On December 1, 1955, civil rights activist Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her action prompted a year-long boycott of the Montgomery public transit system, which only came to an end after bus segregation was ruled illegal by the federal courts. Read a brief biography of Rosa Parks from the Rosa Parks Library and Museum at Troy State Univerity, Montgomery. In 1999 Ms. Parks received the background report on the Pacifica News Network.

On December 1, 1988, World AIDS Day was observed for the first time.