December 1, Rosa Parks refuses to give up bus seat

Today is Sunday, Dec. 1, the 336th day of 2024. There are 30 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus; the incident sparked a yearlong boycott of the buses and helped fuel the U.S. civil rights movement.

Also on this date:

In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives after none of the candidates (John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay) won more than 50% of the electoral vote. Despite Jackson winning the most electoral votes, Adams would ultimately win the presidency.

In 1965, the first “Freedom Flight” from Cuba to the United States landed in Miami. Over the ensuing eight years, the twice-daily flights allowed more than 250,000 Cuban refugees to migrate to the United States through a joint U.S.-Cuban agreement.

In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery for military service since World War II.

In 1991, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.

In 2009, President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops into the war in Afghanistan but promised during a speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to begin withdrawals in 18 months.

In 2017, retired general Michael Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about reaching out to the Russians on Trump’s behalf. (Trump would later pardon Flynn.)