December 7, 2020

160 years ago
1860

Born on this date
Joseph Cook. Prime Minister of Australia, 1913-1914. Sir Joseph, a native of England who emigrated to Australia at the age of 24, was a member of several parties during his career. He represented Hartley in the New South Wales Parliament from 1891-1901 and then moved into federal politics, representing Parramutta in the Australian Parliament from 1901-1921. Sir Joseph led the Commonwealth Liberal Party to a narrow win in the 1913 general election, but lost power in the 1914 election, shortly after Australia's entry into World War I. Sir Joseph served as Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1921-1927. He died on July 30, 1947 at the age of 86.

120 years ago
1900

Politics and government
Premier Simon-Napoléon Parent led his Liberal Party to victory in the Quebec provincial election. The Liberals won 67 of 74 seats in the Legislative Assembly, an increase of 16 from their total in the most recent election in 1897. The Conservative Party, led by Edmund James Flynn, dropped from 23 seats to 7.

110 years ago
1910

Born on this date
Louis Prima. U.S. musician. Mr. Prima was a cornetist, singer, and bandleader who performed from the 1920s through the mid-1970s in various genres of music, including jazz and rhythm and blues. He's perhaps best remembered for his performances and recordings from the 1950s with then-wife Keely Smith as vocalist. Mr. Prima never recovered from a cerebral hemorrhage following surgery for a brain tumour in 1975, and died on August 24, 1978 at the age of 67.

100 years ago
1920

Born on this date
Walter Nowotny. Austrian-born military pilot. Major Nowotny was a flying ace in the German Luftwaffe, recording 258 victories--255 on the Eastern Front--in 442 combat missions. He was killed on November 8, 1944, 29 days before his 24th birthday, in an encounter with U.S. Army Air Forces Captain Ernest Fiebelkorn and 1st Lieutenant Edward "Buddy" Haydon near Hesepe, Germany, although it was unclear if he had been shot down or his plane had suffered engine failure.

Politics and government
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered his annual State of the Union message to Congress.

90 years ago
1930

On television today
W1XAV in Boston telecast video from the CBS radio orchestra program The Fox Trappers. The telecast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

Football
NFL
New York (13-4) 13 @ Brooklyn (7-4-1) 0
Green Bay (10-3) 0 @ Chicago Bears (9-4-1) 21
Minneapolis (1-7-1) 0 @ Portsmouth (5-6-2) 42

80 years ago
1940

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): Only Forever--Bing Crosby with John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra (8th week at #1)

World events
The Vichy French government's Council of Ministers announced that General Charles de Gaulle would be deprived of French citizenship.

Defense
U.S. Navy Secretary Frank Knox asked the House of Representatives Naval Committee for authorization to spend $300 million for major improvements in the antiaircraft defenses aboard warships, as a result of lessons learned in the European war.

Economics and finance
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a message to King George II of Greece that it was the policy of the United States to extend aid to those peoples who defended themselves against aggression.

U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull state that Spanish dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco had assured the United States that Spain would remain neutral in the European war if it got a U.S. credit of $100 million with which to buy foodstuffs.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Jesse H. Jones reported that a 14% rise in new private construction was due more to general prosperity than to the defense program.

Labour
Circuit Court Judge James Chenot enjoined the city of Dearborn, Michigan from enforcing a ban on the distribution of union handbills by the Congress of Industrial Organizations United Auto Workers of America near Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant.

Football
CRU
Grey Cup
Toronto Balmy Beach 5 @ Ottawa 12 (Ottawa won 2-game total points series 20-7)

Only 1,700 fans--the smallest crowd in Grey Cup history--showed up at Lansdowne Park to see the Rough Riders win their first Grey Cup in 14 years. Tommy Daley of the Rough Riders scored the only Ottawa touchdown. Tiny Herman converted and added a single, and Sammy Sward punted for 5 singles. Bobby Porter, who had scored both Balmy Beach points in the first game, accounted for all the Balmy Beach scoring in the second game with a touchdown.

