TODAY IN HISTORY
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 1962, the first Boeing 727 was rolled out at the company’s Renton Plant near Seattle.
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 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 took his own life in October 1985.)
In 1998, answering 81 questions put to him three weeks earlier, President Bill Clinton wrote the House Judiciary Committee that his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair was “not false and misleading.”
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 George W. 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.”
In 2008, Iraq’s parliament approved a pact requiring all U.S. troops to be out of the country by Jan. 1, 2012.
In 2015, a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing three people and injuring nine. (The prosecution of suspect Robert Dear stalled in state court, and then federal court, after he was repeatedly found mentally incompetent to stand trial.)
As he tried to bolster his support in the wake of a sexual harassment allegation, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken apologized to “everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women.” (Franken would later resign.)
In 2020, President Donald Trump’s legal team suffered another defeat as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected the campaign’s latest effort to challenge Pennsylvania’s election results.
In 2021, the new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in more European countries, just days after being identified in South Africa.
In 2022, protesters pushed to the brink by China’s strict COVID measures in Shanghai called for the removal of the country’s all-powerful leader and clashed with police as crowds took to the streets in several cities.
BIRTHDAYS
Footwear designer Manolo Blahnik is 81.
Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is 72.
TV host Bill Nye (the Science Guy”) is 68.
Actor William Fichtner is 67.
Caroline Kennedy is 66.
Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri is 66.
Rock musician Charlie Burchill (Simple Minds) is 64.
Actor Michael Rispoli is 63.
Jazz composer/big band leader Maria Schneider is 63.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is 63.
Rock musician Charlie Benante (Anthrax) is 61.
Rock musician Mike Bordin (Faith No More) is 61.
Actor Fisher Stevens is 60.
Actor Robin Givens is 59.
Actor Michael Vartan is 55.
Actor Elizabeth Marvel is 54.
Rapper Skoob (DAS EFX) is 53.
Actor Kirk Acevedo is 52.
Rapper Twista is 51.
Actor Jaleel White is 47.
Actor Arjay Smith is 40.
Actor Alison Pill is 38.
Actor Lashana Lynch (TV: “Still Star-Crossed”) is 36.
