@rh18bold:Today in History

Today is Tuesday, December 2, the 337th day of 2008. There are 29 days left in the year.

On this date

In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French.

In 1823, US president James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1859, militant slavery abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the previous October.

In 1942, physicists led by Enrico Fermi created the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago. the world's first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago.

In 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first full-scale commercial nuclear facility in the US, began operations. The reactor ceased operating in 1982.

In 1954, the US Senate voted to condemn Wisconsin Republican Joseph McCarthy for conduct that "tends to bring the Senate into disrepute" – his ruthless investigations of thousands of suspected Communists and "fellow travellers" both real and imagined.

Thought for Today

"Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; great minds rise above them." — Washington Irving, American author (1783-1859).