TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, Nov. 25, the 329th day of 2022. There are 36 days left in the year. On this date in:

1783: The British evacuated New York during the Revolutionary War.

1914: Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio was born in Martinez, California.

1915: A new version of the Ku Klux Klan, targeting blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants, was founded by William Joseph Simmons.

1947: Movie studio executives meeting in New York agreed to blacklist the “Hollywood Ten” who’d been cited for contempt of Congress the day before.

1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.

1961: The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, was commissioned.

1963: The body of President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery; his widow, Jacqueline, lighted an “eternal flame” at the gravesite.

1986: The Iran-Contra affair erupted as President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.

1999: Elian Gonzalez, a 5-year-old Cuban boy, was rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida, setting off an international custody battle.

2001: As the war in Afghanistan entered its eighth week, CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed during a prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, becoming America’s first combat casualty of the conflict.

2009: Toyota said it would replace the gas pedals on 4 million vehicles in the United States because the pedals could get stuck in the floor mats and cause sudden acceleration.

2016: Fidel Castro, who led his rebels to victorious revolution in 1959, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his halfcentury of rule in Cuba, died at age 90.