This Week In History
Nov 18, 1928
Mickey Mouse made his debut in Walt Disney’s movie
Steamboat Willie, one of the first cartoons with sound. Mickey went on to appear in 130 films
1963: The first telephone with push buttons instead of a rotary dial came into commercial use in the US 1970: West Germany and Poland initialled a treaty recognising the Oder-Neisse line as a common border 1988: A million Serbs protested in Belgrade against ill treatment of Serbs by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo 1993: It was reported that AIDS had become the leading killer for men aged 25-44 in the United States
Nov 19, 2017
Czech tennis star Jana Novotna died from cancer at the age of 49. She won Wimbledon in 1998, plus 12 Grand Slam doubles titles and three Olympic medals
1978: More than 900 followers of cult leader the Reverend Jim Jones committed mass suicide in Guyana 1997: The world’s first surviving set of septuplets were born in the US
2008: Surgeons in Spain carried out the world’s first whole organ transplant, using a trachea made with the patient’s own stem cells 2008: The International Monetary Fund approved a US$2.1bil rescue package for Iceland
Nov 20, 1873
The rival cities of Buda and Pest were united as the new metropolis of Budapest, and joint capital, with Vienna, of the recently-formed Austro-Hungarian Empire
1998: The first section of the International Space Station was blasted into orbit from Kazakhstan 2008: Evidence of enormous
underground deposits of water ice was discovered on Mars
2011: The People’s Party, led by Mariano Rajoy, won a majority in Spain’s general election 2015: Thousands were stranded when Balkan border crossings were closed to economic migrants
Nov 21, 2017
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was ousted from power after 37 years of autocratic rule. He was succeeded by his deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa
2003: Rocks found in Antarctica lent weight to the theory that a meteorite wiped out 90% of all species on earth around 245 million years ago 2008: Stock losses in US markets during 2008 were equivalent to those suffered in 1931
2013: A wave of protests led to the fall of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president 2017: Former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes
Nov 22, 1963
US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, targeted Kennedy’s motorcade as it drove through the city
1943: Leaders of Great Britain, the US and China met in Cairo to discuss the war against Japan 1998: Dr. Jack Kevorkian was charged with murder when a video of a man being given a fatal injection was shown on US televison
2001: Pope John Paul II sent the first official papal e-mail 2015: Conservative Mauricio Macri was confirmed as the winner of Argentina’s presidential election
Nov 23, 2006
Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning. The former KGB colonel was a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s government
1963: The first episode of Doctor Who, the world’s longest-running science fiction TV show, was broadcast 1998: America’s four largest tobacco companies agreed to pay US$206bil to cover smoking-related health costs 2001: The first international treaty to address Internet and computer crime was signed in Budapest 2003: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned amid protests over disputed election results
Nov 24, 1963
Nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot dead President Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the underground garage of Dallas Police headquarters
2010: Aung San Suu Kyi, newly freed Burmese pro-democracy leader, was reunited with her son after 10 years 2014: Lionel Messi’s 252nd goal for Barcelona broke the 50-year-old La Liga scoring record
2015: Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border with Syria, sparking a major diplomatic row 2017: Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s jail sentence for the murder of his girlfriend was increased to 15 years