TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, NOV. 29, the 334th day of 2020. There are 32 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.
In 1864, a Colorado militia killed at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne Indians in the Sand Creek Massacre.
In 1910, British explorer Robert F. Scott’s ship Terra Nova set sail from New Zealand, carrying Scott’s expedition on its ultimately futile — as well as fatal — race to reach the South Pole first.
In 1924, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels before he could complete his opera “Turandot.” (It was finished by Franco Alfano.)
In 1952, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower secretly left on a trip to Korea, keeping his campaign promise to assess the ongoing conflict first-hand.
In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.
In 1963, President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
In 1981, film star Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, California, at age 43.
In 1987, a Korean Air 707 jetliner en route from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok was destroyed by a bomb planted by North Korean agents with the loss of all 115 people aboard.
In 2001, George Harrison, the “quiet Beatle,” died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.
In 2008, Indian commandos killed the last remaining gunmen holed up at a luxury Mumbai hotel, ending a 60-hour rampage through India’s financial capital by suspected Pakistani-based militants that killed 166 people.
In 2009, a gunman shot and killed four Lakewood, Washington, police officers at a coffee shop (suspect Maurice Clemmons was shot to death by a Seattle police officer two days later).
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Hall of Fame sportscaster Vin Scully is 93. Blues singer-musician John Mayall is 87. Actor Diane Ladd is 85. Songwriter Mark James and composer-musician Chuck Mangione are 80. Country singer Jody Miller is 79. Former Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee is 74. Actor Jeff Fahey is 68. Movie director Joel Coen is 66. Actorcomedian-celebrity judge Howie Mandel is 65. Actor Cathy Moriarty is 60. Actors Kim Delaney and Tom Sizemore are 59. Actor Andrew McCarthy is 58. Actor Don Cheadle is 56. Pop singer Jonathan Knight (New Kids on the Block) and rock musician Martin Carr (Boo Radleys) are 52. Actor Jennifer Elise Cox and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mariano Rivera are 51. Actors Larry Joe Campbell and Paola Turbay, and rock musician Frank Delgado (Deftones) are 50. Actor Julian Ovenden is 45. Actor Anna Faris is 44. Gospel singer James Fortune is 43. Actor Lauren German is 42. Rapper The Game is 41. Actor Janina Gavankar is 40. Actor Diego Boneta is 30. Actor Lovie Simone (TV: “Greenleaf”) is 22.