Historical Events on November 26 - On This Day

Historical Events on November 26

Second Triumvirate

43 BC Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leader Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony formed

  • 579 Pelagius II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
  • 783 Asturian queen Adosinda was put in the monastery of San Juan de Pravia, where she lived out the rest of her life, to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.

Vlad III Dracula

1476 Vlad III Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.

  • 1580 French Huguenots & Roman Catholics sign peace treaty

Peace of Westphalia

1648 Pope Innocent X condemns Peace of Westphalia; the treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War recognising Dutch Republic's Independence and Catholic and Lutherans as equal

  • 1688 Duke of Savoye signs on to League of Augsburg

Louis XIV

1688 French King Louis XIV declares war on Netherlands

James II

1688 King James II escapes back to London

  • 1716 1st lion exhibited in America in Boston
  • 1741 French & Beiers army occupies Prague
  • 1764 France bans Jesuit enorde

Cook Reaches Maui

1778 British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii)

  • 1784 Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established
  • 1789 1st national Thanksgiving in America

First US Cabinet Meeting

1791 1st US cabinet meeting, held at George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph attend.

  • 1805 Official opening of Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, carrying the Llangollen canal 126 feet above the River Dee. Longest aqueduct in the UK and highest canal aqueduct in the world.
  • 1825 1st college fraternity founded (Kappa Alpha (Union College, NY))
  • 1832 1st streetcar railway in America starts operating in New York City with 12 cent fare
  • 1835 HMS Beagle leaves Tahiti for New Zealand
  • 1841 1st date in James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan
  • 1842 The University of Notre Dame is founded
  • 1847 Alfred de Mussets "Un Caprice" premieres in Paris

A Tale Of Two Cities

1859 Last weekly installment of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is published in literary periodical "All the Year Round"

  • 1861 West Virginia created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virginia
  • 1863 -Dec 2] Mine Run campaign, VA
  • 1864 Confederate troops vacate Sandersville Georgia
  • 1864 Skirmish at Sylvan Brutal/Waynesboro, Georgia

Alice in Wonderland

1865 "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is published in America

  • 1865 Battle of Papudo: The Spanish navy engages a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet north of Valparaiso, Chile
  • 1867 Refrigerated railroad car patented by JB Sutherland of Detroit
  • 1894 King Lafia "Absalamu" of Nikki signs accord with France
  • 1895 Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association forms
  • 1896 1st large indoor football game, University of Chicago beats University of Michigan 7-6
  • 1896 Amos Alonzo Stagg of University of Chicago creates American football huddle
  • 1898 -27) Snow and ice storm over US kills 455
  • 1898 SS Portland “The Titanic of New England” leaves for Cape Cod, shipwrecked off Cape Ann, all 192 on board killed
  • 1901 Italy and Britain sign an agreement fixing the frontier between their colonies of Eritrea and Sudan in East Africa
  • 1909 Sigma Alpha Mu is founded in the City College of New York by 8 Jewish young men.
  • 1913 Phi Sigma Sigma is founded at Hunter College in New York City
  • 1913 Russian kingdom forbids Polish congregation of speakers
  • 1914 Battleship HMS Bulwark explodes at Sheerness Harbour, England, 788 die

Business of Neutrality

1916 Addressing the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, US President Woodrow Wilson declares that 'The business of neutrality is over. The nature of modern war leaves no state untouched'

  • 1916 Greece declares war on Germany
  • 1917 NHL forms with Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Maroons, Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators & Quebec Bulldogs; National Hockey Association disbands
  • 1917 The new government of Russia offers an armistice to Germany and Austria-Hungary
  • 1918 The Podgorica Assembly votes for "union of the people", declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia
  • 1921 Danish composer Rued Langgaard's "Music of the Spheres" (Sfærernes Musik) premieres at Konzerthaus in Karlsruhe, Germany; it is not performed in Denmark until 1969
  • 1922 1st successful Technicolor movie (The Toll of the Sea), premieres at the Rialto Theatre in NYC
  • 1924 Mongolian People's Republic proclaimed
  • 1925 Netherlands & Germany sign trade agreement
  • 1928 Philip Barry's play "Holiday" premieres in New York City
  • 1933 Camille Chautemps becomes French premier for the second time
  • 1934 Turkish parliament bestows President Mustafa Kemal with the surname Atatürk, meaning 'Father of the Turks' as part of the country's modernization effort
  • 1939 4 soviet soldiers killed on Finnish-Russian border
  • 1940 Leidse students strike
  • 1940 Nazi Germany began walling off the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw

