Today in History

November 22

1906 - The SOS distress signal is adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.

1915 - British and Turks battle indecisively at Tsiphon, Mesopotamia.

1916 - Jack London, pioneering American novelist, short story writer and social activist dies.

1935 - The flying boat China Clipper leaves San Francisco on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

1943 - Lebanon gains independence after two decades of French mandate rule.

1947 - Iran Assembly nullifies oil agreements with Soviet Union.

1963 - US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

1967 - UN Security Council approves Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967 Six-Day War.

1972 - US President Richard Nixon lifts 22-year-old ban on American travel to China.

1974 - UN General Assembly gives the Palestine Liberation Organisation observer status.

1975 - Juan Carlos I becomes King of Spain.

1986 - American Mike Tyson becomes the youngest boxer to win world heavyweight crown after knocking out Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas.

1988 - The US Air Force unveils the B-2 stealth bomber to the public.

1989 - Lebanese President Rene Muawad and at least 15 other people are killed in a powerful blast in Beirut.

1990 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns after 11 years in office.

1992 - Nato warships begin a blockade of Yugoslav territorial waters and a ceasefire virtually collapses.

1993 - Mexican Senate approves North American Free Trade Agreement.

1999 - Abdul Khader Hachani, a moderate leader of Algeria’s banned Islamic Salvation Front, is fatally shot in Algiers.

2001 - Steve Bennett launches “the world’s first private spaceship” from Cumbria.

2005 - Angela Merkel becomes first female Chancellor of Germany.

2006 - Nepal celebrates the end of a bloody 10-year-old communist insurgency.

2010 - 378 die in a stampede in Cambodia’s annual water festival.

2012 - Sudan arrests former spy chief Sala Gosh and other senior military and security officers for foiled plot.

2014 - Large numbers of voters cast their ballots in Bahrain’s parliamentary elections.

2016 - The Science and Innovation Park is inaugurated at the UAE University in Al Ain.