Today In History...

   In 1226 St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, dies.
   In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln designates the last Thursday in November
           as Thanksgiving.
   In 1913 Federal Income Tax is signed into law (at 1%).
   In 1922 Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia becomes the first woman to be seated in
           the U.S. Senate. Felton, a Democrat, was appointed to serve out the
           remaining term of Thomas E. Watson.
   In 1929 The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formally changes its name
           to Yugoslavia.
   In 1941 Adolf Hitler declares in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been
           "broken" and would "never rise again."
   In 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the Office of Economic
           Stabilization and authorized controls on farm prices, rents, wages
           and salaries.
   In 1944 During World War II, U.S. troops crack the Siegfried Line north of
           Aachen, Germany.
   In 1950 Ethel Waters plays the first black lead on television in "Beulah."
   In 1952 The first magnetic video tape recording is made.
   In 1954 "Father Knows Best" starring Robert Young premieres on CBS-TV.
   In 1955 "Captain Kangaroo" starring Bob Keeshan premieres on CBS-TV.
   In 1955 "The Mickey Mouse Club" premieres on ABC-TV.
   In 1960 San Francisco's White House department store is first to accept the
           BankAmericard (now Visa) in lieu of cash.
   In 1960 The sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show" debuts on CBS-TV.
   In 1961 "The Dick Van Dyke Show" premieres on CBS-TV.
   In 1962 Astronaut Walter M. Schirra blasts off from Cape Canaveral aboard
           Sigma VII, the final Mercury mission.
   In 1967 Air Force pilot Pete Knight flies the X-15 at a record 4,534 mph.
   In 1974 Frank Robinson is named major league baseball's first black manager
           as he was placed in charge of the Cleveland Indians.
   In 1981 Irish nationalists at the Maze prison near Belfast, Northern
           Ireland, end 7 months of hunger strikes that killed ten people.
   In 1983 A volcano destroys two villages 100 miles south of Tokyo, Japan.
   In 1983 A foot of rain causes floods that kill 13 in Arizona.
   In 1985 The space shuttle Atlantis makes an all-military maiden flight.
   In 1985 In a speech to French legislators in Paris, Soviet leader Mikhail
           Gorbachev discloses details of a new proposal for reducing
           superpower missiles by up to 50 percent.
   In 1986 American hostages Terry Anderson and David Jacobsen, held by
           pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon, asked the Reagan administration
           in a videotaped message to work as hard for their freedom as it had
           done in getting reporter Nicholas Daniloff out of the Soviet Union.
   In 1988 Discovery completes its 4-day mission, the first American shuttle
           flight since the Challenger explosion.
   In 1988 Kidnappers in Lebanon release Indian educator Mithileshwar Singh,
           who had been held captive with 3 Americans for almost two years.
   In 1989 Panamanian troops loyal to Manuel Noriega squash a coup attempt in
           less than two hours.
   In 1990 West Germany and East Germany end 45 years of postwar division,
           declaring the creation of a new unified country.
   In 1991 Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton enters the race for the Democratic
           presidential nomination.
   In 1992 President Bush vetos a bill to regulate cable TV prices, but
           Congress overrode his veto 2 days later.
   In 1993 In Moscow, thousands of anti-government protesters armed with rocks,
           clubs and machine guns send police fleeing in battles across the
           capital.
   In 1994 The first international peacekeepers land in Haiti.
   In 1994 U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announces his resignation.
   In 1994 Voters in Brazil elect Fernando Henrique Cardoso their new
           president.
   In 1995 O.J. Simpson is acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole
           Brown-Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later
           found liable in a civil trial.)
   In 1997 Attorney General Janet Reno said Justice Department investigators
           had no evidence President Clinton violated the law with White House
           coffees and overnight stays for big contributors.
   In 1998 Australian Prime Minister John Howard's conservative government is
           narrowly re-elected.
   In 1998 Pope John Paul II beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, the World
           War II archbishop of Zagreb and a controversial figure because many
           Serbs and Jews accused him of sympathizing with the Nazis.
   In 1999 Sony co-founder Akio Morita dies in Tokyo at age 78.
   In 2001 A man aboard a Greyhound bus in Tennessee slashes the driver's
           throat, causing a crash that killed seven passengers and himself.
   In 2003 A tiger attacks magician Roy Horn of duo "Siegfried & Roy" during a
           performance in Las Vegas, leaving him in critical condition on his
           59th birthday.
   In 2004 Actress Janet Leigh ("Psycho") dies at age 77.