Riggs and Kovacs Professional

1941 Amateur American tennis stars Bobby Riggs and Frank Kovacs turn professional after being suspended by the US Lawn Tennis Association for undisclosed financial gain

  • 1941 British troops conquer Belhamed, Sidi Rezegh & El Duda
  • 1941 General Alan Cunningham relieved of command of British 8th Army in North Africa

Attack on Pearl Harbor

1941 Japanese naval carrier force left its base & moves east toward Pearl Harbor

  • 1941 Lebanon independence first proclaimed by France

Casablanca

1942 "Casablanca" directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman premieres at Hollywood Theater, NYC (Academy Awards Best Picture 1943)

  • 1942 Anti-fascist Council for National Liberation (AVNOJ) forms

Girl Crazy

1943 MGM releases last of 9 Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movies - "Girl Crazy", a film adaptation of George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin's stage musical

  • 1944 1st allied marines move onto Antwerp harbor

Brief Encounter

1945 "Brief Encounter", based on Noël Coward's one-act play "Still Life", directed by David Lean and starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard is released

Greatest Jazz Session Ever

1945 Charlie "Bird" Parker leads recording session for the Savoy label marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever" with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis

  • 1945 During snow storm, school bus crashes, kills 15 (Washington)

First Polaroid Camera

1948 1st Polaroid camera sold for $89.75 in Boston at the Jordan Marsh department store. The Land Camera model 95 becomes prototype for all Polaroid Land cameras for next 15 years

  • 1949 The Constituent Assembly of India formally adopts a new constitution
  • 1950 China enters Korean conflict, sends troops across Yalu River
  • 1952 1st 3D feature film "Bwana Devil" directed by Arch Oboler premieres in Los Angeles, advertised as "The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!"
  • 1953 KBOI (now KBCI) TV channel 2 in Boise, ID (CBS) begins broadcasting
  • 1953 WJHL TV channel 11 in Johnson City, TN (CBS) begins broadcasting
  • 1953 Yamada Koun, leader of Sanbo Kyodan line of Zen, found 1st awakening

Colin Cowdrey

1954 Test Cricket debut of Colin Cowdrey v Australia at Gabba

  • 1955 Emergency crisis proclaimed in Cyprus
  • 1956 American weightlifter Charles Vinci wins bantamweight gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics with world-record 3-lift (snatch, clean & jerk, overhead press) total of 342.5 kilograms

Olympic Gold

1956 Australian sprinter Betty Cuthbert wins the coveted 100m gold medal in 11.5 at the Melbourne Olympics; takes sprint double winning 200m final four days later

  • 1956 Egil Danielsen of Norway sets a new world record throw of 85.71m to win the men's javelin gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics
  • 1956 TV game show "The Price Is Right", hosted by Bill Cullen, debuts on NBC
  • 1956 USSR coxless pairs scull rower Viktor Ivanov wins Olympic silver medal; in his excitement he drops his medal, it sinks in Lake Wendouree (Victoria, Australia) and is later recovered by a local teenager
  • 1957 WCVB TV channel 5 in Boston, MA (ABC) begins broadcasting
  • 1960 Minneapolis-St Paul baseball club takes the name Twins
  • 1961 For 2nd time in his career, St Louis' Jerry Norton has 4 interceptions
  • 1961 Pro Baseball Rules Committee votes 8-1 against legalizing the spitball
  • 1962 Caribbean Air Transport Me NV (CLTM Airlines) forms

Please Please Me

1962 The Beatles re-record "Please Please Me" at a faster tempo, based on producer George Martin's suggestion

  • 1963 29th Heisman Trophy Award: Roger Staubach, Navy (QB)

Pete Rose

1963 Cincinnati 2nd baseman Pete Rose wins NL Rookie of Year

  • 1963 Explorer 18 spacecraft launched by NASA
  • 1965 Dodgers 2nd baseman Jim Lefebvre is voted NL Rookie of Year

