This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
November 26 is the 330th day of the year (331st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 35 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1942, Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City; it will go on to become one of the most beloved Hollywood movies in history.
n the film, Bogart played Rick Blaine, a former freedom fighter and the owner of a swanky North African nightclub, who is reunited with the beautiful, enigmatic Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman who loved and left him. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Casablanca opened in theaters across America on January 23, 1943, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Bogart. It took home three Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film featured a number of now-iconic quotes, including Rick’s line to Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” as well as “Round up the usual suspects,” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
43 BC – The Second Triumvirate alliance of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (“Octavian”, later “Caesar Augustus”), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony is formed.
783 – The Asturian queen Adosinda is put up in a monastery to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.
1476 – Vlad III Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.
1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
1784 – The Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established.
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
1805 – Official opening of Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.
1863 – American Civil War: Mine Run – Union forces under General George Meade position against troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
1863 – President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26th as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).
1865 – Battle of Papudo: The Spanish navy engages a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet north of Valparaiso, Chile.
1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
1918 – The Podgorica Assembly votes for “union of the people”, declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia.
1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.
1922 – Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely distributed).
1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.
1942 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihac in northwestern Bosnia.
1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s shop on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing 168 shoppers.
1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
1949 – The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India’s constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People’s Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
1965 – In the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.
1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.
1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.
1977 – ‘Vrillon’, claiming to be the representative of the ‘Ashtar Galactic Command’, takes over Britain’s Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM.
1983 – Brink’s-MAT robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink’s-MAT vault at Heathrow Airport.
1986 – Iran-Contra scandal: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.
1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight.
1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland’s parliament.
2003 – Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.
2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: a man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.
2004 – Male Po’ouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of Avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
2008 – The first of many attacks on Mumbai, India are fired. These ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 300 people in Mumbai.
* Christian Feast Days:
o Stylianos of Paphlagonia (Eastern Orthodoxy)
* Day of the Covenant (Baha’i Faith)
* Earliest day on which Cyber Monday can fall, while December 2 is the latest; observed on the first Monday after Thanksgiving. (United States)
* Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mongolia from China on July 11, 1921.
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