Today in history

On Nov. 22, 1718, English pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was killed during a battle off the North Carolina coast.

In 1819 Mary Ann Evans, the Victorian novelist who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, was born in Chilvers Coton, England.

In 1890 Charles de Gaulle, who would become a French general, war hero and president, was born in Lille, France.

In 1899 pianist and composer Hoagy Carmichael was born Howard Hoagland Carmichael in Bloomington, Ind.

In 1906 the SOS signal for ships in distress was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.

In 1928, in Paris, Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” was performed for the first time.

In 1943 President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures to defeat Japan in World War II.

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as his successor.

In 1967 the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

In 1990 Margaret Thatcher resigned as Britain’s prime minister after failing to win re-election to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot.

In 1994 a gunman opened fire inside the District of Columbia’s police headquarters; the resulting gunbattle left two FBI agents, a city detective and the gunman dead.

In 1998 the CBS News program “60 Minutes” aired videotape of Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a terminally ill patient.

In 2000, amid the Florida recount battle, Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney was hospitalized with what doctors called a “very slight” heart attack.

In 2003 the Medicare prescription-drug bill narrowly passed the House, 220-215, following a dusk-to-dawn debate.