Today in History.....December 1

On this day in …

* 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. (Adams ended up the winner.)

* 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis closed after seven months and some 20 million visitors

* 1913, the first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburgh

* 1934, Sergei M. Kirov, a collaborator of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, resulting in a massive purge

* 1943, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin concluded their Tehran conference

* 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. Mrs. Parks was arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by black

* 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland

* 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II

* 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a narrow question of Florida election law while the Florida Supreme Court and a circuit judge denied Al Gore's petitions for immediate recounts.
Florida's high court also refused to order a new election in Palm Beach County, where a "butterfly ballot" drew protests from Democratic voters. ALSO: Vicente Fox was sworn in as president of Mexico, ending 71 years of ruling-party domination

* 2004, Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time as principal anchor of the "NBC Nightly News"; he was succeeded by Brian Williams