Today is Friday, Dec. 3, the 337th day of 2021. There are 28 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Dec. 3, 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.

On this date:

In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.

In 1947, the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway.

In 1964, police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.

In 1967, a surgical team in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donor organ, which came from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank clerk who had died in a traffic accident.

In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.

In 1992, the Greek tanker Aegean Sea spilled more than 21 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground off northwestern Spain.

In 1994, AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser, who along with her two children were infected with HIV because of a blood transfusion, died in Santa Monica, California, at age 47.

In 2015, defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the armed services to open all military jobs to women, removing the final barriers that had kept women from serving in combat, including the most dangerous and grueling commando posts.

Today’s Birthdays: Singer Jaye P. Morgan is 90. Rock singer Ozzy Osbourne is 73. Rock singer Mickey Thomas is 72. Actor Daryl Hannah is 61. Actor Julianne Moore is 61. Olympic gold medal figure skater Katarina Witt is 56. Actor Brendan Fraser is 53. Singer Montell Jordan is 53. Pop/rock singer-songwriter Andy Grammer is 38.