DECEMBER 7th

On this date in:
1787	Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1796	Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.
1836	Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.
1842	The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.
1963	Videotaped instant replay was used for the first time in a live sports telecast during the Army-Navy football game on CBS.
1972	America's last moon mission was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
1982	Convicted murderer Charlie Brooks became the first U.S. prisoner to be executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.
1985	Retired Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart died at age 70.
1988	An earthquake in northern Armenia claimed an estimated 25,000 lives.
1993	A gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 17. Colin Ferguson was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.
1995	A 746-pound probe from the Galileo spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was destroyed.
2001	Taliban forces abandoned their last bastion in Afghanistan, fleeing the southern city of Kandahar.
2002	Iraq denied it had weapons of mass destruction in a declaration to the United Nations.
2004	Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president.
2007	Baseball home run king Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty in San Francisco to charges he'd lied to federal investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs.

Article of the day

Pearl Harbor bombed

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

With diplomatic negotiations with Japan breaking down, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew that an imminent Japanese attack was probable, but nothing had been done to increase security at the important naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday morning, and many military personnel had been given passes to attend religious services off base. At 7:02 a.m., two radio operators spotted large groups of aircraft in flight toward the island from the north, but, with a flight of B-17s expected from the United States at the time, they were told to sound no alarm. Thus, the Japanese air assault came as a devastating surprise to the naval base.

Much of the Pacific fleet was rendered useless: Five of eight battleships, three destroyers, and seven other ships were sunk or severely damaged, and more than 200 aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded, many while valiantly attempting to repulse the attack. Japan's losses were some 30 planes, five midget submarines, and fewer than 100 men. Fortunately for the United States, all three Pacific fleet carriers were out at sea on training maneuvers. These giant aircraft carriers would have their revenge against Japan six months later at the Battle of Midway, reversing the tide against the previously invincible Japanese navy in a spectacular victory.

The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress and declared, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." After a brief and forceful speech, he asked Congress to approve a resolution recognizing the state of war between the United States and Japan. The Senate voted for war against Japan by 82 to 0, and the House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 388 to 1. The sole dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist who had also cast a dissenting vote against the U.S. entrance into World War I. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States, and the U.S. government responded in kind.

The American contribution to the successful Allied war effort spanned four long years and cost more than 400,000 American lives.

Today Birthdays

Susan Collins turns 56 years old today.

AP Photo/Joel Page Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, turns 56 years old today.

93 Eli Wallach Actor 77 Bobby Osborne Bluegrass singer 71 Thad Cochran U.S. senator, R-Miss. 68 Gerry Cheevers Hockey Hall of Famer 68 Carole Simpson Broadcast journalist 61 Johnny Bench Baseball Hall of Famer 60 Gary Morris Country singer 59 Tom Waits Rock singer, actor 53 Priscilla Barnes Actress 52 Larry Bird Basketball Hall of Famer 50 Tim Butler Rock musician (The Psychedelic Furs) 43 Jeffrey Wright Actor 42 C. Thomas Howell Actor 35 Terrell Owens Football player 33 Nicole Appleton Singer (All Saints) 32 Sunny Sweeney Country singer 31 Eric Chavez Baseball player 30 Shiri Appleby Actress 29 Sara Bareilles Singer 25 Fausto Carmona Baseball player 21 Aaron Carter Singer

DECEMBER 6th

On this date in:
1790	Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
1884	Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument.
1889	Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans at age 81.
1907	The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
1947	Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.
1957	AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
1957	America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
1969	A free concert by the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including a man who was stabbed by a Hell's Angel.
1973	House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.
1982	A bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing 11 soldiers and six civilians.
1989	Fourteen women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.
1992	Thousands of Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives.
1994	Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion.
1998	Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the Venezuelan government six years earlier, was elected president.
1999	SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling oxygen canisters blamed for a cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people.
2003	Army became the first team to finish 0-13 in major college football history after a 34-6 loss to Navy.
2004	Al-Qaida struck the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, with explosives and machine guns, killing nine people.
2006	The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded that President George W. Bush's war policies had failed in almost every regard, and said the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."

Article of the day

Washington Monument completed

On this day in 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid atop a tower of white marble, completing the construction of an impressive monument to the city's namesake and the nation's first president, George Washington.
As early as 1783, the infant U.S. Congress decided that a statue of George Washington, the great Revolutionary War general, should be placed near the site of the new Congressional building, wherever it might be. After then-President Washington asked him to lay out a new federal capital on the Potomac River in 1791, architect Pierre L'Enfant left a place for the statue at the western end of the sweeping National Mall (near the monument's present location).

