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Dec. 3, 2010: Beatles tribute band American English put on a benefit concert at the Albert Lea High School auditorium. All proceeds went to the Humane Society of Freeborn County and Thorne Crest Senior Living Community.

Dec. 3, 1990: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) of Freeborn County began distributing 9,000 red ribbons as part of an awareness campaign going into the holiday season.

Dec. 2, 1970: Albert Lea wrestling coach Paul Ehrhard was impressed with the team effort against Rochester. The Tigers won a convincing 45-2 victory over Mayo.

 

National

2019: A 300-page report prepared by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee found “serious misconduct” by President Donald Trump in his dealings with Ukraine; the report would serve as a foundation for debate over whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office. At the NATO summit in London, Trump branded Democrats as “unpatriotic” for moving ahead with the impeachment effort while he was overseas.

In a long-anticipated safety report, ride-sharing giant Uber said more than 3,000 sexual assaults had been reported during its U.S. rides in 2018, including 235 rapes.

2015: President Barack Obama, arriving in Paris late at night for a climate conference, briefly visited the Bataclan, the concert hall that was the scene of the worst of France’s terror attacks 16 days earlier.

A couple loyal to the Islamic State group opened fire at a holiday banquet for public employees in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 21 others before dying in a shootout with police.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the armed services to open all military jobs to women, removing the final barriers that had kept women from serving in combat, including the most dangerous and grueling commando posts.

2014: A Staten Island, New York, grand jury declined to indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner, a Black man who’d been stopped on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. (Pantaleo would be fired from the police force in August 2019.)

2010: Pentagon leaders called for scrapping the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on openly gay military service after releasing a survey about the prospect of openly gay troops. (The policy was rescinded in 2011.)

2008: A judge in Las Vegas sentenced O.J. Simpson to 33 years in prison (with eligibility for parole after nine) for an armed robbery at a hotel room. (Simpson was released to parole on Oct. 1, 2017.)

Nov. 30, 2000: Al Gore’s lawyers battled for his political survival in the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts; meanwhile, GOP lawmakers in Tallahassee moved to award the presidency to George W. Bush in case the courts did not by appointing their own slate of electors.

1993: President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

1992: President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.

1986: Both houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.

Dec. 2, 1982: In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device.

1981: The United States and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

1979: Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.

1969: The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.

1967: A surgical team in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donor organ, which came from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank clerk who had died in a traffic accident.

1965: The United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard on a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, was launched on Dec. 15 on a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within a foot of each other.)

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.

1963: President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

1961: Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

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.

Dec. 1, 1955: Rosa Parks, a Black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus; the incident sparked a year-long boycott of the buses by Blacks.

1954: The U.S. Senate passed, 67-22, a resolution condemning Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., saying he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”

1942: During World War II, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States; the goal was not so much to save on gas, but to conserve rubber (as in tires) that was desperately needed for the war effort.

1933: National Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.

1932: German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery, and went on to say, “Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

1848: President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of ’49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.