Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On Nov. 26, 2000, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by a 537-vote margin.
On this date:
1789: Americans observed a day of thanksgiving set aside by President George Washington to mark the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States.
1842: The founders of the University of Notre Dame arrived at the school’s present-day site near South Bend, Indiana.
1883: Former slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Mich.
1941: U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered a note to Japan’s ambassador to the United
States, Kichisaburo Nomura, setting forth U.S. demands for “lasting and extensive peace throughout the Pacific area.” The same day, a Japanese naval task force consisting of six aircraft carriers left the Kuril Islands, headed toward Hawaii. 1942: The Warner Bros. motion picture “Casablanca,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Theater in New York. 1943: During World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed. 1950: China entered the Korean War, launching a counteroffensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the U.S. and South Korea. 1973: President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 181 2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape. 1986: President Ronald Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Senator John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-contra affair. 2007: Vice President Dick Cheney experienced an irregular heartbeat and was taken to George Washington University Hospital for evaluation. 2008: A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles of three minor offenses for her role in a meanspirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-yearold girl, Megan Meier, to suicide. However, Lori Drew’s convictions were later thrown out. Ten years ago: An investigation ordered by Ireland’s government found that Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin had spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and that most fellow clerics had turned a blind eye. Five years ago: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a heart stent implanted, reviving talk about how long the 81-year-old liberal jurist would be staying on the court. One year ago: A NASA spacecraft designed to drill down into Mars’ interior landed on the planet; it was the first successful landing on Mars in six years.