November 28

Birthdays:

1967 ~ Anna Nicole Smith (née Vickie Lynn Hogan, d. Feb. 8, 2007), American television personality.  She died of a drug overdose at age 39.

1962 ~ Jon Stewart, American comedian and host of The Daily Show.

1959 ~ Judd Nelson, American actor.  He was born in Portland, Maine.

1952 ~ S. Epatha Merkerson (née Sharon Epatha Merkerson), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Anita Van Buren on Law and Order.

1950 ~ Ed Harris, American actor.

1950 ~ Russell Alan Hulse, American physicist and recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1949 ~ Alexander Godunov (d. May 18, 1995), Russian ballet dancer.  He died at age 45.

1949 ~ Paul Shaffer, Canadian-American orchestra leader for David Letterman.

1944 ~ Rita Mae Brown, American author.

1943 ~ Randy Newman, American composer.

1929 ~ Berry Gordy, Jr., American songwriter and founder of Motown Records.

1908 ~ Claude Levi-Strauss (d. Oct. 30, 2009), French anthropologist and scholar who changed the study of humanity.  He died 29 days before his 101^st birthday.

1903 ~ Gladys O’Connor (d. Feb. 21, 2012), Canadian actress.  She died at age 108.

1866 ~ Henry Bacon (d. Feb. 16, 1924), American architect who designed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  He died of cancer at age 57.

1864 ~ Lindley Miller Garrison (d. Oct. 19, 1932), 46^th Secretary of War.  He served under President Woodrow Wilson from March 1913 until February 1916.  He died at age 67.

1853 ~ Helen Magill White (d. 1944), first American woman to earn a Ph.D.  She earned her degree in Greek in 1877 from Boston University.  She died a month before her 91^st birthday in Kittery Point, Maine.

1829 ~ Anton Rubinstein (d. Nov. 20, 1894), Russian pianist and composer.  He died 8 days before his 65^th birthday.

1820 ~ Friedrich Engels (d. Aug. 5, 1895), German philosopher.  He died at age 74.

1757 ~ William Blake (d. Aug. 12, 1827), English poet.  He died at age 69.

1700 ~ Nathaniel Bliss (b. Sept. 2, 1764), British astronomer and mathematician.  He died at age 63.

1592 ~ Hong Taiji (d. 1643), Chinese Emperor during the Qing dynasty.  He died at age 50.

1489 ~ Margaret Tudor (d. Oct. 18, 1541), English wife of King James IV of Scotland.  She died at age 51.

1470 ~ Wen Zhengming (d. 1559), leading painter, calligrapher, poet and scholar during the Ming dynasty.  The exact date of his death is not known.  He died at age 88.

1293 ~ Yesün Temür (d. Aug. 15, 1328), Chinese emperor of the Yuan Dynasty from 1323 to 1328.  He was the great-grandson of Kublai Khan.  He died at age 50.

Events that Changed the World:

2013 ~ Thanksgavukkah, when the American Thanksgiving Day and Chanukkah coincided.

2013 ~ A moderate 5.6 earthquake struck in Iran.

2010 ~ Wikileaks released more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, including many considered confidential.

2002 ~ Suicide bombers blew up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.

2002 ~ Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

1989 ~ The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia agreed to give up its monopoly on political power after numerous protests during the Velvet Revolution.

1975 ~ East Timor declared its independence from Portugal.

1960 ~ Mauritania, a country in northwest Africa, gained its independence.

1943 ~ The Tehran Conference was started, which was the first meeting of the primary Allied leaders, including President Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, to discuss war strategy during World War II.  The conference lasted for several days, ending on December 1, 1943.

1942 ~ A fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts killed over 490 people.

1925 ~ The Grand Ole began broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee.

1919 ~ Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor (1879 ~ 1964) was elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  She was the first woman to sit in the House of Commons.

1912 ~ Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

1908 ~ A mine explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania killed 154 individuals.

