GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS TUESDAY, December 02, the 336th day of 2014 with 29 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:54 and sunset is @ 4:11. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Mercury & Saturn. The evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Uranus & Venus.

ON THIS DAY IN: 1763 – In Newport, Rhode Island, the Touro Synagogue became the first synagogue in what was to become the United States.

1804 – Napoleon was crowned the first emperor of France.
1805 – Napoleon defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1816 – The first U.S. savings bank, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened.
1823 – President James Monroe outlined his doctrine to stop European expansion in the Western hemisphere.
1901 – King Camp Gillette patented a safety razor with a double-edged disposable blade.
1918 – Armenia proclaimed independence from Turkey.
1939 – New York La Guardia Airport opened for business.
1942 – The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved, at the University of Chicago.
1954 – Joseph McCarthy, senator from Wisconsin who was trying to find Communists in the government and entertainment industries, was condemned and silenced by the U.S. Senate.
1961 – Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.
1969 – The first Boeing 747 jumbo jet flew from Seattle to New York City.
1970 – The Environmental Protection Agency started operations.
1970 – U.S. Senate voted to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
1980 – Denali National Monument and Mount McKinley National Park were combined and established as Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.
1980 – Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Monument, Katmai National Monument, Kenai Fjords National Park, Kobuk Valley National Park, Lake Clark National Park, and Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve were established as national parks and preserves.
1982 – Dentist Barney Clark received the first permanent artificial heart, developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik.
1990 – West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was elected chancellor of a united Germany.
1997 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the irradiation of pork, beef, and lamb in the wake of finding contaminated hamburger meat from Nebraska.
2001 – Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.