December 3
day of the year
December 3 is the 337th day of the year (338th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 28 days remain until the end of the year.
Events
Pre-1600
915 – Pope John X crowns Berengar I of Italy as Holy Roman Emperor (probable date).
1601–1900
1775 – American Revolution: USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Continental Union Flag (precursor to the "Stars and Stripes"); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones.
1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch: Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeats the French at Wiesloch.
1800 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden: French General Jean Victor Marie Moreau decisively defeats the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this will force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war.
1800 – United States presidential election: The Electoral College casts votes for president and vice president that result in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.
1834 – The Zollverein (German Customs Union) begins the first regular census in Germany.
1854 – Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “December 3” as day of the year. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as day of the year. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2298. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600, 1601, 1900 and 1775.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “December 3”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow December 3 primary sources, December 3 archive and December research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “December 3” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.