It wasn't until 1832, however--33 years after Washington's death--that anyone really did anything about the monument. That year, a private Washington National Monument Society was formed. After holding a design competition and choosing an elaborate Greek temple-like design by architect Robert Mills, the society began a fundraising drive to raise money for the statue's construction. These efforts--including appeals to the nation's schoolchildren--raised some $230,000, far short of the $1 million needed. Construction began anyway, on July 4, 1848, as representatives of the society laid the cornerstone of the monument: a 24,500-pound block of pure white marble.

Six years later, with funds running low, construction was halted. Around the time the Civil War began in 1861, author Mark Twain described the unfinished monument as looking like a "hollow, oversized chimney." No further progress was made until 1876--the centennial of American independence--when President Ulysses S. Grant authorized construction to be completed.

Made of some 36,000 blocks of marble and granite stacked 555 feet in the air, the monument was the tallest structure in the world at the time of its completion in December 1884. In the six months following the dedication ceremony, over 10,000 people climbed the nearly 900 steps to the top of the Washington Monument. Today, an elevator makes the trip far easier, and more than 800,000 people visit the monument each year. A city law passed in 1910 restricted the height of new buildings to ensure that the monument will remain the tallest structure in Washington, D.C.--a fitting tribute to the man known as the "Father of His Country."

Today Birthdays

Lindsay Price turns 32 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actress Lindsay Price ("Lipstick Jungle") turns 32 years old today.

88 Dave Brubeck Jazz musician 67 Helen Cornelius Country singer 63 James Naughton Actor 62 Frankie Beverly R&B singer 60 Don Nickles Former U.S. senator, R-Okla. 60 JoBeth Williams Actress 55 Tom Hulce Actor 55 Kin Shriner Actor 55 Wil Shriner Actor 54 Miles Chapin Actor 53 Rick Buckler Rock musician (The Jam) 53 Tish Hinojosa Folk, country singer 53 Bill Lloyd Country singer 53 Steven Wright Comedian 52 Peter Buck Rock musician (R.E.M.) 47 David Lovering Rock musician (Pixies) 46 Janine Turner Actress ("Northern Exposure") 46 Ben Watt Rock musician (Everything But The Girl) 41 Judd Apatow Director ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up") 38 Ulf "Buddha" Ekberg Rock musician (Ace of Base) 37 Craig Brewer Director, screenwriter 32 Colleen Haskell TV personality ("Survivor")

DECEMBER 5th

On this date in:
1776	The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
1782	Martin Van Buren, the eighth U.S. president and the first to be born after the country was formed, was born in Kinderhook, N.Y.
1791	Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna at age 35.
1792	George Washington was re-elected president and John Adams was re-elected vice president.
1831	Former President John Quincy Adams took his seat as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
1848	President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.
1901	Movie producer Walt Disney was born in Chicago.
1955	The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO.
1994	Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in four decades.
1996	Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan questioned whether the stock market was overvalued, saying in a speech in Washington, "How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly inflated asset values?"
2002	Senate Republican leader Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond's pro-segregation 1948 presidential campaign. The ensuing uproar led to Lott's resignation from the Senate leadership.
2006	New York became the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants.
2007	A teenage gunman went on a shooting rampage at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., killing six store employees and two customers; Robert A. Hawkins, 19, then took his own life.

Article of the day

Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.

The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.

Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the "Lost Squadron" helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

Today Birthdays

Cliff Floyd turns 36 years old today.

AP Photo/Steve Nesius Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Cliff Floyd turns 36 years old today.

76 Little Richard Rock singer, musician 74 Joan Didion Author 73 Calvin Trillin Author 70 J.J. Cale Rock musician 64 Jeroen Krabbe Actor 62 Jose Carreras Opera singer 61 Jim Messina Rock singer (Loggins and Messina, Poco) 57 Morgan Brittany Actress ("Dallas") 52 Brian Backer Actor 51 Art Monk Football Hall of Famer 45 Ty England Country singer 43 John Rzeznik Rock musician (The Goo Goo Dolls) 41 Gary Allan Country singer 40 Margaret Cho Comedian-actress 39 Alex Kapp Horner Actress ("The New Adventures of Old Christine") 36 Regina Zernay Rock musician (Cowboy Mouth) 33 Paula Patton Actress 32 Amy Acker Actress ("Angel") 29 Nick Stahl Actor 23 Frankie Muniz Actor ("Malcolm in the Middle") 20 Ross Bagley Actor

