Following are some of the major events to have occurred on December 2:
1908 – New Emperor of China Pu-Yi enthroned.
1971 – The United Arab Emirates was formed.
1990 – After German reunification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP won the first free all-German elections since 1932.
1993 – Pablo Escobar, boss of the Medellin cocaine cartel in Colombia, was killed in a shootout as police tried to arrest him.
2002 – Rowan Williams, controversial defender of gays and promoter of women bishops, officially became the new Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans.
2003 – U.N. war crimes judges in The Hague jailed Bosnian Serb former army commander Momir Nikolic for 27 years for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre – the longest term given so far.
2004 – Dame Alicia Markova, one of the great ballerinas of the 20th century who founded and presided over the English National Ballet, died a day after her 94th birthday.
2005 – Double murderer Kenneth Lee Boyd became the 1,000th prisoner executed in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.
2006 – A military parade marking the 80th birthday of Fidel Castro ends without the appearance of the ailing Cuban leader at what had been viewed as a key test of his health and political future.
2008 – Canadian media, telecoms mogul Ted Rogers died. Rogers transformed a single Toronto FM radio station into a North American broadcasting, publishing and telecoms conglomerate, Rogers Communications.
2015 – Shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California leaves 14 people dead.
(Reuters)
