Unix Timestamp: 1070323200
Tuesday, December 2. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Vanuatu Prime Minister Edward Natapei is ousted in a vote of no confidence while traveling enroute to Cancun, Mexico. Sato Kilman becomes Prime Minister. //www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11897862 (BBC News)

Political crisis in Thailand: After weeks of opposition-led protests, the Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolves the governing People\\'s Power Party and two coalition member parties, and bans leaders of the parties, including Prime MinisterSomchai Wongsawat, from politics for five years. As such, Wongsawat promptly resigns and is replaced by Deputy Prime MinisterChaovarat Chanweerakul as caretaker Prime Minister.

Four people are killed at the Zasyadko coal mine in eastern Ukraine where 101 people were killed twelve days earlier in the country's worst mining accident. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7124192.stm (BBC)

Rescuers in the Philippines continue to look for survivors of Typhoon Durian. //www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1802733.htm (ABC News Australia)

Ed Stelmach is elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and will become the next premier of Alberta, replacing outgoing leader Ralph Klein and defeating competitors Jim Dinning and Ted Morton. //www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/03/alta-tories.html (CBC)

Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to that point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history).

Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after Dynegy canceled a this was the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States).

A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.

A small bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. The bombing was a field test done by Ramzi Yousef to test explosives that would have been used in Project Bojinka.

The Australian government agrees to pay reparations to indigenous Australians who were displaced during the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s.

A runaway Santa Fe freight train rear ends a Union Pacific train at the bottom of Cajon Pass, California.

The trial of former President Mengistu begins in Ethiopia.

British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces that Myra Hindley will serve a whole life tariff for the Moors Murders of the 1960s.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders troops into Chechnya.

Fred West, 53, a builder living in Gloucester, is remanded in custody, charged with murdering 12 people (including two of his own daughters) whose bodies are mostly found buried at his house in Cromwell Street. His wife Rose West, 41, is charged with 10 murders. Police believe that the murders took place between 1967 and 1987, and suspect that they may have killed up to 30 people.

At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 (a McDonnell Douglas DC-9) collides with Northwest Airlines Flight 299 (a Boeing 727) on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers on Flight 1482.

The German federal election, the first election held since German reunification is won by Helmut Kohl, who becomes Chancellor of Germany.

Mary Robinson begins her term as President of Ireland, becoming the first female to hold this office.

"Hustler Magazine v. Falwell" is argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bob Hawke's government is re-elected in Australia with a reduced majority.

British Telecom is privatised.

Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 8,000 people outright and injures over half a million (with more later dying from their injuries the death toll is now 23,000+) in the worst industrial disaster in history.

At the University of Utah, 61-year-old retired dentist Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (he lives for 112 days with the device).

American missionary Jean Donovan and three Roman Catholic nuns are murdered by a military death squad in El Salvador while volunteering to do charity work during the country's civil war.

In Laos, the communist party of the Pathet Lao takes over Vientiane and defeat the Kingdom of Laos which ends the Laotian Civil War but the ongoing Insurgency in Laos begins with the Pathet Lao fighting the Hmongs, Royalist-in-exile and the Right-wings.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army kidnaps Jean McConville in Belfast.

Over $10,000 cash is found in the purse of Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt's wife.

United AirlinesBoeing 737 from Washington National to Chicago Midway crashes short of the runway, killing 43 of 61 passengers and 2 people on the ground.

"Apollo 17" (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt), the last manned Moon mission to date, is launched.

International Human Rights Day is proclaimed by the United Nations.

Imelda Marcos is stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant her bodyguards shoot him.

Edward Gough Whitlam becomes the first Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years. He is sworn in on 5 December and his first action using executive power is to withdraw all Australian personnel from the Vietnam War.

Six Persian Gulf sheikdoms found the United Arab Emirates.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle, Washington, to New York City.

U Thant agrees to serve a second term as U.N. Secretary General.

Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to make a non-optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announces he is a Marxist-Leninist, and that Cuba will adopt socialism.

Malpasset Dam in southern France collapses and water flows over the town of Frejus, killing 412.

The United Kingdom and Iran reform diplomatic relations.

he International Whaling Commission was signed in Washington to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.

A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile, causin numerous fatalities (though the exact death toll is unresolved, as the bombing raid itself causes hundreds of deaths too).

3 December ndash In reprisal for an act of sabotage, the SS and Gestapo execute 100 tam wokers.

Holocaust: In Warsaw, 2 women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz, risk their lives by setting up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews.

Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, The Italian navigator has landed in the new world is then sent to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt).

WWII: USAAF bombers make their first raid on Italy.

WWII ndash Attack on Pearl Harbor: The code message Climb Mount Niitaka is transmitted to the Japanese task force, indicating that negotiations have broken down and that the attack is to be carried out according to plan.

La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City.

Great Depression: President Herbert Hoover goes before the U.S. Congress to ask for a $150 million public works program to help create jobs and to stimulate the American economy.

Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.

British prime minister Stanley Baldwin ends the martial law that had been declared due to general strike.

, the first all-big-gun warship, is commissioned.

The St. Petersburg Soviet urges a run on the banks: the attempt fails and the executive committee is arrested.

During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocularSolar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind. Accompanying the classical planets in this grand conjunction are Uranus (technically visible unaided in pollution-free skies), Ceres and Pallas.