Astérix Satellite

1965 France launches 1st satellite, 92 lb (42 kg) A1-capsule (Astérix), named after the popular French comic character

  • 1966 1st major tidal power plant opens at Rance estuary, France
  • 1967 Browns' Carl Ward sets club record with a 104-yd kickoff return
  • 1967 Cloud burst over Lisbon kills about 450
  • 1968 Rock band Cream gives "final" concert at Royal Albert Hall, London, England - but re-unites briefly for a short tour in 2005
  • 1969 35th Heisman Trophy Award: Steve Owens, Oklahoma (RB)
  • 1969 Lottery for Selective Service draftees bill signed by President Nixon
  • 1970 In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1mm) of rain falls in a single minute, the heaviest recorded rainfall in history
  • 1972 Bomb explosion at the Film Centre Cinema, in O’Connell Bridge House in Dublin, Ireland
  • 1972 NFL NY Giant placekicker Péte Gogolák scores team record 8 PAT (points after touchdown) in 62-10 win over Philadelphia Eagles at Yankee Stadium, NYC
  • 1973 Nixon's personal secretary Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of 18½ minute gap in a key Watergate tape
  • 1974 Approximately 140 die when suspension bridge collapses in Nepal
  • 1974 Greenidge scores 107 in 2nd innings of Test Cricket debut v India

Fred Lynn

1975 Boston Red Sox center fielder Fred Lynn becomes the first rookie ever to be named American League MVP

  • 1975 France performs nuclear test at Fangataufa Island
  • 1975 US Federal jury finds Lynette Fromme guilty of attempted assassination
  • 1975 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

Anarchy In The UK

1976 British punk rockers Sex Pistols release their debut single "Anarchy In The UK"

  • 1976 East Germany strips singer-songwriter and poet Wolf Biermann of his citizenship while he tours West Germany

Willy Brandt

1976 Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is elected chairman of the Socialist International (1976-92)

  • 1977 'Vrillon', claiming to be the representative of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM.
  • 1978 10 die as fire erupts at Holiday Inn in Rochester, NY
  • 1978 1st lesbian themed TV movie - "A Question of Love"
  • 1978 Christina Crawford autobiography "Mommie Dearest" reaches best-seller status
  • 1979 Intl Olympic Committee votes to readmit China after 21 years
  • 1979 Twins John Castino & Jays Alfredo Griffin tie for AL Rookie of Year
  • 1980 Columbia mated to SRBs & external tank at Vehicle Assembly Building

Mike Schmidt

1980 Mike Schmidt is unanimous choice as NL MVP

  • 1982 Clyde King named New York Yankee manager

Howard Cossell

1982 Howard Cossell calls his last fight after being disgusted by Larry Holmes-Tex Cobb mismatch

  • 1983 World's greatest robbery; 26 million pounds (sterling) worth of gold, diamonds and cash stolen from Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, England

Guy LaFleur

1984 After 518 goals & 14 years with Montreal Canadiens, Guy LaFleur retires abruptly

  • 1984 John W Mercom Jr announces New Orleans Saints are up for sale for $75 million

Kim Hughes

1984 Kim Hughes tearfully resigns as Australian cricket captain

  • 1984 US & Iraq re-establish diplomatic relations
  • 1985 23rd NASA Space Shuttle Mission (61-B): Atlantis 2 launches
  • 1985 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll

Nixon's Memoir

1985 Random House buys former US President Richard Nixon's memoirs for $3,000,000

  • 1986 Trial begins in Israel for John Demjanjuk, accused of being Nazi prison guard "Ivan the Terrible" at Treblinka concentration camp
  • 1988 Alexander Volkov, Sergei Krikalev & Jean-Loup Chretien launch
  • 1988 Pioneer 6's closest approach to Earth since 1965 launch (1.87 M km)
  • 1989 Comores coup under Bob Benard

V. P. Singh

1989 India's Congress Party led by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi loses the general election to an opposition front led by V. P. Singh

  • 1989 Luis Alberto Lacalle wins Uruguayan presidential election
  • 1989 Rafael Callejas installed as president of Honduras
  • 1990 Buffalo Bills become 6th 1st place NFL team to lose on same weekend
  • 1990 Matsushita purchases MCA for $6.6 billion

Mikhail Gorbachev

1990 Mikhail Gorbachev tells Iraq to get out of Kuwait

  • 1990 Premier Mazowiecki of Poland resigns
  • 1990 US proposes addition to UN resolution that would require Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait by January 1
  • 1991 Condoms are handed out to thousands of NY High School students
  • 1992 British geneticist Alec Jeffreys who developed widely-used techniques for DNA fingerprinting, becomes honorary freeman of the city of Leicester

Dan Marino

1995 Dolphins QB Dan Marino sets NFL record with 343rd touchdown pass

  • 1995 New Zealand score 8-348 in 49 overs v India in Nagpur ODI
  • 1996 Baseball owners approve interleague play, 26-4
  • 1997 Wash Capitals final game at USAir Arena, retire Rod Langway's #5

Tony Blair

1998 Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.

