On This Day in History: November 28

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 28 is the 332nd day of the year (333rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 33 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1970, George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” is released.

 1095 – On the last day of the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II appoints Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse to lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land.

1443 – Skanderbeg and his forces liberate Kruja in Middle Albania and raise the Albanian flag.

1520 – After navigating through the South American strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence.

1660 – At Gresham College, 12 men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray decide to found what is later known as the Royal Society.

1729 – Natchez Indians massacre 138

Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.

1785 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed.

1811 – Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, was premiered at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

1814 – The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.

1821 – Panama Independence Day: Panama separates from Spain and joins Gran Colombia.

1843 – Ka La Hui: Hawaiian Independence Day – The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.

1862 – American Civil War: In the Battle of Cane Hill, Union troops under General John Blunt defeat General John Marmaduke’s Confederates.

1893 – Women vote in a national election for the first time: the New Zealand general election.

1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago’s Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

1905 – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Fein as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland.

1907 – In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater.

1910 – Eleftherios Venizelos, leader of the Liberal Party, wins the Greek elections again.

1912 – Albania declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

1914 – World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.

1918 – Bucovina voted for the union with the Kingdom of Romania.

1919 – Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons.

(Countess Markiewicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.)

1920 – Irish War of Independence: Kilmichael Ambush – The Irish Republican Army ambush a convoy of British Auxiliaries and kill seventeen.

1929 – Ernie Nevers of the then Chicago Cardinals scores all of the Cardinals’ points in this game as the Cardinals defeat the Chicago Bears 40-6.

1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people.

1943 – World War II: Tehran Conference – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran to discuss war strategy.

1958 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community.

1960 – Mauritania becomes independent of France.

1964 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars.

1964 – Vietnam War: National Security Council members agree to recommend that U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.

1965 – Vietnam War: In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam, Philippines President Elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam.

1972 – Last executions in Paris, of the Clairvaux Mutineers, Roger Bontems and Claude Buffet, guillotined at La Sante Prison. (Bontems had been found innocent of murder by the court, but as Buffet’s accomplice is condemned to death anyway.) The chief executioner is Andre Obrecht.

1975 – East Timor declares its independence from Portugal.

1975 – As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, the final two American soap operas that had resisted going to pre-taped broadcasts, air their last live episodes.

1979 – Air New Zealand Flight 901, a DC-10 operated sightseeing flight over Antarctica, crashes into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.

1984 – Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.

1987 – South African Airways flight 295 crashes into the Indian Ocean, killing all 159 people on-board.

1989 – Cold War: Velvet Revolution – In the face of protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces it will give up its monopoly on political power.

1991 – South Ossetia declares independence from Georgia.

Holidays and observances

   * Ascension of Abdu’l-Baha (Baha’i Faith)

   * Christian Feast Day:

         o Catherine Laboure

         o Herman of Alaska and Stephen the Younger, the anniversary of their actual deaths. Eastern Orthodox

         o Pope Gregory III

   * Feast of the Holy Sovereigns in honor of King Kamehama IV and Queen Emma, the founders of the Anglican Church of Hawaii (Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii)

   * Independence Day / National Day / Flag Day, celebrates the independence of Albania from Ottoman Empire in 1912, the first Albanian flag raise by Skanderbeg in 1443, and for the new parliamentary constitution in 1998.

   * Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mauritania from France in 1960.