In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing a divorce of her second. The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised. As British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. Simpson was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments approved or not.

— Source: wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis
— Related Source: wiki/Edward_VIII

On this day, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question. On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima went to German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to nail the Germans down on a formal declaration of war against America. Von Ribbentrop stalled for time; he knew that Germany was under no obligation to do this under the terms of the Tripartite Pact, which promised help if Japan was attacked, but not if Japan was the aggressor. Von Ribbentrop feared that the addition of another antagonist, the United States, would overwhelm the German war effort.

But Hitler thought otherwise. He was convinced that the United States would soon beat him to the punch and declare war on Germany. The U.S. Navy was already attacking German U-boats, and Hitler despised Roosevelt for his repeated verbal attacks against his Nazi ideology. He also believed that Japan was much stronger than it was, that once it had defeated the United States, it would turn and help Germany defeat Russia. So at 3:30 p.m. (Berlin time) on December 11, the German charge d’affaires in Washington handed American Secretary of State Cordell Hull a copy of the declaration of war.

That very same day, Hitler addressed the Reichstag to defend the declaration. The failure of the New Deal, argued Hitler, was the real cause of the war, as President Roosevelt, supported by plutocrats and Jews, attempted to cover up for the collapse of his economic agenda. “First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war,” declared Hitler-and the Reichstag leaped to their feet in thunderous applause.

GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON THE UNITED STATES

— Source: www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-declares-war-on-the-united-states

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) man-made CO2 emissions have caused it.

[UNFCCC] Kyoto Protocol (details)

— Source: wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

Bernard Lawrence “Bernie” Madoff is an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.

Born: Apr 29, 1938 (age 78) · Queens, NY
Spouse: Ruth Madoff (m. 1959)
Children: Andrew Madoff (Son) · Mark Madoff (Son)
Education: Hofstra University · Far Rockaway High School · University of Alabama · Brooklyn Law School
Siblings: Peter Madoff (Brother) · Sondra Madoff (Sister)

— Source: wiki/Bernard_Madoff

David Livingstone arrived in Africa in 1840 with two goals: to explore the continent and to end the slave trade (see Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855). In England, his writings and lectures ignited the public’s imagination regarding the “Dark Continent” and elevated Livingstone to the status of a national hero.

In 1864 Livingstone returned to Africa and mounted an expedition through the central portion of the continent with the objective of discovering the source of the Nile River. As months stretched into years, little was heard from the explorer. Rumors spread that Livingstone was being held captive or was lost or dead. Newspapers headlined the question “Where is Livingstone?” while the public clamored for information on the whereabouts of their national hero. By 1871, the ruckus had crossed to the shores of America and inspired George Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, to commission newspaper reporter Henry Stanley to find Livingstone.

Henry Stanley was a remarkable man. Orphaned at an early age he spent his formative years in a workhouse in Wales, crossed the Atlantic at age 15 as a crewman of a merchant ship and jumped ship in New Orleans. Befriended by a local merchant, he took the man’s name – Henry Stanley – as his own and went on to fight in the Civil War before working his way into a career in journalism. (see The Battle of Shiloh, 1862)

Leading an expedition of approximately 200 men, Stanley headed into the interior from the eastern shore of Africa on March 21, 1871. After nearly eight months he found Livingstone in Ujiji, a small village on the shore of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871.

— Source: www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/stanley.htm
— Additional Source: wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley

The setting is in a small street in a city where children and furry puppet monsters learn about numbers, the alphabet and other pre-school subjects taught in commercial spots, songs and games.

First episode: Nov 10, 1969
Number of episodes: 4,378
Creators: Joan Ganz Cooney · Lloyd Morrisett
Theme song: Sesame Street Theme
Producers: Sesame Workshop · Kevin Clash · The Jim Henson Company · Jon Stone · Lisa Simon · Arlene Sherman · Carol-Lynn Parente · Dulcy Singer · Michael Loman · Mason Rather · Lewis Bernstein
Awards: Peabody Award · TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming · Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding New Approaches – Daytime Children’s
Website: www.sesamestreet.org

— Source: wiki/Sesame_Street

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration. During Brezhnev’s rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union.

Lived: Dec 19, 1906 – Nov 10, 1982 (age 75)
Height: 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
Spouse: Viktoria Brezhneva (m. 1928 – 1982)
Previous office: General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1964 – 1982)
Children: Galina Brezhneva (Daughter) · Yuri Brezhnev (Son)
Buried: Kremlin Wall Necropolis

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Highlights

• 1928: Leonid Brezhnev married Viktoria Brezhneva in 1928.


• 1931: Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the Party, and before long, as he continued his rise through the ranks, he became Khrushchev’s protégé.


• 1952: In 1952 Brezhnev became a member of the Central Committee, and during 1964, Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary, while Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev in his post as Soviet premier.


• 1957: He was now a senior member of Khrushchev’s entourage, and in June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with Malenkov’s Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called “Anti-Party Group”.


• 1977: In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, making this position equivalent to that of an executive president.


• 1978: The most notable candidates were Suslov and Andrei Kirilenko, who were both older than Brezhnev, and Fyodor Kulakov and Konstantin Chernenko, who were younger; Kulakov died of natural causes in 1978.

— Source: wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev

The Louise Woodward manslaughter incident and trial concerned a young English au pair convicted, at age 19, of the 1997 involuntary manslaughter of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen while he was in her care in his home in Newton, Massachusetts, in the United States.

Born: Feb 28, 1978 (age 38) · Elton, United Kingdom

— Source: wiki/Louise_Woodward_case

Jack the Ripper is the best known name given to an unidentified serial killer generally believed to have been active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name “Jack the Ripper” originated in a letter written by someone claiming to be the murderer that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by journalists in an attempt to heighten interest in the story and increase their newspapers’ circulation. The killer was called “the Whitechapel Murderer” as well as “Leather Apron” within the crime case files, as well as in contemporary journalistic accounts.

The Threepenny Opera is a “play with music” by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from German dramatist Elisabeth Hauptmann’s translation of John Gay’s 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera, with music by Kurt Weill and insertion ballads by François Villon and Rudyard Kipling. The work offers a Socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
First published: 1960
Written: 1928
First performed: Aug 31, 1928
Author: Bertolt Brecht

Olga Valentinovna Korbut, also known as the “Sparrow from Minsk”, is a Belarusian former gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympic Games, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the Soviet team.
Born: May 16, 1955 (age 61) · Grodno, Belarus
Height: 5′ 0″ (1.52 m)

On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz S280, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene; the bodyguard of Diana and Dodi, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor.