01|Vicente Fox Quesada is inaugurated as president of Mexico, bringing an end to 71 years of political dominance by Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The inauguration also marks the first transfer of power from one democratically elected party to another in Mexican history.|
02|Subcommander Marcos, leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, Mexico's largest rebel group, announces that he is willing to negotiate with Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox Quesada, if Fox is willing to remove troops from guerrilla strongholds in the southern state of Chiapas. The rebel group, which declared war on the government of Mexico on Jan. 1, 1994, demands limited autonomous political rights for Mexico's indigenous people. Fox vowed in his inaugural address on December 1 to propose legislation guaranteeing such rights.|
02|Eleven people are killed when a shopping mall in Dongguan, a city 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Hong Kong in China's Guangdong province, collapses. A construction crew was illegally adding additional stories to the privately owned structure.|
03|United States astronauts Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega attach two solar wings to the International Space Station in orbit approximately 230 miles (370 kilometers) above Earth. The 240-foot- (73-meter-) long wings, the largest structures ever deployed in space, are designed to generate electricity from sunlight.|
04|The U.S. Supreme Court orders the Florida Supreme Court to reconsider its November 21 decision to allow four Florida counties to recount votes from the presidential election. The decision sets aside, but does not overturn, the Florida Supreme Court decision, which extended the deadline for certifying election results to allow manually counted votes to be included in the Florida results.|
04|The agricultural ministers of the European Union (EU) meet in an emergency session to pass measures designed to control the spread of mad cow disease as well as calm public fears. The EU bans the use of all animal feeds that include any animal products. The ban extends to all farm animals, not just cows. The EU also orders all cattle older than 30 months removed from the food chain unless an animal is tested to prove that it is free of the disease.|
05|French and Kenyan scientists have discovered fossilized bones they believe are the remains of a human ancestor dating from some 6 million years ago, according to an annoucement from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. The scientists claim that the fossils--found in the Baringo district of central Kenya--are at least 1.5 million years older than previous findings.|
06|The two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is over, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan announces from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. Ethiopian and Eritrean representatives are scheduled to meet in Algeria on December 12 to sign a treaty, which was brokered by the Organization of African Unity. The war broke out in 1998 when Eritrean troops moved into territory that Ethiopia considered part of Ethiopia. When Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, after decades of guerrilla warfare, the border between the two countries was never fully outlined.|
07|President Bill Clinton issues an executive order splitting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) into two parts, one to manage air traffic control and another to oversee safety and enforce regulations. A chief operating officer is to lead the air traffic segment with the guidance of a five-member board of directors. President Clinton also suggests that airlines adopt a new pricing structure designed to discourage individuals from flying during peak hours.|
07|Approximately 4,000 political extremists, including Basque separatists from Spain, anarchists from France, and young Communists from Italy, stage a riot in Nice, France, during the opening of a European Union summit meeting. EU delegates are meeting to prepare the 15-nation organization for expansion to include as many as 12 additional countries, most from Eastern Europe.|
08|The Florida Supreme Court reverses a lower court ruling regarding the U.S. presidential election and orders Florida election boards to immediately begin manually recounting ballots from the November 7 presidential election that had not been previously counted. Election officials in Florida believe that counting machines had failed to count as many as 45,000 ballots statewide, either because no vote had been cast for president or because the voter had failed to fully puncture the card.|
09|The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, orders the Florida manual recount of presidential election ballots stopped, pending a Supreme Court review of a Florida Supreme Court decision to allow the recount.|
09|Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel resigns, announcing he will lead a caretaker government until a special premiership election is held in early 2001.|
10|The military ruler of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, pardons former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from a life sentence and exiles him to Saudi Arabia. Sharif is also to forfeit to the government approximately $10 million in property in Pakistan.|
11|The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments from lawyers for George W. Bush and Al Gore on whether manual recounts of Florida votes should resume.|
11|President Bill Clinton signs into law a $7.8-billion federal project to restore the ecology of the Florida Everglades. The law, which received final congressional approval in early November, calls for removing levees and repositioning canals to restore a natural flow of water to the area. In addition to preserving threatened wetlands, the project, which engineers estimate will take 35 years, includes saving wildlife and cutting down on water pollution while continuing to provide drinking water to the cities and towns of southern Florida.|
12|The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, reverses a decision by the Florida Supreme Court to allow a manual recount of votes from the November 7 presidential election. In the opinion of the majority on the high court, the recount could not be resumed because the procedures were so arbitrary that they violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. According to legal experts, the decision removes all legal obstacles to Texas Governor George W. Bush claiming victory over Vice President Al Gore.|
12|Executives at General Motors of Detroit announce plans to phase out the Oldsmobile, a brand that has been in existence for 103 years. GM also plans to eliminate more than 9,000 jobs, including 6,600 white-collar positions. Between 1980 and 2000, the Oldsmobile's market share dropped from 7.3 percent to 1.6 percent of all cars and trucks sold in the United States. During the same period, the line became solidly identified with older Americans.|
13|Governor George W. Bush of Texas claims victory in the 2000 presidential election five weeks after the actually polling on November 7. Bush's opponent in the race, Vice President Al Gore, conceded approximately an hour before Bush's national television address.|
