1963 – U.S. President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Texas Governor John B. Connally was also seriously wounded. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated as the 36th U.S. President.
0845 – the first King of all Brittany Nominoe defeats the Franc king Charles the Bald at the battle of Ballon near Redon. No more toll will be taken on Brittany. It becomes an independant state during seven centuries.
1220 – Frederick II crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Honorius III
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
1542 – Spain delegates “New Laws” against slavery in America
1574 – Discovery of uninhabited Juan Fernández Islands off Chile by Spanish sailor Juan Fernández – later famous home of marooned sailor Alexander Selkirk (inspired Robinson Crusoe story)
1675 – English King Charles II adjourns parliament – beginning of the “Long Prorogation” (parliament doesn’t resume until February 1677)
1699 – A treaty was signed by Denmark, Russia, Saxony and Poland for the partitioning of the Swedish Empire.
1718 – Off the coast of North Carolina, British pirate Edward Teach (best known as “”Blackbeard””) was killed in battle with a boarding party led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
1794 – Strasbourg Alsace-Lorraine, prohibits circumcision and wearing of beards
1842 – Mount St Helens in Washington, erupts”
1899 – The Marconi Wireless Company of America was incorporated in New Jersey.
1900 – Paul Kruger, exiled President of the Boer Republic of South Africa, is given a popular welcome when he lands at Marseilles, France
1906 – Peter Stolypin, Prime Minister of Russia, introduces agrarian reforms allowing peasants to withdraw from the communes and take their share of land for private ownership
1910 – Arthur F. Knight patented a steel shaft to replace wood shafts in golf clubs.
1917 – In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association broke up (on November 26 it was replaced with the National Hockey League).
1922 – Howard Carter, assisted by Lord Carnarvon, opened the tomb of Tutankhamun
1923 – Coolidge pardons WW I German spy Lothar Witzke, sentenced to death
1935 – The first trans-Pacific airmail flight began in Alameda, CA, when the flying boat known as the China Clipper left for Manila. The craft was carrying over 110,000 pieces of mail.
1939 – Bugsy Siegel, Whitey Krakower, Frankie Carbo and Albert Tannenbaum kill Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg outside his apartment after Greenberg had threatened to become a police informant
1940 – World War II: Following the Italian invasion, Greek troops advanced into Albanian soil and liberated Korytsa
1942 – During World War II, the Battle of Stalingrad began.
1943 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss the measures for defeating Japan.
1950 – The lowest scoring game in the NBA was played. The Fort Wayne Pistons (later the Detroit Pistons) defeated the Minneapolis Lakers (later the Los Angeles Lakers) 19-18.
1959 – American Football League (AFL) conducts its first draft in Minneapolis with the 8 clubs selecting their playing rosters for the inaugural 1960 season
1963 – U.S. President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Texas Governor John B. Connally was also seriously wounded. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated as the 36th U.S. President.
1965 – D.N. Aidit, head of the Communist Party of Indonesia is captured and killed by the Indonesian military in the after math of the G30S coup attempt
1967 – The U.N. Security Council approved resolution 242. The resolution called for Israel to withdraw from territories it had captured in 1967 and called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
1968 – 1st interracial TV kiss (Star Trek – Captain Kirk and Uhura)
1972 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon lifted a ban on American travel to Cuba. The ban had been put in place on February 8, 1963.
1974 – The U.N. General Assembly gave the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.
1975 – Juan Carlos I proclaimed King of Spain as monarchy restored after 31 years
1977 – Regular passenger service on the Concorde began between New York and Europe.
1980 – Georgia tanker at Pilottown La, spills 1.3 million gallons of oil after an anchor chain caused a ship to leak
1983 – The Bundestag approved NATO’s plan to deploy new U.S. nuclear missiles in West Germany.
1985 – Anne Henderson-Pollard was taken into custody a day after her husband Jonathon Jay Pollard was arrested for spying for Israel.
1985 – 38,648 immigrants became citizens of the United States. It was the largest swearing-in ceremony.
1986 – Attorney Generel Meese’s office discovered a memo in Colonel Oliver North’s office that included an amount of money to be sent to the Contras from the profits of weapons sales to Iran.
1988 – The South African government announced it had joined Cuba and Angola in endorsing a plan to remove Cuban troops from Angola.
1989 – Rene Moawad, the president of Lebanon, was assassinated less than three weeks after taking office by a bomb that exploded next to his motorcade in West Beirut.
1990 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush, his wife, Barbara, and other congressional leaders shared Thanksgiving dinner with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
1993 – Mexico’s Senate overwhelmingly approved the North American Free Trade Agreement.
1994 – Inside the District of Columbia’s police headquarters a gunman opened fire. Two FBI agents, a city detective and the gunman were killed in the gun battle.
1998 – CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a tape of Jack Kevorkian giving lethal drugs in an assisted suicide of a terminally ill patient. Kevorkian was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder.
2002 – In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest.
2003 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, opponents of President Eduard Shevardnadze seize the parliament building and demand the president’s resignation.
2004 – Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine – The revolution began after an election that was marred by widespread rumors of corruption and fraud. The protests resulted in electoral reforms in the country and November 22 was declared a Day of Freedom in 2005. The holiday was then moved to January 22 in 2011.
2005 – Angela Merkel was elected as Germany’s first female chancellor.
2009 – A 400lb bomb partially explodes outside the headquarters of the Policing Board in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In another incident, three men are arrested after a shooting incident involving PSNI officers in the border village of Garrison, County Fermanagh.
2013 – The discovery of Siats meekerorum was announced. The dinosaur skeleton, more than 30 feet long, was found in eastern Utah.
2014 – Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, is shot dead by police in Cleveland, after brandishing what turned out to be a fake gun in a playground
2017 – Californian man Craig Coley pardoned for a double murder after serving 39 years by Governor Jerry Brown. Longest prison term to be overturned in the state.
2020 – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gives Tigrayan forces 72 hours to surrender before the military begins offensive on regional capital of Mekelle
2022 – An out-of-control rebellion by terrorist groups in West Africa’s Sahel area is threatening the entire region, warns Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo at a security conference in Accra
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
