On Dec. 4, 1816, James Monroe was elected the fifth president of the United States.
In 1875 German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague in the present-day Czech Republic.
In 1918 President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference.
In 1942 U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.
In 1978 San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone.
In 1991 Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest-held of Western hostages in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years. .
In 1992 President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.
In 1993 rock musician and composer Frank Zappa died in Los Angeles at 52.
In 1997 the NBA suspended Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo.
In 2003 President Bush scrapped import tariffs he had imposed earlier to help the battered U.S. steel industry.
