December 10, 2025
The Brown Dog Affair: Rioting Peaks in London (1907)
In 1903, anti-vivisectionists enrolled as medical students at University College London and published an eyewitness account of a brown dog that had endured months of surgical experimentation while allegedly conscious. A professor named in the story sued for defamation and won. After the trial, anti-vivisectionists put up a statue of the dog as a monument in a park, but mobs of angry medical students rioted and tried to destroy it. In 1910, it was taken down by authorities. When was it replaced? Discuss
December 9, 2025
Eradication of Smallpox Is Certified (1979)
One of the deadliest diseases in history by sheer loss of life, smallpox was the target of a concerted, worldwide eradication campaign in the 20th century, and it became the first disease to have been successfully wiped out. Efforts focused on vaccination and quickly responding to and curtailing outbreaks. The last person to die from smallpox caught it at a laboratory, where samples of the now-vanquished disease remain. Who is the last person known to have contracted it in the wild?
December 8, 2025
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty Is Signed (1987)
Signed by US President Ronald Reagan and USSR General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty represented a historic shift in superpower relations. The first treaty to mandate a reduction in stockpiled weapons rather than just a limit on them, it required the destruction of 1,752 Soviet and 859 US missiles. Though the agreement has been upheld by some Soviet successor states, Russian President Vladimir Putin said what about the treaty in 2007?
