UN teams inspect Saddam palace
2002 - Iraq said it will beat a United Nations-imposed deadline by one day by declaring its weapons arsenal, after arms monitors swooped down on one of President Saddam Hussain’s palace compounds, for the first time using powers denied to predecessors. The Iraqi declaration and UN inspection both followed remarks by US President George W. Bush that he was unimpressed by Baghdad’s cooperation and warned it to cooperate or else face a massive assault by US troops. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraqi cooperation with the arms control experts had been good so far. Annan added: “This is only the beginning.” Bush said it did not matter whether UN inspectors were able to find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Saddam still must disarm or face attack.
December 3
1694 - Triennial Bill becomes law in England, providing for new parliament to be elected every third year.
1808 - Madrid surrenders to Napoleon Bonaparte’s French forces.
1810 - British capture Mauritius from French.
1828 - Andrew Jackson is elected the seventh President of the United States.
1912 - Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro sign an armistice.
1967 - Led by Dr Christiaan Barnard, surgeons in Cape Town perform the first human heart transplant.
1971 - India declares state of emergency as Pakistani fighter jets attack northwestern India.
1975 - Communists take control of Laos and declare end to 600-year-old monarchy.
1984 - Thousands of people die in poison gas leaks from Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.
1991 - Alann Steen, an American held hostage for nearly five years, is released by Shiite kidnappers in Beirut.
1992 - A Greek oil tanker runs aground, splitting in two and catching fire, spilling thousands of gallons of crude oil off Spain’s rugged northeast coast.
1995 - Former South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan is arrested and taken to jail on charges of military rebellion, stemming from a 1979 coup.
1996 - A bomb explodes on a commuter train in Paris, killing four people and injuring 86.
1998 - A fire in an orphanage in Manila kills at least 28 people.
2000 - Pakistan offers a truce to Indian soldiers along the disputed Kashmir border.
2001 - Israel attacks Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in response to suicide bombings by the militant group Hamas that killed 25 people.
2006 - The Dubai Financial Market launches its new index, the DFM General Index.
2007 - Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan sets a new world record by taking 709 wickets in Test cricket.
2010 - A Chinese passenger train sets a record speed of 486km/h during a test run between Beijing and Shanghai.
2015 - Oscar Pistorius is found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