75 years ago
1945

At the movies
House of Dracula, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Martha O'Driscoll, John Carradine, Lionel Atwill, and Glenn Strange, opened in theatres.





Crime
General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese commander in the Philippines, was convicted by a U.S. Military Commission of condoning atrocities, and was sentenced to death; he immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

War
According to evidence introduced at the Nuremberg trial of accused German war criminals, German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler had planned a full-scale campaign in the West through the Low Countries to start November 7, 1939, but had been delayed until May 1940 by bad weather.
World events
The U.S. State Department announced plans to resettle 6.6 million Germans from eastern Europe in the American and Soviet zones of Germany within the next eight months.

Diplomacy
U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes told a Senate committee that U.S. policy was to encourage Chinese Nationalists to broaden their government to include "so-called Communists," and defended career State Department officials against former U.S. Ambassador to China General Patrick Hurley's charges that the State Dept.'s "China hands" had "sabotaged" his work with the Nationalist government.

Business
Brazilian President Jose Linares ordered all publications under federal and state control sold at public auction within 30 days.

Economics and finance
U.S. Reparations Commissioner Edwin Pauley recommended that Japan be stripped of all assets abroad and most domestic heavy industry.

70 years ago
1950

War
The South Korean government placed Seoul under martial law in preparation for a Communist attack. National commanders of American veterans organizations urged President Truman to give Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command General Douglas MacArthur authority to take whatever steps he deemed necessary in Korea, including bombing Manchuria.

Politics and government
General Jean de Lattre was appointed supreme civilian and military commander in Indochina, replacing High Commissioner Leon Pignon and General Marcel Carpentier.

Crime
A U.S. Court of Appeals in New York unanimously upheld the conviction of former U.S. State Department employee Alger Hiss, ruling that Whittaker Chambers' testimony against Mr. Hiss had "breadth and scope," and was substantiated by the fact that documents produced by Mr. Chambers had been copied on Mr. Hiss's typewriter.

60 years ago
1960

Space
The U.S.A. launched Discoverer 18, a satellite whose purpose was to obtain data on propulsion, communication, orbital performance, and recovery techniques.

Diplomacy
The United Nations Security Council was called into session by the U.S.S.R. to consider Soviet demands that the UN seek the immediate release of former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba; the immediate restoration of Mr. Lumumba as head of the Congolese government; the disarming of the forces of Colonel Joseph Mobutu; and the immediate evacuation of Belgians from the Congo. Soviet Representative Valerian Zorin refused U.S. demands that he disqualify himself as Security Council President during the debate. UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, answering Soviet attacks against his Congo operations, said that if the UN forces were withdrawn from the Congo, "I fear everything would crumble." The threat to the UN cause was intensified by the announcement of withdrawal of their UN Congo contingents by Yugoslavia; United Arab Republic; Ceylon; Indonesia; Morocco; and Guinea.

The Soviet government issued a statement accusing the United States of blocking the reunification of Korea. The statement said that the United Nations must demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Korea and the abolition of the Commission for Korean Unification and Rehabilitation.

Scandal
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police filed their first report to Justice Minister Davie Fulton on the relations of Pierre Sevigny, Deputy Minister of National Defence, with Gerda Munsinger, an East German prostitute, calling the affair a security risk. Mr. Sevigny broke off relations, and no other action was taken. It remained secret until March 1966, when the affair came out in the House of Commons and became a major scandal.

50 years ago
1970

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): A Song of Joy--Miguel Rios

#1 single in Japan (Oricon Singles Chart): Kyōto no Koi--Yūko Nagisa (5th week at #1)

#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): N'A Veiriña Do Mar--María Ostiz (4th week at #1)

Died on this date
Rube Goldberg, 87. U.S. cartoonist. Mr. Goldberg had a career spanning more than 50 years as a cartoonist for newspapers and magazines. He was best known for depicting complicated gadgets--"Rube Goldberg machines"--performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. Mr. Goldberg won a Pulizer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1948; the National Cartoonists Society's annual Reuben Award is named in his honour.

