This Day in History
On Oct. 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day.
On this date:
In 1226, St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, died; he was canonized in 1228.
In 1789, President George Washington declared Nov. 26, 1789, a day of Thanksgiving to express gratitude for the creation of the United States of America.
In 1941, Adolf Hitler declared in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been “broken” and would “never rise again.” ‘’The Maltese Falcon” – the version starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston – premiered in New York.
In 1955, “Captain Kangaroo” and “The Mickey Mouse Club” premiered on C-B-S and A-B-C, respectively.
In 1961, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” also starring Mary Tyler Moore, made its debut on CBS.
In 1967, folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, the Dust Bowl Troubadour best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” died in New York of complications from Huntington’s disease; he was 55.
In 1995, the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles found the former football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman (however, Simpson was later found liable for damages in a civil trial).
In 2001, the Senate approved an agreement normalizing trade between the United States and Vietnam.
In 2003, a tiger attacked magician Roy Horn of duo “Siegfried & Roy” during a performance in Las Vegas, leaving the superstar illusionist in critical condition on his 59th birthday.
In 2008, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Simpson was later sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was granted parole in July 2017 and released from prison in October of that year.)
In 2017, President Donald Trump, visiting Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, congratulated the U.S. island territory for escaping the higher death toll of what he called “a real catastrophe like Katrina;” at a church used to distribute supplies, Trump handed out flashlights and tossed rolls of paper towels into the friendly crowd.