Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 2
December 2: National Day in the United Arab Emirates (1971) and Laos (1975).
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: French forces led by Emperor Napoleon I decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Czar Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz.
- 1823 – U.S. President James Monroe (pictured) issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
- 1942 – The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1.
- 1956 – Cuban Revolution: The yacht Granma, carrying Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement, reached the shores of Cuba.
- 1975 – The Pathet Lao overthrew the royalist government in Vientiane, forcing King Savang Vatthana to abdicate, and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
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