Today in history

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 27, the 331st day of 2019. There are 34 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight:

On Nov. 27, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist, were shot to death inside City Hall by former supervisor Dan White. (White served five years for manslaughter; he committed suicide in Oct. 1985.)

On this date:

In 1901, the U.S. Army War College was established in Washington, D.C.

In 1924, Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day parade — billed as a “Christmas Parade” — took place in New York.

In 1942, during World War II, the Vichy French navy scuttled its ships and submarines in Toulon to keep them out of the hands of German troops.

In 1945, General George C. Marshall was named special U.S. envoy to China by President Harry S. Truman to try to end hostilities between the Nationalists and the Communists.

In 1962, the first Boeing 727 was rolled out at the company’s Renton Plant.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI, visiting the Philippines, was slightly wounded at the Manila airport by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest.

In 1973, the Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who’d resigned.

In 1998, answering 81 questions put to him three weeks earlier; President Clinton wrote the House Judiciary Committee that his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair was “not false and misleading.”

In 1989, a bomb blamed on drug traffickers destroyed a Colombian Avianca Boeing 727, killing all 107 people on board and three people on the ground.

In 1999, Northern Ireland’s biggest party, the Ulster Unionists, cleared the way for the speedy formation of an unprecedented Protestant-Catholic administration.

In 2000, a day after George W. Bush was certified the winner of Florida’s presidential vote, Al Gore laid out his case for letting the courts settle the nation’s long-count election.

In 2003, President Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops and thank them for “defending the American people from danger.”

Ten years ago: Tiger Woods crashed his SUV outside his Florida mansion, sparking widespread attention to reports of unfaithfulness to his wife, Elin Nordegren. (The couple divorced the following year.) Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced to their friends the engagement of daughter Chelsea to longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky. Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts returned from the International Space Station with a smooth touchdown.

Five years ago: Reflecting its lessening oil clout, OPEC decided to keep its output target on hold and sit out falling crude prices. Mystery writer P.D. James, 94, died in Oxford, England. Frank Yablans, 79, a former president of Paramount Pictures who presided over the release of several groundbreaking pictures such as “The Godfather,” died in Los Angeles.

One year ago: Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith won a divisive runoff over Democrat Mike Espy, who had hoped to become the state’s first African-American senator since Reconstruction; Hyde-Smith survived a video-recorded remark that had been criticized as racist. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off all federal subsidies to General Motors because of its planned massive cutbacks in the U.S.

Today’s birthdays: Author Gail Sheehy is 82. Footwear designer Manolo Blahnik is 77. Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is 68. TV host Bill Nye (“Bill Nye, the Science Guy”) is 64. Actor William Fichtner is 63. Caroline Kennedy is 62. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri is 62. Rock musician Charlie Burchill (Simple Minds) is 60. Actor Michael Rispoli is 59. Jazz composer/big band leader Maria Schneider is 59. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is 59. Rock musician Charlie Benante (Anthrax) is 57. Rock musician Mike Bordin (Faith No More) is 57. Actor Fisher Stevens is 56. Actress Robin Givens is 55. Actor Michael Vartan is 51. Actress Elizabeth Marvel is 50. Rapper Skoob (DAS EFX) is 49. Actor Kirk Acevedo is 48. Rapper Twista is 47. Actor Jaleel White is 43. Actor Arjay Smith is 36. Actress Alison Pill is 34. Actress Lashana Lynch (TV: “Still Star-Crossed”) is 32. Actress-singer Aubrey Peeples is 26.

Thought for today: “Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life.” — Eugene O’Neill, American playwright (born 1888, died this date in 1953)