TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017

On this day in history:

1700 - 8000 Swedish troops under King Charles XII defeated an army of at least 50,000 Russians at the Battle of Narva. King Charles XII died on this day.

1803 - Spain completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France.

1831 - Sir Thomas Mitchell sets out to investigate rumours of a vast river allegedly flowing north from New South Wales. 1838 - Three days after the French occupation of Vera Cruz Mexico declared war on France.

1853 - During the Crimean War, the Russian fleet attacked and destroyed the Turkish fleet at the battle of Sinope.

1854 - Peter Lalor is elected to lead the gold-diggers in the movement that would become the Eureka Stockade.

1878 - Advance Australia Fair, the song that would become Australia’s National Anthem over a century later, is performed for the first time in public.

1920 - The first south to north transcontinental flight across Australia occurs.

1928 - Australian cricket icon Donald Bradman makes his Test debut.

1936 - London’s famed Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. The structure had been constructed for the International Exhibition of 1851. 1939 - The Russo-Finnish War began when 20 divisions of Soviet troops invaded Finland. 1940 - Lucille Ball and Cuban musician Desi Arnaz were married.

1962 - U Thant of Burma was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold.

1982 - The motion picture Ghandi had its world premiere in New Delhi.

1989 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat was refused a visa to enter the United States in order to address the UN General Assembly.

2005 - John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York.

2012 - An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane belonging to Aéro-Service, crashes into houses near Maya-Maya Airport during a thunderstorm, killing at least 32 people.