On December 3, 1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared an end to the Cold War, at a summit in Malta. A little over two years later not only had the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was itself dissolved.
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
In 1930 on this date, Gary Becker was born. An American economist, in 1992 he was awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. His work on human capital, population theory, the theory of consumption, and much else put him at the top of the Chicago School in Economics.
On December 1, 1824, with neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson (pictured) receiving a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives was given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The House selected Adams.
On July 27, 1694, the Bank of England received a royal charter, beginning a long history of central banking in England. Subsequent inflationary booms and deflationary busts are subsequently considered “mysterious” by people connected with the bank.
John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, was published on July 27, 1962, quickly becoming a bestseller. Recent investigation by Bill Steigerwald, in Reason magazine, showed that Steinbeck’s editors heavily edited the pro-New Deal ms. prior to publication, utterly changing its character.
On this day in 1974, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon.
July 27 births include that of Samuel Smith (1872; pictured), an American who served as a captain, major, and lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army, and later as a politician in several capacities in the state of Maryland; Hillaire Belloc (1870), author of a classic analysis of modern political governance, The Servile State; and American singer and songwriter Bobbie Gentry (1944).
On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola changed its formula and released New Coke. The American response was overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula was back on the market in less than three months. A great demonstration of consumer sovereignty.
On February 22, 1632, Galileo Galilei’s “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” was published, to the vexation of the Inquisition, which convicted him the next year of “grave suspcision of heresy.” This work subtly promoted the Copernican explanation of the relationship between the Earth, the sun, and the planets. It was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books of the Catholic Church, and not removed until 1835.