It’s Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023—the 333rd day of the year. The year has thirty-two days remaining.
The Historical High Point of Today:
At the age of 43, movie star Natalie Wood perished in a boating accident off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, California, on November 29, 1981, alongside her spouse, actor Christopher Walken, and actor Robert Wagner.
Today, this date:
At least 150 innocent Cheyenne Indians were slain by a Colorado militia in the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864.
The British explorer Robert F. Scott’s ship Terra Nova sailed from New Zealand in 1910, starting the ultimately deadly and pointless race to be the first to reach the South Pole.
Italian composer Giacomo Puccini passed away in Brussels in 1924 before finishing his opera “Turandot.” The completion was made by Franco Alfano.
The first aviation flight over the South Pole was accomplished in 1929 by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June, and photographer Ashley McKinney.
A resolution advocating for the partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews was passed by the U.N. General Assembly in 1947. The measure received support from 33 nations, including the United States, 13 votes against, and 10 abstained. (The proposal was never carried out because the Arabs rejected it.)
The Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft carried Enos the chimpanzee, which was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1961 and completed two orbits of the earth before landing back.
President Lyndon B. Johnson established an inquiry into President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, with Earl Warren serving as the commission’s chairman.
Actor Cary Grant passed away in Davenport, Iowa, in 1986 at the age of 82.
All 115 persons on board the Korean Air 707 airplane perished in 1987 when a bomb planted by North Korean spies destroyed the aircraft while it was traveling from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok.
George Harrison, a former Beatle, passed away in Los Angeles in 2001 at the age of 58 after a fight with cancer.
The last gunmen who had taken up residence in a posh Mumbai hotel were eliminated by Indian commandos in 2008, bringing an end to 166 people’s deaths during a 60-hour attack on India’s financial hub by suspected militants with ties to Pakistan.
Exactly 65 years after the General Assembly approved a plan to split Palestine into separate entities for Jews and Arabs, the UN overwhelmingly decided in 2012 to recognize a state for Palestine. (In 2012, there were 138 votes in favor, 9 against, including the US, and 41 abstentions.)
Ten people were killed when a police helicopter crashed into a pub in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2013.
NBC dismissed “Today” host Matt Lauer in 2017 for engaging in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a coworker; a report that was later made public said that Lauer had a history of inappropriate and boorish behavior with women in the workplace.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen admitted to lying to Congress in 2018 after he unexpectedly entered a guilty plea about a real estate transaction he had pushed for Trump in Moscow during the 2016 campaign.
Even as the city’s coronavirus pandemic worsened, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared in 2020 that New York City would resume offering in-person instruction and double the number of days that students attend classes each week.
A federal judge stopped the Biden administration in 2021 from imposing a mandatory coronavirus vaccination on thousands of healthcare workers in ten states that had filed the initial lawsuit opposing the requirement.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, was found guilty in 2022 of seditious conspiracy for organizing a violent scheme to thwart Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory. This verdict gave the Justice Department a significant advantage in its extensive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising.
Today’s Birthdays: John Mayall, a blues singer-musician, turns 90 today. Diane Ladd, an actress, is eighty-eight. 83-year-old songwriter Mark James. Chuck Mangione, 83, is a composer and performer. The Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere is an 81-year-old pop singer-musician. Suzy Chaffee, 77, is a former Olympian skier. Jeff Fahey is 71 years old. Joel Coen is a 69-year-old film director. Howie Mandel, 68, is a celebrity judge, comedian, and actor. Janet Napolitano, 66, was the former director of Homeland Security. Rahm Emanuel, a former mayor of Chicago, is 64. Actor Cathy Moriarty is sixty-three. Kim Delaney, an actor, is sixty-two. Andrew McCarthy is 61 years old. Don Cheadle is 59 years old. Neill Barry is a 58-year-old actor and producer. Jonathan Knight (of New Kids on the Block) is a 55-year-old pop vocalist. Boo Radleys rock guitarist Martin Carr is 55 years old. Jennifer Elise Cox, an actress, is 54. Mariano Rivera, a baseball hall of famer, is 54. Larry Joe Campbell is 53 years old. 53-year-old rock guitarist Frank Delgado of the Deftones. Paola Turbay is 53 years old. 52-year-old contemporary Christian vocalist Crowder. 52-year-old actor Gena Lee Nolin. 51-year-old actor Brian Baumgartner. 48-year-old actor Julian Ovenden. Actress Anna Faris is 47 years old. James Fortune, a gospel singer, is 46. 45-year-old actor Lauren German. The Game, a rapper, is 44. 43-year-old actor Janina Gavankar. At 42, Ringo Garza is a rock musician. John Milhiser, a comedian and actor, is 42. Lucas Black is 41 years old. Russell Wilson is a 35-year-old NFL quarterback. Diego Boneta, an actor, is 33. Actor Lovie Simone, a 25-year-old from “Greenleaf,”