TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: NOV 22
1220 After promising to go to the aid of the Fifth Crusade within nine months, Frederick II is crowned emperor 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 New laws are passed in Spain giving Indians in America protection against enslavement.
1699 A treaty was signed by Denmark, Russia, Saxony and Poland for the partitioning of the Swedish Empire.
1718 English pirate Edward Teach (a.k.a. “Blackbeard”) was killed during a battle off the coast of North Carolina. British soldiers cornered him aboard his ship and killed him. He was shot and stabbed more than 25 times.
1809 Peregrine Williamson of Baltimore patents a steel pen
1902 A fire causes considerable damage to the unfinished Williamsburg bridge in New York.
1910 Arthur Knight patents steel shaft golf clubs
1917 NHL founded with Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Maroons, TorontArenas, Ottawa Senators & Quebec Bulldogs
1919 A Labor conference committee in the United States urges an eight-hour workday and a 48-hour week.
1923 Coolidge pardons WW I German spy Lothar Witzke, sentenced to death
1943 President Franklin Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan.
1963 John F. Kennedy assassinated. The 35th President of the United States was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. He was the 4th American president to be assassinated while in office. The other 3 were Abraham Lincoln, James Abram Garfield, and William McKinley.
1964 Almost 40,000 people pay tribute to John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death.
1967 BBC unofficially bans “I am the Walrus” by the Beatles
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.
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.
1973 Great Britain announces a plan for moderate Protestants and Catholics to share power in Northern Ireland.
1977 Regular passenger service on the Concorde began between New York and Europe.
1986 Justice Department finds memo in Lt. Col. Oliver North’s office on the transfer of $12 million to Contras of Nicaragua from Iranian arms sale.
1989 Lebanese President Rene Moawad killed when a bomb explodes near his motorcade in West Beirut.
1989 Conjunction of Venus, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn & the Moon
1990 Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirms the end of her premiership by withdrawing from the leadership election of the Conservative Party.
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.
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.
1995 The first feature-length film created entirely with computer generated imagery – Toy Story – premiers.
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.
2004 The Orange Revolution, protesting a primary election believed to have been rigged, begins in the Ukraine. On Dec 26 Ukraine’s Supreme Court orders a revote..
2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first woman ever to be Chancellor of Germany; the former research scientist had previously been the first secretary-general of the Christian Democratic Union.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
