Today in History: November 20
Today in History: November 20: On Nov. 20, 1910, Francisco Madero led a revolt against Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, marking the beginning of the decade-long Mexican Revolution. In 1945, 22 former Nazi officials went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. In 1947, Britain’s future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey. In 1969, Native American activists began an occupation of Alcatraz Island that would last 19 months. In 1982, the University of California football team defeated Stanford University by scoring a touchdown in a crazy last move of the game. In 1992, fire seriously damaged Windsor Castle, the favorite weekend home of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Today in History: November 19
Today in History: November 19: On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. In 1959, Ford Motor Company announced it was halting production of the unpopular Edsel. In 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon. In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time as they began their summit in Geneva.
Today in History: November 18
Today in History: November 18: In 1928, “Steamboat Willie,” the first cartoon with synchronized sound as well as the first released of the character Mickey Mouse, debuted on screen at the Colony Theater in New York. In 1978, U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan of California and four others were killed on an airstrip in Jonestown, Guyana by members of the Peoples Temple; the killings were followed by a night of mass murder and suicide resulting in the deaths of more than 900 cult members. In 1991, Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland, the American dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut. In 2021, more than half a century after the assassination of Malcolm X, two of his convicted killers were exonerated; a New York judge dismissed the convictions of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers said a renewed investigation had found new evidence that undermined the case against them.
Today in History: November 17
Today in History: November 17. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt. In 1989, an estimated 10,000-15,000 Czechoslovakian students demonstrated in Prague against Communist rule. In 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th governor of California. In 2020, President Donald Trump fired the nation’s top election security official, Christopher Krebs, who had refuted Trump’s lies about electoral fraud and vouched for the integrity of the vote.