12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for November 24, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1642 – Abel Tasman sights Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) during his Pacific voyage.
- 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, foundational to evolutionary biology.
- 1877 – Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is published in London.
- 1947 – The U.S. House cites the “Hollywood Ten” for contempt of Congress amid anti-communist hearings.
- 1950 – The Great Appalachian Storm begins, a historic blizzard affecting the eastern U.S. and Canada.
- 1963 – Jack Ruby fatally shoots Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, on live TV.
- 1969 – Apollo 12 splashes down in the Pacific, completing NASA’s second crewed Moon-landing mission.
- 1971 – “D. B. Cooper” hijacks Northwest Orient Flight 305 and parachutes into the night over the Pacific Northwest.
- 1974 – Donald Johanson’s team discovers the hominin fossil “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) in Ethiopia.
- 1989 – Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party leadership resigns amid the Velvet Revolution.
- 2012 – Bangladesh’s Tazreen Fashions factory fire kills more than 100 and spurs global scrutiny of supply chains.
- 2015 – Turkey shoots down a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian border, triggering a diplomatic crisis.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1942 – Billy Connolly, Scottish comedian/actor (83).
- 1947 – Dwight Schultz, actor (The A-Team; Star Trek: TNG/VOY) (78).
- 1957 – Denise Crosby, actor (Star Trek: TNG) (68).
- 1974 – Stephen Merchant, writer/actor/director (The Office, Extras) (51).
- 1977 – Colin Hanks, actor (Fargo, Life in Pieces) (48).
- 1978 – Katherine Heigl, actor/producer (Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up) (47).
- 1990 – Sarah Hyland, actor (Modern Family) (35).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1572 – John Knox, Scottish Reformation leader (≈58).
- 1848 – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, U.K. prime minister (69).
- 1957 – Diego Rivera, Mexican muralist and painter (70).
- 1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald, accused JFK assassin (24).
- 1991 – Freddie Mercury, Queen lead vocalist (45).
- 1991 – Eric Carr, drummer for KISS (41).
- 2005 – Pat Morita, actor (“Mr. Miyagi” in The Karate Kid) (73).
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