Augusta, KY: Augusta High School burns down due to a heating plant failure.

Philippine–American War ndash Battle of Tirad Pass: (The Filipino Thermopylae) General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops are able to guard the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo before being wiped out.

The A.C. Milan is founded.

The first volume of "Das Kapital" is published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Paraguayan War.

1867–1873 ndash Chinese, Scandinavian and Irish immigrants lay of railroad tracks in the USA.

Pedro Figueredo creates the Cuban national anthem, "El Himno de Bayamo".

In a New York City theater, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.

The Wasps Rugby Football Club is formed in Middlesex, England.

At Fountain Point, Michigan, an artesian water spring begins to gush continuously.

Gorse is naturalised in New Zealand, where it soon becomes the worst invasive weed.

The modern rose is born, with the introduction of Rosa 'La France' by Jean-Baptiste Guillot (1803–1882).

The Prohibition National Committee is formed in the United States.

Yellow fever kills 3,093 in New Orleans.

South African diamond fields are discovered.

Pierre Michaux invents the front wheel-driven velocipede, the first mass-produced bicycle.

Clarke School for the Deaf in Western Massachusetts opens its doors for the first time, becoming the first school for the deaf in the United States to teach its children how to communicate using the oral method.

The first U.S. Navyhospital ships enter service.

Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

National Portrait Gallery, London, established.

Napoleon III becomes Emperor of the French.

In what amounts to a coup, Louis Napoleon, president of France, dissolves the French National Assembly and declares a new constitution to extend his term. A year later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.

EmperorFerdinand I of Austria abdicates in favor of his nephew, Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia.

Manifest Destiny: U.S. President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

Olbers\\' paradox is described by the GermanastronomerHeinrich Wilhelm Olbers.

Beginning of the first Anglo-Ashanti war.

Jackson Male Academy, precursor of Union University, is founded in Tennessee.

The Oxford Union is founded.

James Monroe first introduces the Monroe Doctrine in the State of the Union Address, declaring that any European attempts to recolonize the Americas would be considered a hostile act towards the United States.

Napoleonic Wars ndash Battle of Austerlitz: French troops under Napoleon decisively defeat a joint Russo-Austrian force.

At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years (the Napoleonic Code is adopted).

Childsburgh, the Orange County, North Carolina county seat laid out as Corbin Town in 1754 and renamed in 1759, is renamed Hillsborough in honor of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returns to Salzburg after touring Paris and London with his father.

Sweden introduces its Freedom of the Press Act, becoming the first country of the world to protect freedom of the press in the Constitution, and the first country in the world to grant a wide-ranging freedom of information.

What is now England's oldest surviving Georgian theatre is constructed in Stockton-on-Tees.

The Burmese begin to invade the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya.

The brine shrimp "Artemia salina" is first described, in Linnaeus' "Systema Naturæ".

The second Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of England is destroyed by fire.

Joseph Black describes his discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air) and magnesium in a paper to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh.Published 1756.

Construction of the Puning Temple complex in Chengde, China is complete, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.

Wolsey, the clothes manufacturer, is established in Leicester, England the business celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2005.

The Kingdom of Prussia captures Jihlava.

Spain completes the construction of Fort Matanzas in the Matanzas Inlet, approximately south of St. Augustine, Florida.

Rome decrees that Roman ceremonial practice in Latin (not in Chinese) is to be the law for Chinese missions.

Henry Fielding publishes "Joseph Andrews".

Anders Celsius proposes the Celsius temperature scale (see 1741).

The Afghan tribes unite as a monarchy.

Eisenach, Germany builds its "Stadtschloss" (city castle).

Colin Maclaurin publishes his "Treatise on Fluxions".

In Peru, Juan Santos takes the name Atahualpa II and begins an ill-fated rebellion against the Spanish rule.

James Bradley succeeds Edmond Halley as Astronomer Royal.

Charles Jervas's English translation of "Don Quixote" is published posthumously. Through a printer's error, the translator's name is printed as "'Charles Jarvis"', leading the book to forever be known as "the Jarvis translation". It is acclaimed as the most faithful English rendering of the novel made up to that time.

The "Pennsylvania Journal" first appears in print in the United States.

The Lopukhina Conspiracy arises at the Russian court.

Daniel le Pelley succeeds Nicolas le Pelley as Seigneur of Sark.

Christian Goldbach formulates Goldbach's conjecture.

The University of Erlangen is founded.

Molde, Norway, becomes a city.

St Paul's Cathedral is opened in London.

St Paul's Cathedral is opened in London.

The University of Leipzig opens.

As part of an offensive against usury in north-western Europe, the pope Innocent IV releves the city of Beauvais from its obligations to its creditors.

King Louis IX of France expels all Jews from France.

Manfred of Sicily defeats the army of Pope Innocent IV at Foggia.

King Afonso III of Portugal holds the first session of the "Cortes" (Portugal's general assembly composed of nobles, members of the middle class, and representatives from all municipalities) in Leiria.

The Horses of Saint Mark, once supposed to have adorned the Arch of Trajan in ancient Rome, are installed at Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice.

Battle of Adrianople: The Byzantines defeat Bulgaria.

The Horses of Saint Mark, once supposed to have adorned the Arch of Trajan in ancient Rome, are installed at Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice.

The Ghibelline town of Pistoia is taken over by GuelphFlorence.