TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, Dec. 4, the 338th day of 2023. There are 27 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History: On Dec. 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.
On this date:
In 1783, Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
In 1942, during World War II, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in a raid on Naples.
In 1978, San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone.
In 1980, the bodies of four American churchwomen slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five Salvadoran national guardsmen were later convicted of murdering nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and lay worker Jean Donovan.)
In 1995, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.
In 2000, in a pair of legal setbacks for
Al Gore, a Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.
In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with a rifle fired several shots inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, as he attempted to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was hurt, and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)
In 2017, President Donald Trump scaled back two sprawling national monuments in Utah; it was the first time in a half century that a president had undone that type of public land protection.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Gemma Jones is 81. Rock musician Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) is 81. Singer-musician Chris Hillman is 79. Musician Terry Woods (The Pogues) is 76. Actor Jeff Bridges is 74. Country musician Brian Prout (Diamond Rio) is 68. Actor Marisa Tomei is 59. Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 57. Country singer Lila McCann is 42.