The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was released in theaters in the US.
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The first European explorer discovered New Zealand.
A civil rights protest march in Washington, D.C., took place.
New Zealand made history by passing the world’s first tobacco ban.
Pope Celestine V resigned after just five months in the job to return to his life as an ascetic hermit.
The third and last moonwalk of the Apollo 17 mission began.
