Nov. 28
1925: The Grand Ole Opry debuted on radio station WSM in Nashville.
1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean.
1942: Fire engulfed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, killing 492 people in the deadliest nightclub blaze ever.
1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran for the first time to discuss Allied cooperation during World War II.
2001: Enron Corp., once the world’s largest energy trader, collapsed.
Nov. 29
1864: The Sand Creek Massacre occurred when a Colorado militia launched an unprovoked attack on an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribal members. An estimated 230 people were killed.
1929: Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.
1981: Film star Natalie Wood drowned while boating off California’s Santa Catalina Island with her husband, Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken.
2001: Former Beatle George Harrison died following a battle with cancer; he was 58.
Nov. 30
1782: The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris to end the Revolutionary War.
1993: President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.
1999: An estimated 40,000 demonstrators clashed with police as they protested against the World Trade Organization as the WTO convened in Seattle.
Dec 1
1862: President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery, and went on to say, “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”
1942: During World War II, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.
1955: Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus.
1969: The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.
1991: Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
Dec. 2
1859: Militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harpers Ferry the previous October.
1993: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death in Medellin.
Dec. 3
1818: Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.
1828: Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States.
1947: The Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway.
1964: Police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
1965: The Beatles’ sixth studio album, “Rubber Soul,” was released in the United Kingdom.
Dec. 4
1942: During World War II, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time.
1956: Known as “The Million Dollar Quartet”, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered for the first and only time for an impromptu jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.
