The Who) at a concert in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- 1984 - Toxic gas leaks from a Union Carbide plant and results in the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India.
- 1989 - Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev announce the official end to the Cold War at a meeting in Malta.
03 December Birthdays
- 1755 - Gilbert Stewart, portrait painter.
- 1826 - George B. McClellan, Union general who defeated Robert E. Lee at Antietam and ran against Abraham Lincoln for president.
- 1833 - Carlos Juan Finlay, Cuban epidemiologist.
- 1857 - Joseph Conrad, Polish-born novelist (Heart of Darkness, Nostromo).
- 1922 - Sven Nykvist, Swedish cinematographer.
- 1925 - Jean-Luc Godard, French film director (Breathless).
- 1933 - Paul Crutzen, Dutch chemist.