Today is Monday, November 23, the 327th day of 2015. There are 38 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1499 – Perkin Warbeck, pretender to English throne, is executed.
1531 – Peace of Kappel ends second civil war in Switzerland.
1848 – The Female Medical Educational Society is established in Boston, Massachusetts the same year the all-male American Medical Association is formed.
1890 – Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is separated from the Netherlands.
1891 – Deodoroda Fonseca, first president of Brazil, is ousted by a navy revolt.
1903 – Italian singer Enrico Caruso makes his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, appearing in “Rigoletto.”
1932 – The kingdoms of Nejd and Hejaz merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud.
1936 – Life magazine, created by American Henry R. Luce, is first published.
1943 – U.S. forces defeat Japanese in Pacific battle of Tarawa in World War II.
1945 – Most U.S. wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ends.
1971 – China takes seat as a permanent member of U.N. Security Council.
1980 – An earthquake hits the Naples area in Italy, killing 2,570 people and leaving 30,000 homeless.
1986 – Philippine President Corazon Aquino dismisses defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile after reported coup attempt.
1989 – At least 300,000 people jam Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia.
1993 – Record cold is blamed for at least 34 deaths in parts of Europe and prompts the French army to send out troops to feed the homeless in Paris.
1995 – A wave of violence in Haiti claims at least three more lives following President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Nov. 7 call for a disarmament campaign.
1996 – A hijacked Ethiopian airliner carrying 175 passengers runs out of fuel and crashes on the Comoros Islands, killing 125 people.
1998 – The European Union lifts a worldwide export ban on British beef. The ban was imposed after experts announced a possible link between “mad cow” disease and a fatal disease in humans.
1999 – Kuwait’s Parliament rejects a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office.
2000 – The U.S. presidential election stretches into the Thanksgiving Day holiday without a president-elect as the fierce tug of war between George W. Bush and Al Gore over Florida’s crucial electoral votes reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
2003 – Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns in the face of massive, almost daily protests that followed the flawed November 2 parliamentary elections.
2005 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is confirmed as the winner in Liberia’s first postwar elections. The new president says her victory marks a new beginning for her country and for African women.
2006 – In London, a rare radioactive substance is used to kill ex-KGB spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who called Russian President Vladimir Putin “barbaric and ruthless” and blamed him personally for the poisoning.
2009 – The world’s largest atom smasher makes another leap forward by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs.
2010 – In a seismic shift on one of the most profound — and profoundly contentious — Roman Catholic teachings, the Vatican says that condoms are the lesser of two evils when used to curb the spread of AIDS, even if their use prevents a pregnancy.
2012 – Iran lashes out at Turkey for requesting that NATO supply it with Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deploy along with border with Syria, denouncing the step by Ankara as counterproductive.
2014 — The Israeli Cabinet approves a bill to legally define the country as the nation state of the Jewish people, a move likely to further inflame tensions with Israel’s Arab citizens.
Today’s Birthdays:
Thomas Birch, English historian (1705-1766); Boris Karloff, British-born actor (1887-1969); Paul Celan, Romanian poet (1920-1970); Vo Van Kiet, former Vietnamese Prime Minister (1922-2008); Krzysztof Penderecki, Polish composer (1933–); Bruce Hornsby, U.S. singer (1954–); Oded Fehr, Israeli actor (1970–).
Thought For Today:
It is better to debate an important matter without settling it than to settle it without debating it — Anonymous.
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