Once Upon A Time – December 3 – 1775 – First Official US Flag Raised (Grand Union Flag) Aboard Naval Vessel USS Alfred

1586 – Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia

1854 – Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences

1967 – 1st human heart transplant performed in South Africa by Dr. Christiaan Barnard on Louis Washkansky

1984 – Bhopal disaster: Union Carbide pesticide plant leak 45 tons of methyl isocyanate and other toxic compounds in Bhopal, India, kills 2,259 (official figure) – other estimates as high as 16,000 (including later deaths) and over half a million injured

1989 – Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, declare the Cold War over

December 3 in Film & TV

1968 – Elvis Presley’s Comeback Special airs on NBC, his 1st live performance in seven years, re-launching his singing career

December 3 in Music

1908 – Edward Elgar’s 1st Symphony in A performed by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter, premieres in Manchester, England

2019 – Spotify say Drake the most streamed star of the 2010s with 28 billion streams, Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” most streamed track with 2.4 billion streams

December 3 in Sport

1961 – Dutchman Anton Geesink becomes 1st non-Japanese judo world champion

1775 – First official US flag raised (Grand Union Flag) aboard naval vessel USS Alfred

1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere

Famous Weddings

1931 – Silent film actress Clara Bow (26) weds actor and politician Rex Bell (28) in Las Vegas

1940 – French author and future Nobel laureate Albert Camus (27) weds French pianist and mathematician Francine Faure (25) in Lyon, France

1984 – Oldest groom – Harry Stevens, 103, weds Thelma Lucas, 83, in Wisconsin