Thursday, December 03rd
The 337th day of 2009.
There are 28 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
On Dec. 3, 1984, more than 4,000 people died after a cloud of gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. (Go to article.)
On Dec. 3, 1895, Anna Freud, the Austrian-born psychologist who pioneered the field of child psychoanalysis, was born. Following her death on Oct. 9, 1982, her obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On December 3, 1887, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about Speaker of the House John Carlisle. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
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.
Current Birthdays
Amanda Seyfried turns 24 years old today.
AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Amanda Seyfried ("Mamma Mia," "Big Love") turns 24 years old today.
84 Ferlin Husky
Country singer
82 Andy Williams
Singer
79 Jean-Luc Godard
Director
78 Jaye P. Morgan
Singer ("The Gong Show")
76 Nicolas Coster
Actor
68 Mary Alice
Actress
61 Ozzy Osbourne
Rock singer (Black Sabbath)
60 Heather Menzies
Actress
55 Paul Gregg
Country musician (Restless Heart)
54 Steven Culp
Actor
49 Daryl Hannah
Actress
49 Julianne Moore
Actress
41 Brendan Fraser
Actor ("The Mummy" films)
41 Montell Jordan
R&B singer
40 Royale Watkins
Actor, comedian
39 Paul Byrd
Baseball player
36 Bruno Campos
Actor
36 Holly Marie Combs
Actress ("Charmed")
34 Lauren Roman
Actress
30 Daniel Bedingfield
Singer
29 Anna Chlumsky
Actress ("My Girl" movies)
28 Brian Bonsall
Actor
22 Michael Angarano
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Anna Freud
12/3/1895 - 10/9/1982
Austrian/English psychoanalyst
(Go to obit.)
72 Gilbert Stuart
12/3/1755 - 7/9/1828
American portrait painter
58 George Brinton McClellan
12/3/1826 - 10/29/1885
American general
77 Cleveland Abbe
12/3/1838 - 10/28/1916
American meteorologist
73 Octavia Hill
12/3/1838 - 8/13/1912
English activist and leader of the British open-space movement
56 Charles Alfred Pillsbury
12/3/1842 - 9/17/1899
American flour miller and food products manufacturer
68 Ellen Swallow Richards
12/3/1842 - 3/30/1911
American chemist
66 Joseph Conrad
12/3/1857 - 8/3/1924
English novelist
86 Carl Koller
12/3/1857 - 3/21/1944
Czech-born American eye surgeon
61 Anton von Werbern
12/3/1883 - 9/15/1945
Austrian composer
65 Hayato Ikeda
12/3/1899 - 8/13/1965
Japanese prime minister (1960-4)
66 Richard Kuhn
12/3/1900 - 8/1/1967
German biochemist and Nobel Prize winner
53 John von Neumann
12/3/1903 - 2/8/1957
Hungarian-American mathematician
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SOURCE: The Associated Press
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