TODAY IN HISTORY
ON NOV 22...
In 1718 English pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was killed during a battle off the North Carolina coast.
In 1819 Mary Ann Evans, the Victorian novelist who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, was born in Chilvers Coton, England.
In 1869 Nobel Prize-winning novelist Andre Gide was born in Paris.
In 1890 Charles de Gaulle, who would become a French general, war hero and president, was born in Lille, France.
In 1899 pianist and composer Hoagy Carmichael was born Howard Hoagland Carmichael in Bloomington, Ind.
In 1906 the SOS signal for ships in distress was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.
In 1921 comedian Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen in Babylon, N.Y.
In 1924 actress Geraldine Page was born in Kirksville, Mo.
In1928, in Paris, Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” was performed for the first time.
In 1935 a flying boat, the “China Clipper,” took off from Alameda, Calif., carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.
In 1943 President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures to defeat Japan in World War II. Also in1943 lyricist Lorenz Hart died in New York; he was 48. Also in 1943 Billie Jean King, who would become a tennis star in the1960s and ’70s, was born in Long Beach, Calif.
In 1954 the Humane Society of the United States was incorporated as the National Humane Society.
In1955 comic Shemp Howard of “Three Stooges” fame died in Hollywood; he was 60.
In 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as his successor. Also in 1963 novelist and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis died in Oxford, England; he was 64. Also in 1963 novelist-critic Aldous Huxley died in Los Angeles; he was 69.
In 1967 the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
In 1975 Juan Carlos was proclaimed king of Spain.
In 1977 regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis.
In 1980
entertainer Mae West died in Hollywood; she was 87.
In 1990 Margaret Thatcher resigned as Britain’s prime minister after failing to win reelection to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot.
In 1993 Mexico’s Senate overwhelmingly approved the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In 1994 a gunman opened fire inside the District of Columbia’s police headquarters; the resulting gunbattle left two FBI agents, a city detective and the gunman dead.
In 1995 acting swiftly to boost the Balkan peace accord, the U.N. Security Council suspended economic sanctions against Serbia and eased the arms embargo against the states of the former Yugoslavia.
In 1998 the CBS News program “60 Minutes” aired videotape of Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a terminally ill patient.
In 2000, amid the Florida recount battle, Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney was hospitalized with what doctors called a “very slight” heart attack.
In 2003 the Medicare prescription-drug bill narrowly passed the House, 220-215, following a dusk-to-dawn debate.
In 2004 tens of thousands of demonstrators jammed downtown Kiev, denouncing Ukraine’s presidential runoff election as fraudulent and chanting the name of their reformist candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, whoended up winning a revote the following month.
In 2012 Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi expanded his powers in a decree condemned by judges and critics as a power grab. (He rescinded the edict Dec. 8 and was ousted July 3, 2013.)
In 2013 ceremonies were held nationwide to observe the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In Dallas, thousands packed Dealey Plaza as the city held its first official ceremony of the 1963 killing.
In 2014 at least 48 people were killed in the remote Nigerian community of Doron Baga. The attack was thought to have been carried out by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Also in 2014 Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old who was playing with a pellet gun that resembled a semiautomatic pistol, was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer.
In 2016 coastal residents in Japan were ordered to flee to higher ground after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, home to the nuclear plant that was destroyed by a huge tsunami following an earthquake in 2011 that killed about 18,000 people.