November 30
Today is observed as
Cities For Life Day worldwide, supporting the abolition of the death penalty.
Today is the last day of November.
There are
31 days remaining in 2016.
There are
24 days until Christmas.
Events
1707 – The second
Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.
1782 – American Revolutionary War:
Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1786 – The
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under
Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as
Cities for Life Day).
1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the
Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the
Louisiana Purchase.
1864 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio in the
Battle of Franklin. [I went to the reenactment on the anniversary of the Battle Of Franklin. 25,000 reenactors, breastworks, fortifications,
huge encampment of reenactors. It was freaking awesome. At the time, it was the second-largest reenactment, second only to Gettysburg.]
1886 – The
Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
1934 – The
LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.
1936 – In London, the
Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.
1954 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the
Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.
1968 -
Glen Campbell started a five-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with '
Wichita Lineman.'
Jimmy Webb's inspiration for the lyrics came while driving through Washita County in northern Oklahoma. Webb was driving through an endless litany of telephone poles, each looking exactly the same as the last. Then, in the distance, he noticed the silhouette of a solitary lineman atop a pole. Webb then "put himself atop that pole and put that phone in his hand" as he considered what the lineman was saying into the receiver.
1982 – Michael Jackson's second solo album,
Thriller is released worldwide. It will become the best-selling record album in history.
1994 -
Tupac Shakur was
shot five times during a robbery outside a New York City recording studio.
1994 –
MS Achille Lauro catches fire off the coast of Somalia.
1995 – Official end of
Operation Desert Storm.
1998 –
Exxon and
Mobil sign a US$73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating
ExxonMobil, the world's largest company.
1999 – In Seattle, United States,
demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by
anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
1999 –
British Aerospace and
Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form
BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.
Births
1466 – Andrea Doria (the person, not the ship); 1667 – Jonathan Swift;
1781 – Alexander Berry; 1810 – Oliver Winchester (founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company); 1835 – Mark Twain; 1836 – Lord Frederick Cavendish; 1872 – John McCrae (wrote the poem
In Flanders Fields); 1874 – Winston The British Bulldog Churchill;
1909 – Robert Nighthawk; 1912 – Gordon Parks; 1915 –
Brownie McGhee
; 1918 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; 1924 – Shirley Chisholm; 1924 – Allan Sherman♪ ♫; 1925 – William H. Gates, Sr. (Bill Gates father); 1926 – Richard Crenna; 1927 – Robert Guillaume;
1928 – Joe B. Hall (head basketball coach at University of Kentucky for 13 years, the man is royalty here); 1929 – Dick Clark♪ ♫; 1929 – Joan Ganz Cooney (co-created
Sesame Street); 1930 – G. Gordon Liddy; 1932 – Bob Moore

(member of The Nashville A Team); 1936 – Abbie Hoffman; 1937 – Jimmy Bowen♪ ♫; 1937 – Luther Ingram♪ ♫; 1937 – Ridley Scott; 1937 – Tom Simpson (died in 67 Tour de France cycling up Mont Ventoux); 1943 – Terrence Malick; 1945 – Roger Glover

(Deep Purple, Rainbow); 1947 – David Mamet; 1952 – Mandy Patinkin; 1953 – Shuggie Otis (wrote
Strawberry Letter 23); 1953 – June Pointer♪ ♫(youngest Pointer Sister); 1953 – David Sancious

(E Street Band); 1955 – Billy Idol♪ ♫; 1957 – John Ashton♪ ♫(The Psychedelic Furs); 1957 – Colin Mochrie; 1958 – Stacey Q♪ ♫; 1962 – Bo Jackson; 1965 – Ben Stiller; 1973 – John Moyer

(Disturbed, Operation: Mindcrime (a band, not the Queensryche album)); 1975 – Mindy McCready♪ ♫; 1978 – Clay Aiken♪ ♫; 1982 – Elisha Cuthbert; 1985 – Kaley Cuoco

(
8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, The Big Bang Theory)
Deaths
1873 – Alexander Berry; 1900 – Oscar Wilde; 1979 – Zeppo Marx; 1994 – Lionel Stander ('Max', the Man Friday to the Harts on
Hart To Hart); 1996 – Tiny Tim; 2000 – Scott Smith

(Loverboy); 2007 – Evel Knievel

; 2013 – Paul Walker