THIS DATE IN HISTORY

Today is Thursday, Nov. 23, the 327th day of 2023. Today is Thanksgiving. On this date in:

1889: The first jukebox made its debut in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon.

1903: Enrico Caruso made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, appearing in “Rigoletto.”

1936: Life, the photojournalism magazine created by Henry R. Luce, was first published.

1963: President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22.

1971: The People’s Republic of China was seated in the United Nations Security Council.

1980: Some 2,600 people were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.

1996: A commandeered Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the water off the Comoros Islands, killing 125 of the 175 people on board, including all three hijackers.

2000: In a setback for Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade County officials to resume hand-counting its Election Day ballots. Meanwhile, Gore’s lawyers argued in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court that the high court should stay out of the Florida election controversy.

2003: Five U.S. soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

2006: Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

2008: The government unveiled a bold plan to rescue Citigroup, injecting a fresh $20 billion into the troubled firm as well as guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars in risky assets.

2011: Yemen’s authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down amid a fierce uprising to oust him after 33 years in power.

2012: Actor Larry Hagman, best known for playing the scheming oil baron J.R. Ewing on TV’s “Dallas,” died in Dallas at age 81.

2020: The federal government recognized Joe Biden as the “apparent winner” of the Nov. 3 election, formally starting the transition of power; President Donald Trump still refused to concede and vowed to continue a court fight.

2021: A federal jury in Cleveland found that CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties. (A judge awarded $650 million in damages.)

2022: The Middle East’s first World Cup opened in Qatar. Ecuador beat the host country 2-0 in the opening match.