Today is Friday, Nov. 22, the 327th day of 2024. There are 39 days left in the year.
Today in history
On Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was shot to death during a motorcade in Dallas; Texas Gov. John B. Connally, riding in the same car as Kennedy, was seriously wounded. Suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president.
Also on this date
In 1718, English pirate Edward Teach — better known as “Blackbeard” — was killed during a battle off what is now North Carolina.
In 1935, a flying boat, the China Clipper, took off from Alameda, Calif., carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.
In 1986, 20-year-old Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in history, stopping WBC titleholder Trevor Berbick in the second round of their championship bout in Las Vegas.
In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win reelection to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced she would resign.
In 2005, Angela Merkel (AHN’-geh-lah MEHR’-kuhl) took office as Germany’s first female chancellor.
In 2010, a panicked crush at a festival in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh left some 350 dead and hundreds injured in what the prime minister called the country’s biggest tragedy since the 1970s reign of terror by the Khmer Rouge.
In 2017, Ratko Mladi, the Bosnian Serb general whose forces carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted of genocide and other crimes by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and sentenced to life behind bars.
Fun fact
The two parts of the word “helicopter” are not “heli” and “copter” but “helico” meaning spiral, and “pter” meaning one with wings, like pterodactyl.
Today’s birthdays
Actor-filmmaker Terry Gilliam is 84. Hockey Hall of Famer Jacques Laperrière is 83. Astronaut Guion (GEYE’-uhn) Bluford is 82. Tennis Hall of Famer Billie Jean King is 81. Rock musician-actor Steven Van Zandt is 74. Rock musician Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads) is 74. Actor Richard Kind is 68. Actor Jamie Lee Curtis is 66. Actor Mads Mikkelsen is 59. Actor Mark Ruffalo is 57. Tennis Hall of Famer Boris Becker is 57. Actor Scarlett Johansson is 40. Actor Alden Ehrenreich is 35. Actor Dacre Montgomery is 30. Actor Aulii Cravalho is 24.
The Edge is compiled by Katie Clohessy. She can be contacted at kclohessy@lmtribune.com.
