Reagan names the members of the Tower Commission (1986), and Lincoln proclaims a national Thanksgiving Day (1863). Born on this day: Tina Turner, Ferdinand de Saussure and Eugène Ionesco. Died: Isabella I, Adam Mickiewicz and Bernardo Bertolucci.
29 events, 58 births and 69 deaths on this date.
The panel was set up to examine the Iran–Contra affair, a scandal over secret arms dealings that would dominate the rest of Reagan's second term. It was named after its chairman, former senator John Tower.
Michael Evans · Public domainLincoln set aside a single national day for giving thanks, the last Thursday of November, a custom that wartime America was asked to keep every year. Later, in 1942, the date was fixed on the fourth Thursday instead.
Alexander Gardner · Public domain
In the Bosnian town of Bihać, Tito's Partisans held the opening session of a council meant to speak for Yugoslavia's resistance. It became the body that laid groundwork for the postwar communist state.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Warner Bros. timed the New York premiere of Casablanca to coincide with the Allied landings in French North Africa and the capture of Casablanca. Few involved expected the wartime romance starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to become a classic.
Unknown author Unknown author , distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures · Public domain
With help from Stephen the Great of Moldavia and Stephen Báthory of Transylvania, Vlad crushed his rival and took the Wallachian crown for a third time. He would hold it only briefly, dying in battle within months.
Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain
On this day in 1778, the British navigator James Cook arrived at Maui, the first European known to land on the island. His voyage through the Hawaiian Islands brought the archipelago to European maps and set the stage for lasting contact.
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Known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, she rose to fame fronting the duo Ike & Tina Turner in the 1960s. She later reinvented herself as a solo star with Private Dancer, and sold over 100 million records.
HBO · Public domain
Swiss linguist whose ideas founded much of 20th-century linguistics and, alongside Charles Sanders Peirce, the study of signs called semiology. His lectures, published after his death, treated language as a system of relationships between signs.
"F. Jullien Genève", maybe Frank-Henri Jullien (1882–1938) · CC BY-SA 4.0
Although born in Romania, he chose to write his plays in French. His anti-play The Bald Soprano helped launch the Theatre of the Absurd, and he was later elected to the Académie française in 1970.
Gorupdebesanez · CC BY-SA 3.0
Isabella I ruled Castile for three decades and, with her husband Ferdinand, united much of Spain under one crown. She backed Columbus's voyage of 1492, and her reign opened the way to the Spanish Empire.
Juan de Flandes · Public domain
Mickiewicz was the Polish poet whose dramas and epic Pan Tadeusz inspired generations of Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians resisting foreign rule. He spent most of his life in exile after leaving the Russian Empire, and died in Constantinople.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Bertolucci was an Italian director whose films The Last Emperor and The Conformist made him one of cinema's most admired figures. In 1988 The Last Emperor made him the first Italian to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
© Elisa Caldana / Associazione Culturale Cinemazero from Pordenone, Italia · CC BY-SA 2.0
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