On Nov. 26, 1789, President George Washington asked Americans to observe the day in thanksgiving for the adoption of the Constitution.
In 1832 streetcar service began in New York. The fare: 12 1/2 cents.
In 1922 “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz was born in Minneapolis.
In 1940 Warsaw’s 500,000 Jews were ordered by the Nazis to live within a walled ghetto.
In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing.
In 1943 the HMT Rohna, a British troop-transport ship, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 were killed, including 1,015 Americans.
In 1949 India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth.
In 1950 China entered the Korean War, launching a counteroffensive against UN forces.
In 1956 bandleader Tommy Dorsey died at 51 in Greenwich, Conn.
In 1965 France launched its first satellite.
In 1973 President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she had accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2 -minute gap in a Watergate tape.
In 1975 a Sacramento jury convicted Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, of attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford. (She is serving a life sentence.)
In 1988 the U.S. denied an entry visa to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who was seeking to travel to New York to address the UN General Assembly.
In 1991 the U.S. flag was lowered for the last time at Clark Air Base in the Philippines as the U.S. abandoned one of its largest overseas installations.
In 1992 Britain announced that Queen Elizabeth II had volunteered to start paying taxes on her personal income.
In 1999 sixteen people were killed when a Norwegian high-speed passenger ferry hit a shoal and sank off Boemla Island, 250 miles west of Oslo.
In 2000 Florida’s Republican secretary of state certified George W. Bush as the winner over Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by 537 votes; the state’s 25 electoral votes enabled him to win the presidency.
In 2004 French movie director Philippe de Broca (“King of Hearts”) died at 71.
