Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 2

December 2: National Day in the United Arab Emirates (1971) and Laos (1975).

• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: French forces led by Emperor Napoleon I decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Czar Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz.

• 1823 – U.S. President James Monroe (pictured) issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.

• 1942 – The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1.

• 1956 – Cuban Revolution: The yacht Granma, carrying Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement, reached the shores of Cuba.

• 1975 – The Pathet Lao overthrew the royalist government in Vientiane, forcing King Savang Vatthana to abdicate, and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic.