Today is Sunday, Nov. 29, the 333rd day of 2009. There are 32 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Nov. 29, 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.
On this date
In 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, one-time adviser to England’s King Henry VIII, died.
In 1830, a Polish secret society of infantry cadets staged an uprising in Warsaw, beginning the November Insurrection.
In 1832, Louisa May Alcott, the American author of the classic “Little Women”, was born.
In 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington led a controversial surprise attack, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, on a surrendered, partially disarmed Cheyenne Indian camp in southeastern Colorado Territory.
In 1890, the first Army-Navy football game was played, with Navy winning 24-0 at West Point, N.Y.
In 1924, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels before he could complete his opera “Turandot.” (It was finished by Franco Alfano.)
In 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.
In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
In 1952, the first Army-Navy football game was played, with Navy winning 24-0 at West Point, N.Y.
In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson named a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In 1963, more than 100 people are killed when a Canadian jet crashes into a field minutes after take-off.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
In 1981, actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, Calif., at age 43.
In 1986, actor Cary Grant died in Davenport, Iowa, at age 82.
In 1989, in response to a growing pro-democracy movement in Czechoslovakia, the Communist-run Parliament ended the party’s 40-year monopoly on power.
In 1990, the U.N. Security Council voted 12-2 to authorize military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and release all foreign hostages by Jan. 15, 1991.
In 1996, a U.N. court sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims – the first international war crimes sentence since World War II.
In 1999, ten years ago, Protestant and Catholic adversaries formed an extraordinary Northern Ireland government designed to bring together every branch of opinion within the bitterly divided society.
In 1999, game show host Gene Rayburn died in Gloucester, Mass., at age 81.
In 2001, George Harrison, the “quiet Beatle,” died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.
In 2004, five years ago, President George W. Bush picked Carlos Gutierrez, the chief executive officer of cereal giant Kellogg Co., to be commerce secretary.
In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a gay-marriage law in Massachusetts.
In 2004, an Army helicopter crashed near Waco, Texas, killing seven soldiers.
In 2004, John Drew Barrymore, the sometimes troubled heir to an acting dynasty and absent father of actress Drew Barrymore, died in Los Angeles at age 72.
In 2008, one year ago, Indian commandos killed the last remaining gunmen holed up at a luxury Mumbai hotel, ending a 60-hour rampage through India’s financial capital by suspected Pakistani-based militants that killed 166 people.
In 2008, architect Joern Utzon, who designed the iconic Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, died at age 90.
Today’s Birthdays
Hall-of-Fame sportscaster Vin Scully is 82. Former French President Jacques Chirac is 77. Blues singer-musician John Mayall is 76. Actress Diane Ladd is 74. Composer-musician Chuck Mangione is 69. Country singer Jody Miller is 68. Pop singer-musician Felix Cavaliere (The Rascals) is 67. Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee is 63. Comedian Garry Shandling is 60. Actor Jeff Fahey is 57. Movie director Joel Coen is 55. Actor-comedian-game show host Howie Mandel is 54. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano is 52. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is 50. Actress Cathy Moriarty is 49. Actress Kim Delaney is 48. Actor Tom Sizemore is 48. Actor Andrew McCarthy is 47. Actor Don Cheadle is 45. Actor-producer Neill Barry is 44. Musician Wallis Buchanan is 44. Pop singer Jonathan Knight (New Kids on the Block) is 41. Rock musician Martin Carr (Boo Radleys) is 41. Actress Jennifer Elise Cox is 40. Actor Larry Joe Campbell is 39. Rock musician Frank Delgado (Deftones) is 39. Actress Gena Lee Nolin is 38. Actor Brian Baumgartner is 37. Actress Anna Faris is 33. Actor Julian Ovenden is 33. Rapper The Game is 30. Rock musician Ringo Garza is 28. Actor Lucas Black is 27.
Today’s Historic Birthdays
Pierre-Andre Latreille
11/29/1762 – 2/6/1833
French zoologist
Gaetano Donizetti
11/29/1797 – 4/8/1848
Italian opera composer
Christian Doppler
11/29/1803 – 3/17/1853
Austrian physicist and discoverer of the Doppler effect
Morrison Waite
11/29/1816 – 3/23/1888
Seventh chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1874-88)
Louisa May Alcott
11/29/1832 – 3/6/1888
American writer
Busby Berkeley
11/29/1895 – 3/14/1976
American film director and choreographer
William Tubman
11/29/1895 – 7/23/1971
Liberian statesman and president for 27 years
C.S. Lewis
11/29/1898 – 11/22/1963
English writer and scholar
Mildred Gillars
11/29/1900 – 6/25/1988
American Nazi radio propagandist
Marcel Lefebvre
11/29/1905 – 3/25/1991
French Roman Catholic archbishop
Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
11/29/1908 – 4/4/1971
American minister and civil-rights leader; congressman from New York (1945-70)
Billy Strayhorn
11/29/1915 – 5/31/1967
American pianist and composer
Thought for Today
“The tragedy of love is indifference.” – W. Somerset Maugham, English author-dramatist (1874-1965).
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Full article: http://wvgazette.com/ap/ApPolitics/200911230243
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20091129.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/29/default.stm
