November 26 - Events

Events

• 783 – The Asturian queen Adosinda is put up in a monastery to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.
• 1476 – Vlad III Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.
• 1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
• 1784 – The Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established.
• 1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
• 1805 – Official opening of Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
• 1825 – At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society, the first college social fraternity.
• 1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.
• 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).
• 1865 – Battle of Papudo: A Spanish navy Schooner is defeated by a Chilean Corvette north of Valparaiso, Chile.
• 1909 – Sigma Alpha Mu is founded in the City College of New York by 8 Jewish young men.
• 1913 – Phi Sigma Sigma is founded at Hunter College in New York City.
• 1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
• 1918 – The Podgorica Assembly votes for "union of the people", declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia.
• 1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.
• 1922 – Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between is the first film to do so but it is not widely distributed).
• 1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.
• 1942 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
• 1943 – World War II: HMT Rohna sunk by the Luftwaffe in an air attack in the Mediterranean north of Béjaïa, Algeria.
• 1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth's shop on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing 168 shoppers.
• 1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
• 1949 – The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India's constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
• 1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People's Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
• 1965 – In the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.
• 1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.
• 1977 – 'Vrillon', claiming to be the representative of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 pm.
• 1983 – Brink's-MAT robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink's-MAT vault at Heathrow Airport.
• 1986 – Iran-Contra scandal: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.
• 1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight.
• 1991 – National Assembly of Azerbaijan abolishes the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan and renames several cities back to their original names.
• 1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.
• 2003 – Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.
• 2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: a man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.
• 2004 – Male Po'ouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of Avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
• 2008 – 2008 Mumbai attacks by Pakistan-sponsored Lashkar-e-Taiba
• 2011 – 2011 NATO attack in Pakistan: NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani checkpost in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others.