DECEMBER 4th

On this date in:
1783	Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
1816	James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States.
1918	President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles peace conference.
1942	President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
1942	U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.
1978	Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been assassinated.
1980	The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.)
1991	Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity.
1992	President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
1993	Rock musician Frank Zappa died at age 52.
1995	The first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission.
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. (An arbitrator later reduced the suspension and reinstated Sprewell to the Warriors, which had terminated his contract.)
2000	A Florida state judge refused to overturn Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.
2001	The United States froze the financial assets of organizations allegedly linked to the terrorist group Hamas.
2006	Lacking the Senate votes to keep his job, embattled U.N. Ambassador John Bolton offered his resignation to President George W. Bush, who accepted it.

Article of the day

Hostage Terry Anderson freed in Lebanon

On this day in 1991, Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped American journalist Terry Anderson after 2,454 days in captivity.

As chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, Anderson covered the long-running civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). On March 16, 1985, he was kidnapped on a west Beirut street while leaving a tennis court. His captors took him to the southern suburbs of the city, where he was held prisoner in an underground dungeon for the next six-and-a-half years.

Anderson was one of 92 foreigners (including 17 Americans) abducted during Lebanon's bitter civil war. The kidnappings were linked to Hezbollah, or the Party of God, a militant Shiite Muslim organization formed in 1982 in reaction to Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. They seized several Americans, including Anderson, soon after Kuwaiti courts jailed 17 Shiites found guilty of bombing the American and French embassies there in 1983. Hezbollah in Lebanon received financial and spiritual support from Iran, where prominent leaders praised the bombers and kidnappers for performing their duty to Islam.

U.S. relations with Iran--and with Syria, the other major foreign influence in Lebanon--showed signs of improving by 1990, when the civil war drew to a close, aided by Syria's intervention on behalf of the Lebanese army. Eager to win favor from the U.S. in order to promote its own economic goals, Iran used its influence in Lebanon to engineer the release of nearly all the hostages over the course of 1991.

Anderson returned to the U.S. and was reunited with his family, including his daughter Suleme, born three months after his capture. In 1999, he sued the Iranian government for $100 million, accusing it of sponsoring his kidnappers; he received a multi-million dollar settlement.

Today Birthdays

Jeff Bridges turns 59 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actor Jeff Bridges turns 59 years old today.

87 Deanna Durbin Actress 74 Wink Martindale Game show host 71 Max Baer Jr. Actor, producer 66 Gemma Jones Actress 66 Bob Mosley Rock musician (Moby Grape) 64 Chris Hillman Rock singer, musician (The Byrds) 61 Terry Woods Musician (The Pogues) 60 Johnny Lyon Rock singer (Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes) 60 Mary Peters Secretary of transportation 57 Gary Rossington Rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd) 57 Patricia Wettig Actress 54 Tony Todd Actor 53 Brian Prout Country musician (Diamond Rio) 53 Cassandra Wilson Jazz singer 49 Bob Griffin Rock musician (The BoDeans) 46 Vinnie Dombroski Rock singer (Sponge) 44 Marisa Tomei Actress 44 Chelsea Noble Actress 42 Fred Armisen Actor, comedian ("Saturday Night Live") 39 Jay-Z Rapper 38 Kevin Sussman Actor ("Ugly Betty") 35 Tyra Banks Model, TV host ("America's Next Top Model") 27 Lila McCann Country singer 24 Lindsay Felton Actress 21 Orlando Brown Actor

DECEMBER 3rd

On this date in:
1818	Illinois was admitted to the union as the 21st state.
1828	Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States.
1857	Novelist Joseph Conrad was born in Berdychiv, Poland.
1947	"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.
1948	The House Un-American Activities Committee announced that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm.
1964	Police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
1965	The album "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles was released.
1967	Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lived 18 days with the new heart.
1967	The 20th Century Limited, the famed luxury train, completed its final run from New York City to Chicago.
1979	Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum before a rock concert by The Who.
1989	East German Communist leader Egon Krenz, the ruling Politburo and the party's Central Committee resigned.
1994	Elizabeth Glaser, who became an AIDS activist after she and her two children were infected with HIV via a blood transfusion, died at age 47.
1997	South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy.
1999	Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the red planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed.
2006	Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election.

Article of the day

A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway

On this day in 1947, Marlon Brando's famous cry of "STELLA!" first booms across a Broadway stage, electrifying the audience at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre during the first-ever performance of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.