1907 ~ Louis B. Meyer opened his first movie theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

1895 ~ The first American automobile race took place between Jackson Park in Chicago to Evanston, Illinois.  Frank Duryea (1869 ~ 1967), the winner, completed the 54-mile race after approximately 10 hours.

1893 ~ Women were allowed to vote for the first time in the New Zealand general election.

1814 ~ The London Times began using the automatic, steam-powered printing press, thereby, allowing newspapers to be published and available to a mass audience.

1582 ~ William Shakespeare (1564 ~ 1616) and Anne Hathaway (1555 ~ 1623) paid a bond for their marriage license.

1520 ~ Three ships under the command of Ferdinand Magellan (1480 ~ 1521) crossed through what would become known as the Strait of Magellan, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.  They were the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

936 ~ Shi Jingtang (892 ~ 942) became the first emperor of China’s short-lived Later Jin during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

Good-Byes:

2010 ~ Leslie Nielsen (b. Feb. 11, 1926), Canadian-born American dramatic actor who bloomed into a dolt.  He became will known after the success of Airplane!  He died of pneumonia at age 84.

1994 ~ Jeffrey Dahmer (b. May 21, 1960), American serial killer.  He was beaten to death in prison at age 34.

1994 ~ Jerry Rubin (b. July 14, 1938), American political activist.  He died at age 56 of injuries sustained after having been struck by a vehicle while crossing a street.

1976 ~ Rosalind Russell (née Catherine Rosalind Russell, b. June 4, 1907), American actress.  She died at age 69 of breast cancer.

1969 ~ Elbert Frank Cox (b. Dec. 5, 1895), American mathematician.  He was the first black person in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.  He died 8 days before his 74^th birthday.

1962 ~ Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (b. Aug. 31, 1880).  She became queen at age 10, when her father, King William III, died.  She died at age 82.

1960 ~ Richard Wright (b. Sept. 4, 1908), African-American author who wrote about race relations.  He is best known for his book, Native Son.  He died of a heart attack at age 52.

1954 ~ Enrico Fermi (b. Sept. 29, 1901), Italian American nuclear physicist and recipient of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear processes.  He is best known for the development of the first nuclear reactor.  Fermium, a synthetic element created in 1952, was named after Fermi.  He died at age 53 of stomach cancer.

1945 ~ Dwight F. Davis (b. July 5, 1879), 49^th Secretary of War.  He served under President Calvin Coolidge from October 1925 until March 1929.  He was also an American tennis player and is remembered today for founding the Davis Cup in tennis.  He died at age 66.

1939 ~ James Naismith (b. Nov. 6, 1861), Canadian-American physician.  He is credited with inventing the game of modern basketball.  He died 22 days after his 78^th birthday.

1876 ~ Karl Ernst von Baer (b. Feb. 28, 1792), German biologist.  He died at age 84.

1873 ~ Caterine Scarpellini (b. Oct. 29, 1808), Italian astronomer and meteorologist.  One of the craters of Venus is named in her honor.  She died a month after her 65^th birthday.

1872 ~ Mary Somerville (b. Dec. 26, 1780), Scottish mathematician and astronomer.  She died less than a month before her 92^nd birthday.

1859 ~ Washington Irving (b. Apr. 3, 1783), American writer.  He is best known for his Rip Van Winkle short stories.  He died at age 76.

1794 ~ Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (b. Sept. 17, 1730), Prussian solder who served as an American General in the American Revolution.  He died at age 64.

1290 ~ Eleanor of Castile (b. 1241), first wife of King Edward I of England.  The exact date of her birth is not known.  She is believed to have been about 49 years old at the time of her death.

1170 ~ Owain Gwynedd (b. 1080), Welsh king.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 69 or 70 at the time of his death.

939 ~ Lady Ma (b. 890), Chinese noblewoman and wife of Qian Yuanguan, second king of the Chinese state of Wuyue of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom period.  The exact date of her birth is unknown.

741 ~ Pope Gregory III.  He was Pope from February 11, 731 until his death on this date 10 years later.  The date of his birth is not known.