Diplomacy
A historic treaty, aimed at restoring normal relations after 25 years of bitterness, was signed by West Germany and Poland. The pact, which formally recognized the post-World War II border running along the Oder-Neisse Rivers, amounted to the cession of 40,000 square miles, or ¼ of Germany, to Poland. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt made the Warschauer Kniefall--a gesture of humility--toward the victims of the World War II Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Politics and government
The Awani League--a party of East Pakistan nationalists advocating considerable home rule--captured the largest bloc of seats in nationwide elections for a Pakistan National Assembly to write a new constitution.

Terrorism
Armed leftist terrorists in Rio de Janeiro kidnapped Giovanni Enrico Bucher, 57, Swiss Ambassador to Brazil, and fatally wounded his bodyguard.

Crime
A jury of eight U.S. Marine officers cleared Lance Corporal Ronald V. Johnson, a 21-year-old Negro from Brooklyn, who had spent two years in prison on a conviction of raping an Okinawan woman. Sentenced to 12 years at his first trial in 1968, Cpl. Johnson had won a second trial in April 1970.

Society
The Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women issued a 488-page report with 167 recommendations on day care, equal pay for work of equal value, maternity leave, birth control, abortion on demand, pensions and family law. The Royal Commission was instituted by Prime Minister Lester Pearson on February 16, 1967, in response to a campaign led by Ontario activist Laura Sabia and a coalition of 32 women's voluntary groups, and was chaired by journalist and broadcaster Florence Bird, with commissioners Jacques Henripin, professor of demography; John Humphrey, professor of law; Lola Lange, farmer and community activist; Jeanne Lapointe, professor of literature, Elsie MacGill, aeronautical engineer; and Doris Ogilvie, judge. The RCSW held 6 months of public hearings across Canada, and heard 468 briefs.

Boxing
Erbito Salavarria (30-5-2) retained his World Boxing Council world flyweight title with a 2-round technical knockout of Chartchai Chionoi (52-14-2) at Army Sports Stadium in Bangkok.

In his second fight since beginning a comeback after 3½ years of inactivity, former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali (31-0) scored a technical knockout of Oscar Bonavena (46-7-1) at 2:03 of the 15th round at Madison Square Garden in New York. Mr. Ali knocked down Mr. Bonavena three times in the 15th round, which, according to the rules of the New York State Athletic Commission, provided for an automatic TKO. On the undercard, world lightweight champion Ken Buchanan (38-1) of Scotland won a 10-round unamimous decision over Canadian welterweight Donato Paduano (22-1) in a non-title bout; Earnie Shavers (17-2) knocked out Bunky Akins (5-1) just 59 seconds into the 1st round of a heavyweight bout; John Clohessy (3-0) won a 4-round decision over Brian O'Melia (6-4) in a heavyweight bout; and Mr. Ali's younger brother Rahman (7-0) won a 4-round decision ove Howard Darlington (1-12-1) in a heavyweight bout.





Football
NFL
Cleveland (6-6) 21 @ Houston (3-8-1) 10



40 years ago
1980

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand (RIANZ): He's So Shy--The Pointer Sisters (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in Switzerland: Woman in Love--Barbra Streisand (4th week at #1)

Diplomacy
Saudi Arabian King Khalid’s invitation to Jordanian King Hussein and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to talk over their differences appeared to have failed as reports stated that there were 50,000 Syrian troops and 30,000 Jordanian troops on the border between their countries.

War
Iranian jet fighters continued to bomb the Iraqi oil terminal at Fao, while Iraqi planes concentrated on the Iranian oil refining city of Avadan.