The 23-year-old Brando played the rough, working-class Polish-American Stanley Kowalski, whose violent clash with Blanche DuBois (played on Broadway by Jessica Tandy), a Southern belle with a dark past, is at the center of Williams' famous drama. Blanche comes to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter), Stanley's wife, at their home in the French Quarter of New Orleans; she and Stanley immediately despise each other. In the climactic scene, Stanley rapes Blanche, causing her to lose her fragile grip on sanity; the play ends with her being led away in a straitjacket.

Streetcar, produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan, shocked mid-century audiences with its frank depiction of sexuality and brutality onstage. When the curtain went down on opening night, there was a moment of stunned silence before the crowd erupted into a round of applause that lasted 30 minutes. On December 17, the cast left New York to go on the road. The show would run for more than 800 performances, turning the charismatic Brando into an overnight star. Tandy won a Tony Award for her performance, and Williams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In 1951, Kazan made Streetcar into a movie. Brando, Hunter and Karl Malden (as Stanley's friend and Blanche's love interest) reprised their roles. The role of Blanche went to Vivien Leigh, the scenery-chewing star of Gone with the Wind. Controversy flared when the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to condemn the film unless the explicitly sexual scenes--including the climactic rape--were removed. When Williams, who wrote the screenplay, refused to take out the rape, the Legion insisted that Stanley be punished onscreen. As a result, the movie (but not the play) ends with Stella leaving Stanley.

A Streetcar Named Desire earned 12 Oscar nominations, including acting nods for each of its four leads. The movie won for Best Art Direction, and Leigh, Hunter and Malden all took home awards; Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.

Today Birthdays

Brendan Fraser turns 40 years old today.

AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E Actor Brendan Fraser ("The Mummy" films) turns 40 years old today.

83 Ferlin Husky Country singer 81 Andy Williams Singer 78 Jean-Luc Godard Director 77 Jaye P. Morgan Singer ("The Gong Show") 67 Mary Alice Actress 60 Ozzy Osbourne Rock singer (Black Sabbath) 59 Heather Menzies Actress 54 Paul Gregg Country musician (Restless Heart) 53 Steven Culp Actor 48 Julianne Moore Actress 48 Daryl Hannah Actress 40 Montell Jordan R&B singer 39 Royale Watkins Actor, comedian 38 Paul Byrd Baseball player 35 Bruno Campos Actor 35 Holly Marie Combs Actress ("Charmed") 33 Lauren Roman Actress 29 Daniel Bedingfield Singer 28 Anna Chlumsky Actress ("My Girl" movies) 27 Brian Bonsall Actor 23 Amanda Seyfried Actress ("Mamma Mia," "Big Love") 21 Michael Angarano Actor

DECEMBER 2nd

On this date in:
1804	Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
1816	The first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened.
1823	President James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
1859	Militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his Oct. 16 raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia. (Brown had hoped to start an anti-slavery rebellion.)
1939	New York's La Guardia Airport began operations.
1942	A self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago.
1961	Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.
1967	Cardinal Francis Spellman died in New York City at age 78.
1969	The Boeing 747 jumbo jet debuted.
1970	The Environmental Protection Agency began operations.
1980	Four American churchwomen were raped, murdered and buried in El Salvador. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.)
1982	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.
1990	Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily won the first free all-German elections since 1932.
1990	Composer Aaron Copland died at age 90.
1993	Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.
1999	A power-sharing cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat down together for the first time in Northern Ireland.
2001	Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.
2001	A bomb went off aboard a bus in Haifa, killing 15 Israelis.

Article of the day

Enron files for bankruptcy

On this day in 2001, the Enron Corporation files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York court, sparking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history.

An energy-trading company based in Houston, Texas, Enron was formed in 1985 as the merger of two gas companies, Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Under chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay, Enron rose as high as number seven on Fortune magazine's list of the top 500 U.S. companies. In 2000, the company employed 21,000 people and posted revenue of $111 billion. Over the next year, however, Enron's stock price began a dramatic slide, dropping from $90.75 in August 2000 to $0.26 by closing on November 30, 2001.

As prices fell, Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock, while simultaneously encouraging Enron employees to buy more shares and assuring them that the company was on the rebound. Employees saw their retirement savings accounts wiped out as Enron's stock price continued to plummet. After another energy company, Dynegy, canceled a planned $8.4 billion buy-out in late November, Enron filed for bankruptcy. By the end of the year, Enron's collapse had cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out some 5,600 jobs and liquidated almost $2.1 billion in pension plans.

