What happened on December 2 ?

1409 - The University of Leipzig opens.

1755 - The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire.

1804 - At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned as the first Emperor of France in a thousand years.

1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Austerlitz - French troops under Napoleon defeat a joint Russo-Austrian force.

1823 - Monroe Doctrine: US President James Monroe delivers a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts.

1845 - Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

1848 - Franz Josef I becomes Emperor of Austria.

1851 - Newly-elected French President Charles Louis Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic.

1852 - Napoleon III becomes Emperor of France.

1859 - Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper's Ferry.

1861 - The small Oregon town of Champoeg is flooded by the Willamette River. No deaths occurred.

1867 - In a New York City theater, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.

1899 - Philippine-American War: The Battle of Tirad Pass, termed "The Filipino Thermopylae", is fought.

1927 - Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.

1930 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

1939 - New York City's La Guardia Airport opens.

1942 - Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1946 - British Government invited four Indian leaders, Nehru, Baldev Singh, Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan to obtain the participation of all parties in the Constituent Assembly.

1947 - Jerusalem Riots of 1947: Riots break out in Jerusalem in response to the approval of the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

1954 - Red Scare: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

1961 - In a nationally-broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1962 - Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to not make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

1970 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

1971 - Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm Al Quwain form the United Arab Emirates.

1972 - Gough Whitlam becomes the first Australian Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years.

1975 - Pathet Lao seizes power in Laos, and establishes the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

1980 - Four U.S. nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a death squad in El Salvador.

1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.

1990 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932.

1991 - Apple release the first version of QuickTime.

1993 - Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

1993 - Space Shuttle program: STS-61 - NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

1999 - The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.

2000 - The Smashing Pumpkins perform for the last time at The Metro in Chicago.

2001 - Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2004 - Brian Williams succeeds Tom Brokaw as host of NBC Nightly News.

2005 - Microsoft's Xbox 360 is launched in Europe.

2005 - Van Tuong Nguyen is executed in Singapore for drug trafficking.

2005 - Kenneth Boyd becomes the 1,000th person to be executed in the United States since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.