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Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (before 1750 – 1818) is honored as the first permanent non-Native-American settler of what later became Chicago, Illinois. A school, museum, harbor, park, and bridge are named for him, and his 1780s homesite near the mouth of the Chicago River is a National Historic Landmark. A trader in the Illinois Country and Great Lakes region, he was arrested by the British as a suspected partisan during the American Revolution. Of African descent, and described as handsome and well educated, he had two children with his Native American wife, Kitiwaha. His homesite is first recorded in a journal of early 1790. After he established an extensive and prosperous trading settlement, he sold his property in 1800 and moved to St. Charles, in present-day Missouri. Although historians of Chicago knew of him by the 1850s, the general public first became aware of his founding role at the 1933–1934 Century of Progress International Exposition, when the fair's organizers presented a replica of his cabin. (Full article...)

Helmoreus sharpi by Des Helmore

• ... that the artist Des Helmore illustrated more than 1,000 insect species from the New Zealand Arthropod Collection and had a weevil genus (species pictured) named after him?


• ... that the Gascon campaign of 1345 was the first successful land campaign of the Hundred Years' War, eight years after it started?


• ... that Filipino footballer Neil Etheridge is the first Southeast Asian to play in the Premier League?


• ... that during the karuka harvest, entire households move upland and start speaking a pandanus language?


• ... that the mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch became known internationally when she appeared as Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden?


• ... that the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, merged with another congregation that was renting space in its synagogue building?


• ... that Lady Juliana was the physician in charge of King Akbar's royal harem?


• ... that the French submarine Perle was sunk by Allied aircraft after being mistaken for a Nazi U-boat?

Asteroid 101955 Bennu

• The sample-return spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrives at the asteroid 101955 Bennu (pictured).


• Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush dies at the age of 94.


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  Magnus Carlsen defeats Fabiano Caruana to retain the World Chess Championship.


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  NASA's InSight successfully lands on Mars.


• Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko declares martial law after Russian forces seize three ships in the disputed Kerch Strait near Crimea.

December 6: Saint Nicholas Day in various European countries; Independence Day in Finland (1917)

The Nefertiti Bust

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  1865 – Slavery in the United States was officially abolished when the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.


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  1912 – The Nefertiti Bust (pictured), labeled a "Top 10 Plundered Artifact" by Time magazine, was found in Amarna, Egypt, before being taken to Germany.


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  1956 – In a contest that became known as the "Blood in the Water match" at the Melbourne Olympics, the Hungarian water polo team defeated the USSR, 4–0, against the background of the Hungarian Revolution.


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  1988 – The Australian Capital Territory was granted self-government.


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  2015 – In Venezuela's parliamentary election, the ruling United Socialist Party lost control of the National Assembly for the first time since 1999.

Nicholas Rowe (d. 1718) · Hara Prasad Shastri (b. 1853) · Satoru Iwata (b. 1959)