Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 26, 1950, China entered the Korean War, launching a counteroffensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the U.S. and South Korea.
On this date:
In 1825, the first college social fraternity, the Kappa Alpha Society, was formed at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
In 1864, English mathematician and writer Charles Dodgson presented a handwritten and illustrated manuscript, “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground,” to his 12-year-old friend Alice Pleasance Liddell; the book was later turned into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” published under Dodgson’s pen name, Lewis Carroll.
In 1883, former slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan.
In 1917, the National Hockey League was founded in Montreal, succeeding the National Hockey Association.
In 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered a note to Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura (kee-chee-sah-boor-oh noh-moo-rah), setting forth U.S. demands for “lasting and extensive peace throughout the Pacific area.” The same day, a Japanese naval task force consisting of six aircraft carriers left the Kuril Islands, headed toward Hawaii.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning Dec. 1.
In 1943, during World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18-1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Sen. John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.
In 2000, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by a 537-vote margin.
In 2008, teams of heavily armed Pakistani gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in Mumbai, India, leaving at least 166 people dead in a rampage lasting some 60 hours.
In 2017, amid allegations that he had groped women in the past, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken said he felt “embarrassed and ashamed,” but that he looked forward to gradually regaining the trust of voters. (Franken announced less than two weeks later that he was resigning from Congress.)
In 2020, Americans marked the Thanksgiving holiday amid the coronavirus pandemic, with many celebrations canceled or reduced; Zoom and FaceTime calls connected some families with those who didn’t want to travel.
In 2021, Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century, died at his Connecticut home at the age of 91.