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 Urban 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 Berezina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.
1826		Jedediah 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 the Hottentots at Warmbad in southwest Africa.
1909		U.S. troops land in Blue fields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.
1919		Bulgaria signs a peace treaty with the Allies at Neuilly, 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 Adolf 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 Ch’ongch’on 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 the 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		The US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.
1978		San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city’s first openly gay supervisor, are assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.
1978		The Kurdistan Workers’ Party and PKK (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) is founded; it is a 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		The 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		The first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.
2006		The Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.