Today in History: Thursday, December 06, 2012

On Dec. 6, 1998, Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the Venezuelan government six years earlier, was elected president.

1790 Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.

1907 The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.

1923 A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

1947 Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated.

1957 The AFL-CIO expelled the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

1957 America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

1969 A free concert by the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including a man who was stabbed by a Hell's Angel.

1973 House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.

1992 Thousands of Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives.

1994 Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion.

2004 Al-Qaida struck the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, with explosives and machine guns, killing nine people.

2006 The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded that President George W. Bush's war policies had failed in almost every regard, and said the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."