December 4 ...

In 1674 Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek (the mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, IL). In 1783 Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York. In 1791 the first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, was published. In 1816 James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States. In 1875 William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country. In 1918 President Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office. In 1942 President Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression; also on this day, US bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II. In 1945 the Senate approved US participation in the United Nations. In 1965 the US launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard. In 1978 San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone. In 1984 a five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, Iran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna. In 1991 journalist Terry Anderson is released after 7 years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut (he was the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon); also on this day, US airline Pan Am ended operations. In 2000 the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.