Today in History

Today is Friday, Nov. 22, the 326th day of 2019. There are 39 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas; Texas Gov. John B. Connally, in the same car as Kennedy, was seriously wounded; a suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president.

On this date:

In 1862, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Forza del Destino” had its world premiere in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In 1935, a flying boat, the China Clipper, took off from Alameda, California, carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek (chang ky-shehk) met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan. Lyricist Lorenz Hart died in New York at age 48.

In 1955, comic Shemp Howard of “Three Stooges” fame died in Hollywood at age 60.

In 1967, the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it had captured the previous June, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

In 1977, regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis.

In 1980, death claimed actress Mae West at her Hollywood residence at age 87 and former House Speaker John W. McCormack in Dedham, Mass. at age 88.

In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win re-election of the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced she would resign.

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 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 (yoo-SHEN'-koh), who ended up winning a revote the following month.

In 2005, Angela Merkel (AHN'-geh-lah MEHR'-kuhl) took power as Germany’s first female chancellor. Ted Koppel hosted his final edition of ABC News’ “Nightline.”

In 2017, former sports doctor Larry Nassar, accused of molesting at least 125 girls and young women while working for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sexual assault. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general whose forces carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted of genocide and other crimes by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and sentenced to life behind bars.

Ten years ago: Iran said it had begun large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack. Michael Jackson posthumously won four American Music Awards; Taylor Swift was named artist of the year; Adam Lambert’s sexually provocative performance drew complaints.

Five years ago: Twelve-year-old Tamir (tuh-MEER’) Rice was shot and mortally wounded by police outside a Cleveland recreation center after brandishing what turned out to be a pellet gun. (A grand jury declined to indict either the patrolman who fired the fatal shot or a training officer.) Somalia’s extremist al-Shabab rebels attacked a bus in northern Kenya, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims.

One year ago: After a Thanksgiving night shooting at an Alabama shopping mall wounded two people, a responding officer shot and killed a 21-year-old black man, Emantic Bradford Jr., who police initially said had shot a teen at the mall; they later acknowledged that Bradford, who they said was fleeing the scene with a handgun, was not the triggerman. (A state investigation determined that the officer was justified in shooting Bradford because Bradford carried a weapon and appeared to pose a threat.) President Donald Trump used a Thanksgiving Day call to troops deployed overseas to air grievances about the courts, trade issues and migrants heading to the southern border. Spectators bundled up for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York; a temperature of 21 degrees at the start of the parade made it one of the coldest Thanksgivings in the city in decades. Nissan fired chairman Carlos Ghosn (gohn), who’d led the Japanese automaker for nearly two decades, after his arrest for alleged financial improprieties.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Michael Callan is 84. Actor Allen Garfield is 80. Animator and movie director Terry Gilliam is 79. Actor Tom Conti is 78. Singer Jesse Colin Young is 78. Astronaut Guion (GEYE'-uhn) Bluford is 77. International Tennis Hall of Famer Billie Jean King is 76. Rock musician-actor Steve Van Zandt (a.k.a. Little Steven) is 69. Rock musician Tina Weymouth (The Heads; Talking Heads; The Tom Tom Club) is 69. Retired MLB All-Star Greg Luzinski is 69. Actress Lin Tucci is 68. Rock musician Lawrence Gowan is 63. Actor Richard Kind is 63. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is 61. Alt-country singer Jason Ringenberg (Jason & the Scorchers) is 61. Actress Mariel Hemingway is 58. Actor Winsor Harmon is 56. Actor-turned-producer Brian Robbins is 56. Actor Stephen Geoffreys is 55. Rock musician Charlie Colin is 53. Actor Nicholas Rowe is 53. Actor Michael Kenneth Williams is 53. Actor Mark Ruffalo is 52. International Tennis Hall of Famer Boris Becker is 52. Actress Sidse (SIH'-sa) Babett Knudsen is 51. Country musician Chris Fryar (Zac Brown Band) is 49. Actor Josh Cooke is 40. Actor-singer Tyler Hilton is 36. Actress Scarlett Johansson is 35. Actor Jamie Campbell Bower is 31. Singer Candice Glover (TV: “American Idol”) is 30. Actor Alden Ehrenreich is 30. Actor Dacre Montgomery is 25. Actress Mackenzie Lintz is 23.

Thought for Today: “A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.” — President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963).