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“For myself, I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.”
Wikiquote (Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British politician, best known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55).)
● Never was so much owed by so many to so few - Winston Churchill Speeches, Youtube 
December 1st, 800
Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
Wikipedia Painting: The coronation of Charlemagne / Carloman I - Charlemagne, Kings of The Franks; Statue équestre de Charlemagne, par Agostino Cornacchini (1725) - Basilique Saint-Pierre du Vatican, Italie..
December 1st, 1420
Henry V of England enters Paris.
Wikipedia Image: Henry V featured in three plays by William Shakespeare. He is shown as a young scapegrace who redeems himself in battle in the two Henry IV plays and as a decisive leader in Henry V.
December 1st, 1640
End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King John IV of Portugal, ending 60 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the House of Habsburg (Philippine Dynasty).
Wikipedia Photo: Lisbon, Portugal - Monument to the Portuguese maritime discoveries.
December 1st, 1768
Slavery:
1768 - Slaveship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
1834 - Slavery Abolition Act 1833; Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony.
Wikipedia Painting: The Slave Ship, J. M. W. Turner's representation of the mass-murder of slaves, inspired by the Zong Massacre.
December 1st, 1824
United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Wikipedia Paintings: United States presidential election, 1824: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay; Adams served as the sixth President of the United States from March 4, 1825, to March 4, 1829.
December 1st, 1862
American Civil War:
1962 - In his State of the Union Address United States President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
December 1st, 1865
1865 - Shaw University: the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Wikipedia Photo: Shaw University; Estey Hall and Leonard Hall.
December 1st, 1885
First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
Wikipedia Photo: Dublin Dr Pepper, credit Charrie Shockey, Fine Art Print.
December 1st, 1913
Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
Wikipedia Photo: Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in 1903
December 1st, 1913
Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.
Wikipedia Image: Greece satellite image, credit NASA.
December 1st, 1918
Kingdom of Romania
1918 - Great Union: Transylvania unites with Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28).
Wikipedia Photo: UNESCO list of heritage sites Romania; ● Peles Castle, Sinaia, Romania ● Bran Castle - "Dracula's Castle", in the Transylvanian Alps, credit National Geographic ● Bucharest, capital of Romania called " the Paris of the Balkans" coping Parisian street systems and buildings in the 1920's, constructing Romanian Arch of Triumph.
December 1st, 1918
Kingdom of Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
Wikipedia Image: Iceland satellite image, credit NASA; A glacial torrent pours over a 40-foot-high ledge at Gođafoss, "waterfall of the gods." - Litlanesfoss, the waterfall cross-sections an ancient lava flow, credit Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg, National Geographic, May 2012; Horses are herded away from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano's ash plume on April 17, 2010, credit Rakel Osk Sigurda, NordicPhotos, Getty Images; Reykjavik, credit Getty Images.
December 1st, 1918
Kingdom of Yugoslavia: is proclaimed uniting the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Wikipedia Map: Kingdom of Yugoslavia; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; A twilight moon rises above the Kamniske mountains and Slovenia’s Sava River Valley, Slovenia, credit National Geographic; Yugoslavia, November 1977, credit National Geographic.
December 1st, 1919
Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom to take her seat in the House of Commons. (Elected to that position on November 28, Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.)
Wikipedia Image: Lady Astor by John Singer Sargent, 1909; Constance Georgine Markievicz, Countess Markievicz, Polish born, was an Irish Sinn Féinand Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette and socialist.
December 1st, 1941
World War II:
1941 - Emperor Hirohito of Japan gave the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941 - Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
December 1st, 1952
New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
Wikipedia Photo: Jorgensen on the cover of Christine Jorgensen Reveals (1958).
December 1st, 1958
Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago, Illinois, kills 92 children and three nuns.
Wikipedia Photo: Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary bid farewell to three of their own, courtesy of the Archdiocese of Chicago Archives & Records Center.
December 1st, 1959
Post Cold War:
1959 - Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1989 - East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state.
Wikipedia Photo: Lockheed C-130 Hercules; RAF Menwith Hill, a large site in the United Kingdom, part of ECHELON and the UKUSA Agreement; New Zealand nuclear test, British nuclear tests near the Malden and Christmas Islands in the mid-Pacific in 1957 and 1958; Nevada nuclear tests, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Federal Facilities.
December 1st, 1960
Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
Wikipedia Photo: Beatles - Left to right: Paul McCartney, John lennon, Pete Best, and George Harrison.
December 1st, 1964
Vietnam War:
1964 - United States President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1969 - The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971 - Cambodian Civil War; Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on the Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
Wikipedia Photo: Vietnam War: Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border, in Vietnam on March 1965. (AP Photo / Horst Faas) / Boston Globe
December 1st, 1981
AIDS virus is officially recognized.
Wikipedia Photo: AIDS information - prevention.
December 1st, 1984
NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner was deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of airplane crashes.
Wikipedia Photo: Controlled Impact Demonstration; (left to right) - Practice approach, Slapdown, Pre-impact, Post-impact 1, Post-impact 2, Post-impact 3.
December 1st, 1991
Dissolution of the Soviet Union:
1991 - Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
Wikipedia Image: Russia Satellite Map.
December 1st, 2001
American Airlines purchase of Trans World Airlines - Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport ends 76 years of TWA operations.
Wikipedia Photo: Trans World Airlines Flight purchase by American Airlines.