Over the next several years, the name "Enron" became synonymous with large-scale corporate fraud and corruption, as an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Enron had inflated its earnings by hiding debts and losses in subsidiary partnerships. The government subsequently accused Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, who served as Enron's CEO from February to August 2001, of conspiring to cover up their company's financial weaknesses from investors. The investigation also brought down accounting giant Arthur Anderson, whose auditors were found guilty of deliberately destroying documents incriminating to Enron.

In July 2004, a Houston court indicted Skilling on 35 counts including fraud, conspiracy and insider trading. Lay was charged with 11 similar crimes. The trial began on January 30, 2006, in Houston. A number of former Enron employees appeared on the stand, including Andrew Fastow, Enron's ex-CFO, who early on pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and agreed to testify against his former bosses. Over the course of the trial, the defiant Skilling--who unloaded almost $60 million worth of Enron stock shortly after his resignation but refused to admit he knew of the company's impending collapse--emerged as the figure many identified most personally with the scandal. In May 2006, Skilling was convicted of 19 of 35 counts, while Lay was found guilty on 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy. When Lay died from heart disease just two months later, a Houston judge vacated the counts against him. That October, the 52-year-old Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

Today Birthdays

Lucy Liu turns 40 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Lucy Liu turns 40 years old today.

94 Bill Erwin Actor 84 Alexander M. Haig Former secretary of state 83 Julie Harris Actress 77 Edwin Meese III Former attorney general 69 Harry Reid Senate majority leader, D-Nev. 65 Wayne Allard U.S. senator, R-Colo. 64 Cathy Lee Crosby Actress 63 Penelope Spheeris Director 59 Ron Raines Actor 58 John Wesley Ryles Country singer 56 Keith Szarabajka Actor 54 Dan Butler Actor 54 Stone Phillips Broadcast journalist 53 Dennis Christopher Actor 52 Steven Bauer Actor 48 Joe Henry Country singer 48 Rick Savage Rock musician (Def Leppard) 40 Jimi Haha Rock singer (Jimmie's Chicken Shack) 40 Nate Mendel Rock musician (Foo Fighters) 40 Rena Sofer Actress 38 Treach Rapper (Naughty by Nature) 35 Monica Seles Tennis player 30 Nelly Furtado Rock singer 27 Britney Spears Singer 25 Aaron Rodgers Football player

December 1st

On this date in:
1824	The House of Representatives convened to decide the presidential election because no candidate had received a majority in the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams was eventually chosen the winner over Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay.
1913	The first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburgh.
1919	Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament.
1934	Sergei M. Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was assassinated as Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a massive purge that would claim tens of millions of lives.
1942	Nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.
1955	Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defied the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man aboard a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. Parks was arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.
1963	The Beatles' first single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," was released in the United States.
1965	An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.
1969	The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.
1973	David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, died at age 87.
1991	Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
1992	Amy Fisher was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for shooting and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of the teenager's lover, Joey Buttafuoco, on New York's Long Island.
1997	A 14-year-old student opened fire on a morning prayer group at a high school in West Paducah, Ky., killing three students and wounding five.
2000	Vicente Fox was sworn in as president of Mexico, ending 71 years of ruling-party domination.
2004	Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time as anchor of the "NBC Nightly News."

Article of the day

Chunnel makes breakthrough

Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole--it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.

The Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel," was not a new idea. It had been suggested to Napoleon Bonaparte, in fact, as early as 1802. It wasn't until the late 20th century, though, that the necessary technology was developed. In 1986, Britain and France signed a treaty authorizing the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France.

Over the next four years, nearly 13,000 workers dug 95 miles of tunnels at an average depth of 150 feet (45 meters) below sea level. Eight million cubic meters of soil were removed, at a rate of some 2,400 tons per hour. The completed Chunnel would have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel. The price? A whopping $15 billion.

After workers drilled that final hole on December 1, 1990, they exchanged French and British flags and toasted each other with champagne. Final construction took four more years, and the Channel Tunnel finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and France's President Francois Mitterrand on hand in Calais for the inaugural run. A company called Eurotunnel won the 55-year concession to operate the Chunnel, which is the crucial stretch of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between London and Paris. The regular shuttle train through the tunnel runs 31 miles in total--23 of those underwater--and takes 20 minutes, with an additional 15-minute loop to turn the train around. The Chunnel is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, after the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.

Today Birthdays

Sarah Silverman turns 38 years old today.

AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Comedian-actress Sarah Silverman turns 38 years old today.

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