EVENTS
- 1778 – British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.
- 1789 – George Washington proclaims the first Thanksgiving Day.
- 1849 – Edgar Allen Poe seen in public for the last time. The Baltimore, Maryland-based American poet and author, best known for his poem ‘The Raven’ was found sick and delirious on the streets and taken to Washington College Hospital, where he died a few days later. He was 40 years old at the time of his death.
- 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation designating the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
- 1929 – Yugoslavia became the official name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
- 1932 – Iraq gained independence from Britain and joined the League of Nations.
- 1952 – UK tests its first atomic bomb. Called Operation Hurricane the test was conducted near the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. The operation made the UK the third country to have nuclear weapons, the United States and the Soviet Union were the first two.
- 1960 – The ‘Andy Griffith Show’ debuts.
- 1974 – Frank Robinson was hired by the Cleveland Indians as baseball’s first African American major league manager.
- 1988 – Turner Network Television (TNT) cable channel launches on US television.
- 1990 – After 45 years of Cold War division, East and West Germany were reunited as the Federal Republic of Germany.
- 1995 – OJ Simpson acquitted in the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. The former football player had been accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend on June 13, 1994. The high profile case and the subsequent trial of Simpson captured widespread media and public attention in the United States and around the world.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1925 – Gore Vidal (American author, screenwriter, actor)
- 1941 – Chubby Checker (Singer)
- 1951 – Dave Winfield (Baseball Player)
- 1954 – Stevie Ray Vaughan (American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer)
- 1954 – Al Sharpton (American minister, talk show host, activist)
- 1959 – Fred Couples (Golfer)
- 1964 – Clive Owen (Actor)
- 1969 – Gwen Stefani (Singer)
- 1973 – Neve Campbell (Actress)
- 1976 – Seann William Scott (Actor)
- 1980 – Anquon Boldin (Football Player)
- 1984 – Ashlee Simpson (Singer)
DEATHS
- 1226 – Francis of Assisi (Italian friar, saint)
- 1896 – William Morris (English poet, designer)
Carl Nielsen - 1931 – Carl Nielsen (Danish violinist, composer, conductor)
- 1967 – Woody Guthrie (American singer-songwriter, musician)
- 2005 – Ronnie Barker (English comedian, actor)
