On Dec. 2, 1804, Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
In 1823 President James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1859 militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harper’s Ferry the previous October.
In 1923 soprano Maria Callas was born in New York.
In 1939 New York’s LaGuardia Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago landed at 1 minute past midnight.
In 1942 a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time, at the University of Chicago.
In 1954 the Senate voted to condemn Wisconsin Republican Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
In 1980 four American churchwomen were raped, murdered and buried outside San Salvador. (Five national guardsmen were convicted in the killings.)
In 1981 singer Britney Spears was born in Kentwood, La.
In 1982 in the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device.
In 2001 in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history, Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection.
