General George Washington’s army settles into a second season at Morristown, New Jersey, on December 1, 1779. Washington’s personal circumstances improved dramatically as he moved into the Ford Mansion and was able to conduct his military business in the style of a proper 18th-century gentleman. However, the worst winter of the 1700s coupled with the collapse of the colonial economy ensured misery for Washington’s underfed, poorly clothed and unpaid troops as they struggled for the next two months to construct their 1,000-plus “log-house city” from 600 acres of New Jersey woodland.

On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.

By the time she appeared as the final guest of Johnny Carson’s 30-year career on The Tonight Show and brought tears to the unflappable host’s eyes with an emotional performance of “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road),” she was an established star of stage and screen—a Tony winner, an Oscar nominee, a Grammy winner and a multimillion-selling recording artist. It would be difficult, however, to imagine a more unorthodox path to mainstream stardom than the one followed by Bette Midler—”The Divine Miss M”—who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945.

A fire at a grade school in Chicago kills 87 children and three nuns on December 1, 1958; five more children later died as a result of their injuries.

Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole—it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.