Steve Yzerman

1999 Steve Yzerman scores his 600th career goal

  • 2003 India accepts Pakistan's offer of a ceasefire in Kashmir
  • 2003 Supersonic airplane the Concorde makes its last ever flight, returning to Bristol, England.
  • 2004 Ruzhou School massacre: a man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.
  • 2006 The last international rugby match before demolition of Dublin's famous Lansdowne Road Stadium is Ireland's 61-17 win over the Pacific Islanders

Like You'll Never See Me Again

2007 "Like You'll Never See Me Again" single released by Alicia Keys (NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Music Video, Outstanding Song 2008, Billboard Song of the Year 2008)

  • 2008 Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India: Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 250 people in Mumbai, India.

Monk Debate

2010 Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair debate - is religion a force for good in the world, in a Monk Debate, Toronto, Canada

  • 2011 NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani checkpoint in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others
  • 2012 10 children are killed and 15 people are injured after a Syrian government Jet drops a cluster bomb on a playground
  • 2012 The cost of Hurricane Sandy to New York is announced to be $32 Billion

Up Late with Alec Baldwin

2013 Due to a street tirade captured on video, Alec Baldwin's show "Up Late with Alec Baldwin" is cancelled after only five episodes

  • 2015 UK nonprofit Raspberry Pi releases its $5 Zero computer, sells out in a day

Lewis Hamilton

2017 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finishes 2nd in season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit to claim his 4th F1 World Drivers Championship; wins title by 46 points from Sebastian Vettel

  • 2017 Factory explosion in Chinese port city Ningbo kills at least 2, injuries 30, flattens buildings
  • 2017 Presidential elections held in Honduras with allegations of electoral fraud and resulting violent protests
  • 2018 Australian surfer Stephanie Gilmore is handed her record equalling 7th world title as American contender Lakey Peterson is a shock 2nd round elimination at the season-ending Maui Pro in Hawaii
  • 2018 Chinese scientist He Jiankui claims to have made the first genetically edited baby

Aquaman

2018 DC superhero film "Aquaman" directed by James Wan starring Jason Momoa and Amber Heard premieres in London

  • 2018 First multidrug randomized control trial to treat Ebola started in Democratic Republic of Congo announced by the WHO
  • 2018 General Motors announces it will close five factories in North America, cutting 14,000 jobs
  • 2018 NASA's InSight mission lands on Mars after a 7 month voyage
  • 2018 Third of a species begin dying (23,000) over a two day period, the spectacled flying foxes, unable to survive heatwave of 42 degrees in northern Queensland, Australia
  • 2018 Ukraine declares martial law in areas bordering Russia after Russia seizes three of its naval vessels
  • 2019 6.4 magnitude earthquake centered on Durres strikes Albania, with at least 51 killed and hundreds injured
  • 2020 Turkey gives life sentences to 337 military officers and others involved in 2016 coup
  • 2021 WHO labels COVID-19 variant Omicron a "variant of concern", with its dozens of new mutations, after it emerges in Botswana and South Africa [1]
  • 2022 2,500 people pose naked for photographer Spencer Tunick on Australia's Bondi Beach to raise awareness of skin cancer [1]
  • 2022 Large mudslide after intense rain tears across Italian island of Ischia, killing at least eight people, on an island where 50% of the houses were illegally built [1]
  • 2022 Rare public protests held in various Chinese cities over the governments restrictive COVID-19 policies, after 10 people die in an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang [1]
  • 2023 Booker literary Prize won by Irish writer Paul Lynch for his novel "Prophet Song" [1]

Sports History

2023 Dutch driver Max Verstappen confirms his third consecutive world F1 drivers championship with his record 19th GP win of the season in Abu Dhabi; his Red Bull team retains constructors title

Event of Interest

2023 Elon Musk visits Israel after Starlink satellite agreement, amid controversy after he liked an antisemitic post on X, prompting widespread criticism and loss of advertisers on X [1]

  • 2023 Sierra Leone declares nationwide curfew after attempted coup when gunmen tried to break into country's largest military barracks in Freetown [1]
  • 2023 Two-day extension to Gaza ceasefire announced by mediating country Qatar, with a fourth set of hostages exchanged by both sides [1]