13|An international team of scientists working together on the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative announce that they had for the first time deciphered the genetic code of a plant. Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress, a small garden weed, is only the fourth eukaryote (organism with cells that have a nucleus) to have its genetic secrets revealed.|
14|The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent federal agency that maintains free and fair competition in the economy, votes 5-to-0 to approve plans for the merger of America Online, Incorporated of Dulles, Virginia, with Time Warner, Incorporated, a New York City-based media corporation. AOL is the world's largest Internet service provider, with more than 22 million subscribers. Time Warner is the world's largest media conglomerate with operations in book and magazine publishing; cable television systems and channels; and the film and record industries. Under the terms of the FTC approval, the new company must abide by a series of conditions designed to ensure that it does not drive other Internet service providers and cable television companies out of business.|
15|Engineers in Ukraine permanently shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the worst nuclear accident in history. In 1986, an explosion and fire ripped apart the reactor at the Chernobyl plant, killing at least 30 people, and released large amounts of radioactive substances into the atmosphere.|
16|President-elect George W. Bush nominates Colin Powell, a retired U.S. Army general and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to serve in the new Bush Cabinet as secretary of state.|
17|President-elect George W. Bush nominates Condoleezza Rice to head the National Security Council. Rice, a longtime adviser to Bush on international policy issues, served as a top adviser on the Soviet Union to former President George H. W. Bush.|
18|Popocatepetl, a 17,886-foot- (5,450-meter-) volcano located 40 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of Mexico's capital, Mexico City, spews molten rock thousands of feet into the air during a day-long eruption that scientists say is the most violent in 1,000 years.|
19|Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he will not run for prime minister of Israel in the 2001 election. Political experts predict that his departure from the race means Prime Minister Ehud Barak will likely face General Ariel Sharon, the head of the right-wing Likud Party, in the February vote.|
20|U.S. president-elect George W. Bush names four nominees for positions in the new Bush Cabinet: Paul H. O'Neill, chairman of aluminum manufacturer Alcoa Inc., as secretary of the Department of the Treasury; Donald L. Evans, a Texas oil executive and Bush's campaign chairman, as secretary of the Department of Commerce; Ann M. Veneman, a California agriculture official, as secretary of the Department of Agriculture; and Mel Martinez, chairman of Orange County, Florida, as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.|
21|George W. Bush resigns as governor of Texas in preparation for taking office in January 2001 as president of the United States. The Texas lieutenant governor, Rick Perry, succeeds Bush as governor.|
22|President Bill Clinton extends presidential pardons to 59 people, including former U.S. Representative Dan Rostenkowski (D., Illinois). Rostenkowski, who was once the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, served 15 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud in 1996.|
22|U.S. president-elect George W. Bush nominates Missouri Senator John Ashcroft to serve as attorney general in the new Cabinet. Ashcroft served as governor of Missouri from 1985 to 1993. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1995 and lost his bid for reelection in the November 2000 election. President-elect Bush also nominates New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman to head the Environmental Protection Agency.|
23|The United Nations (UN) overhauls its finances for the first time in more than 20 years. Changes include cutting the share of the UN budget paid by the United States and increasing the share paid by developing countries.|
24|Official election results give the prodemocracy Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) a sweeping victory in Serbian parliamentary elections. The DOS wins 176 seats in the Yugoslav republic's parliament, compared with 37 seats for the Socialist Party headed by former President Slobodan Milosevic.|
25|Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas are hit by ice storms that leave tens of thousands of people without electricity.|
25|A fire in a commercial building in Luoyang, a city in central China, kills more than 300 people, most of whom were trapped in a dance hall on the fourth floor.|
26|A man armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle, a shotgun, and a handgun opens fire at the Internet consulting company where he was employed in a suburb outside Boston, Massachusetts, and kills seven people.|
27|U.S. President Bill Clinton appoints Roger Gregory to a vacant seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia. Gregory is the first African American justice to serve on the appellate court in the Fourth Circuit Court district.|
28|The population of the United States on April 1, 2000, stood at 281.4 million, an increase of 33 million since the 1990 census, announce officials at the United States Census Bureau. The figure is based on the 10-year census of population and housing conducted in 2000.|
28|U.S. President-elect George W. Bush nominates Donald Rumsfeld for secretary of the Department of Defense. Rumsfeld previously served as defense secretary under President Gerald R. Ford and held several positions in the administrations of President Richard M. Nixon and President Ronald Reagan.|
29|U.S. President-elect George W. Bush nominates Rod Paige, the superintendent of schools in Houston, as secretary of the Department of Education; Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Gale Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, as secretary of the Department of the Interior; and Anthony Principi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, as secretary of Veterans Affairs.|
29|At least 150 people die when two passenger ferries collide on the River Meghna in the southeastern Chadpur district in Bangladesh.|
30|A series of bombings in Manila, capital of the Philippines, leave 16 people dead and more than 100 people injured. Government officials blame the bombings on Communist guerrillas and other groups opposed to President Joseph Estrada, who is being tried in the Philippine Senate on charges of bribery and graft and for constitutional violations. Estrada's opponents claim his allies are detonating bombings as a pretext for declaring martial law, a situation that would provide Estrada with the justification he needs to dissolve the current Philippine Congress.|
31|Total snowfall in December at Chicago's Midway Airport tops 41 inches (104 centimeters), a new city record for the month. According to the National Climate Data Center, record amounts of snow for December also fell in Amarillo, Texas, which received more than 20 inches (50 centimeters), and Marquette, Michigan, which received more than 80 inches (200 centimeters).|
