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 1869 Nobel Prize-winning novelist Andre Gide was born in Paris.

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 1921 comedian Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen in Babylon, N.Y.

In 1924 actress Geraldine Page was born in Kirksville, Mo.

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

In 1935 a flying boat, the “China Clipper,” took off from Alameda, Calif., carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

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 1954 the Humane Society of the United States was incorporated as the National Humane Society.

In 1955 comic Shemp Howard of “Three Stooges” fame died in Hollywood; he was 60.

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.