World roundup: December 1 2025

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Venezuela, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

December 1, 1640: Portuguese nobles declare John (João) IV (d. 1656) their new king. This is significant in that it meant that they were declaring an end to the 60 year old Iberian Union, rejecting the rule of Spanish King Philip IV (d. 1665). The 1640-1668 Portuguese Restoration War ensued, which—as any present day map of Europe will confirm—ended with a Portuguese victory and confirmation of the new monarchy.

December 1, 1828: General Juan Lavalle, having returned from the recently concluded Cisplatine War between Brazil and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, leads a coup against the government of Buenos Aires Province that became known as the “Decembrist revolution.” The coup reopened the Argentine Civil Wars, a conflict that had begun in 1814 between “unitarians,” who wanted to organize Argentina as a centrally controlled state, and federalists. Lavalle became affiliated with the unitarian cause and his coup ousted (and killed) the federalist governor, Manuel Dorrego. Anti-coup forces coalesced around wealthy rancher Juan Manuel de Rosas and were able to force Lavalle’s resignation the following year.

December 1, 1918: The “South Slavic” (Slovenian and Croatian) parts of Austria-Hungary are united with Serbia and Montenegro as the “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.” This name was changed in 1929 to the “Kingdom of Yugoslavia” and again after World War II to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This experiment in nation building eventually failed—violently, in case you missed it—in the 1990s.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

The US military’s Central Command claimed on Sunday that it destroyed 15 Islamic State “weapons caches” in multiple operations between November 24 and November 27. Those operations were conducted in collaboration with Syrian security forces and reflect Damascus’s increasing participation in the US-led anti-IS coalition. Syria has only joined that coalition in a political capacity, but it has been carrying out security operations against IS domestically that obviously contribute to the overall campaign.