TODAY IN HISTORY

ONNOV. 15...

In 1777 the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, precursor to the Constitution. (Ratification by the 13 states was completed in 1781.)

In 1806 Army officer and explorer Zebulon Pike found the 14,110-foot Colorado mountain that would be named Pikes Peak in his honor.

In 1882 Felix Frankfurter, the legal scholar whowould become a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, was born in Vienna. In 1887 artist Georgia O’Keeffe was born near Sun Prairie, Wis.

In 1889 Brazil’s monarchy was overthrown.

In 1891 Erwin Rommel, the German field marshal nicknamed “the Desert Fox” during World War II, was born in Heidenheim an der Brentz, Germany.

In 1926 the National Broadcasting Co. debuted with a radio network of 24 stations.

In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

In 1940 the first 75,000 men were called to armed forces duty under peacetime conscription.

In 1948 William Lyon Mackenzie King retired as prime minister of Canada after 21 years.

In 1958 actor Tyrone Power died of a heart attack while filming a movie in Spain; he was 44.

In 1966 the flight of Gemini 12 ended successfully as astronauts James Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. splashed down safely in the Atlantic.

In 1969 250,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War.

In 1978 anthropologist Margaret Mead died of cancer in New York; she was 76.

In 1982 services were held in Moscow’s Red Square for the late Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.

In 1985 Britain and Ireland signed an accord giving Dublin an official consultative role in governing Northern Ireland.

In1993 a judge in Mineola, N.Y., sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in jail for the statutory rape of Amy Fisher, who ended up serving nearly seven years in prison for shooting and wounding Buttafuoco’s wife, Mary Jo.

In 1996 Alger Hiss, the patrician public servant whofell from grace in a communist spy scandal that propelled Richard Nixon to higher office, died in New York; he was 92.

In1998 KwameTure, the civilrights activist formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, died in Guinea; he was 57.

In 2000 Al Gore made a surprise proposal for a statewide hand recount of Florida’s 6 million ballots — an idea immediately rejected by George W. Bush. (Earlier, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris had rejected requests from the counties to update presidential vote totals with the results of hand recounts under way at Gore’s urging.)

In 2002 Hu Jintao replaced Jiang Zemin as China’s Communist Party leader.

In 2004 the White House announced that Secretary of State Colin Powell was leaving President George W. Bush’s Cabinet, along with Education Secretary Rod Paige, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Also in 2004 the U. N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Ivory Coast’s hardline government after its violent confrontation with France.

In 2007 baseball player Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, charged with lying whenhetold a federal grand jury that he did not knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs. (Bonds was later convicted on the obstruction of justice count, which was overturned in 2015.)

In 2012 BP agreed to accept criminal responsibility for the 2010 Gulf oil spill that killed 11 workers and to pay $4.5 billion in fines and penalties. Also in 2012 Xi Jinping became leader of China’s Communist Party. (He later took over the presidency in March.)

In 2013 a federal judge sentenced political “hacktivist” and Anonymous member Jeremy Hammond, 28, to 10 years in prison for a 2011 cyberattack that caused millions of dollars in damages. Also in 2013 China announced it would ease its unpopular one-child policy.

In 2016 former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak was indicted on charges he used his influence to grab money for himself and connected friends from the record $9.2 billion settlement with tobacco companies in the late 1990s.

In 2017 Zimbabwe’s military was in control of the capital and was holding President Robert Mugabe and his wife under house arrest in what leaders said was an attempt to restore democracy after 37 years of rule by the 93-year-old Mugabe.