Today in History

43 BC   Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the triumvirate of Rome.  
511   Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and his kingdom is divided between his four sons.  
1095   In Clermont, France, pope Urbana II makes an appeal for warriors to relieve Jerusalem. He is responding to false rumors of atrocities in the Holy Land.
1382   The French nobility, led by Olivier de Clisson, crush the Flemish rebels at Flanders.
1812   One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte's army across the Beresina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.  
1826   Jebediah Smith's expedition reaches San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the continent.  
1862   George Armstrong Custer meets his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving party.  
1868   Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry kills Chief Black Kettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River.  
1887   U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank Dalton, brother of the three famous outlaws, is killed in the line of duty near Fort Smith, Ark.  
1904   The German colonial army defeats Hottentots at Warm bad in southwest Africa.  
1909   U.S. troops land in Blue fields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.  
1919   Bulgaria signs peace treaty with Allies at Unequally, France, fixing war reparations and recognizing Yugoslavian independence.  
1922   Allied delegates bar the Soviets from the Near East peace conference.  
1936   Great Britain's Anthony Eden warns Hitler that Britain will fight to protect Belgium.  
1942   The French fleet in Toulon is scuttled to keep it from Germany.  
1950   East of the Choosing River, Chinese forces annihilate an American task force.
1954   Alger Hiss, convicted of being a Soviet spy, is freed after 44 months in prison.  
1959   Demonstrators march in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the United States.  
1967   Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert McNamara to presidency of the World Bank.
1967   Charles DeGaulle vetoes Great Britain's entry into the Common Market again.  
1970   Syria joins the pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.  
1973   US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as President of the United States, following President Richard Nixon's resignation; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.  
1978   San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city's first openly gay supervisor, assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.  
1978   Kurdistan Workers' Party (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) founded; militant group that fought an armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan.  
1984   Britain and Spain sign the Brussels Agreement to enter discussions over the status of Gibraltar.  
1999   Helen Clark becomes first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand.
2001   Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.  
2004   pope John Paul II returns relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.  
2005   First partial human face transplant completed Amiens, France.
 2006  Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.