December 1

1743: German physicist Martin Klaproth, who discovered uranium, zirconium, and cerium, was born. 1792: Russian mathematician Nikolay Lobachevsky, who is credited with developing non-Euclidean geometry, was born. 1935: German astronomer Bernhard Schmidt, who invented the type of reflecting telescope named after him (Schmidt telescope, Schmidt-Cassegrain, etc.), died. 1941: The U.S. Civil Air Patrol was created. 1941: Federico Faggin, inventor of the Z80 microprocessor, was born. 1969: The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II. 1989: Ford acquired Jaguar Cars for $2.5 billion. 1990: British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel ("Chunnel") under the English Channel finally met in the service tunnel after knocking out a passage large enough to walk through and shake hands, 22.3 km from the U.K. and 15.6 km from France. 1998: Exxon announced an $80B deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the 3rd largest company on the planet.