Today in History

  • Wednesday, November 23, 2011 4:15pm
  • Life

Today is Thursday, Nov. 24, the 328th day of 2011. There are 37 days left in the year. This is Thanksgiving Day.

Today’s highlight:

On Nov. 24, 1971, a hijacker calling himself “Dan Cooper” (but who became popularly known as “D.B. Cooper”) parachuted from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 somewhere over the Pacific Northwest after receiving $200,000 dollars in ransom — his fate remains unknown.

On this date:

In 1784, Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, was born in Orange County, Va.

In 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species,” which explained his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

In 1863, the Civil War Battle of Lookout Mountain began in Tennessee; Union forces succeeded in taking the mountain from the Confederates.

In 1939, British Overseas Airways Corp. was formally established.

In 1941, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Edwards v. California, unanimously struck down a California law prohibiting people from bringing impoverished non-residents into the state.

In 1950, the musical “Guys and Dolls,” based on the writings of Damon Runyon and featuring songs by Frank Loesser, opened on Broadway.

In 1963, Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, in a scene captured on live television.

In 1969, Apollo 12 splashed down safely in the Pacific.

In 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on terms to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles.

In 1991, rock singer Freddie Mercury died in London at age 45 of AIDS-related pneumonia.

Ten years ago: A Swiss Crossair airliner carrying 33 people crashed near Zurich, killing 24, including American pop singer Melanie Thornton. British actress Rachel Gurney, who’d played Lady Marjorie Bellamy on the popular television series “Upstairs Downstairs,” died at age 81.

Five years ago: Shiite militiamen in Iraq doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive and killed 19 other Sunnis, taking revenge for the slaughter of 215 Shiites in Baghdad’s Sadr City the day before. Belfast’s most infamous Protestant militant, Michael Stone, stormed into the Northern Ireland Assembly headquarters with a bagful of pipe bombs; he was quickly subdued. (Stone was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2008.) Opera singer Robert McFerrin Sr., the father of Grammy-winning conductor-vocalist Bobby McFerrin, died in suburban St. Louis at age 85.

One year ago: A jury in Austin convicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on charges he’d illegally funneled corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. (DeLay, who was later sentenced to three years in prison, is free on bond as his legal team appeals.)

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