Politics and government
General Antonio Ramalho Eanes was re-elected President of Portugal amid turmoil following the death of Prime Minister Francisco Sa Carneiro, a member of the opposition Democratic Alliance, in a plane crash on December 4. Gen. Ramalho Eanes received 56.4% of the vote to 40.2% for Democratic Alliance candidate António Soares Carneiro, who wasn't related to the late Prime Minister.

Colonel Adolfo Arnoldo Majano, the most liberal of the members of El Salvador’s junta, was ousted. He had openly feuded with the junta’s other members.

Québec Premier René Lévesque told a crowd of 14,000 at the Montreal Forum that Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's plan for unilateral patriation of the constitution was a a coup d'etat by a dictator.

Football
NFL
Minnesota (8-6) 21 @ Tampa Bay (5-8-1) 10
Los Angeles (9-5) 7 @ Buffalo (10-4) 10 (OT)
Atlanta (11-3) 20 @ Philadelphia (11-3) 17
San Diego (9-5) 17 @ Washington (4-10) 40
Baltimore (7-7) 33 @ Cincinnati (5-9) 34
New York Jets (3-11) 14 @ Cleveland 17
Green Bay (5-8-1) 7 @ Chicago (6-8) 61
Detroit (7-7) 23 @ St. Louis (5-9) 24
Denver (7-7) 14 @ Kansas City (7-7) 31
New York Giants (4-10) 27 @ Seattle (4-10) 21
Dallas (11-3) 19 @ Oakland (9-5) 13
New Orleans (0-14) 35 @ San Francisco (6-8) 38 (OT)

30 years ago
1990

Died on this date
Joan Bennett, 80. U.S. actress. Miss Bennett appeared in more than 70 movies, but was probably best known for her co-starring roles in The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945).

Dee Clark, 52. U.S. singer. Mr. Clark had a string of hit singles from 1959-1961. His last and biggest hit, Raindrops, reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and reached #1 in several other countries. Like many other singers of his era, Mr. Clark ended up in poverty, and he died of a heart attack, three years after suffering a stroke.

World events
Eight days of violent clashes between Muslims and Hindus in several Indian cities began in Aligarh and Hyderabad, cities with large Muslim populations. Hindu fundamentalists in Ayodhya, a city near Aligarh, wanted to tear down a mosque and build a temple to the god Rama, whom they believed was born on the site.

Politics and government
Polish Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who had been eliminated from contention in the first round of elections for the Polish presidency, urged members of the Solidarity trade union movement to close ranks behind its leader, Lech Walesa, who was leading after the first round of voting.

Economics and finance
The United States Labor Department reported the nation’s unemployment rate in November at 5.9%, up from 5.7% in October. The November percentage was the highest in three years. The number of payroll jobs lost in October and November was put at 445,000, the greatest for any two consecutive months since the 1982 recession.

25 years ago
1995

Hit parade
#1 single in Finland (Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland): Gangsta's Paradise--Coolio featuring L.V. (6th week at #1)

#1 single in Denmark (Nielsen Music Control & IFPI): Gangsta's Paradise--Coolio featuring L.V. (5th week at #1)

#1 single in Italy: Boombastic--Shaggy (7th week at #1)

Died on this date
Kathleen Harrison, 103. U.K. actress. Miss Harrison was a character actress who appeared in numerous plays, movies, and television programs in a career that spanned more than 60 years.

Space
The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it had been launched by the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis during mission STS-34. A 746-pound probe from the spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was destroyed.



Environment
The British Columbia Legislature became the first provincial legislature in Canada to pass regulations for auto makers to provide less-polluting vehicles.

20 years ago
2000

Diplomacy
Leaders of the 15 European Union members began several days of meetings in Nice, France to plan for the expansion of the EU in the coming years to 27 members. The 12 new members would include many former Communist countries.

Disasters
The United Nations World Food Program asked for 800,000 tons of food to help starving people in North Korea. More than 2 million had reportedly already perished as a result of a series of natural disasters.