This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“The secret to happiness is freedom.
The secret to freedom is courage.” Carrie Jones
Nov 24-30, 2025
November 24
1835 – The Texas Rangers, a mounted police force, is authorized by the Texas Provisional Government. They are the oldest law enforcement body in North America.
1871 – The National Rifle Association, chartered on November 16th, elected former Civil War General Ambrose Burnside as its first president.
1917 – Nine police officers and two civilians are killed when a bomb explodes at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, police headquarters building. It remains the second deadliest day in law enforcement history (9-11 is the first). The bomber(s) were never caught.
1936 – Grace D. Owen of Concord, New Hampshire, applies for her Social Security number and receives the lowest number possible: 001-01-0001.
1947 – The House on Un-American Activities Committee finds the “Hollywood 10” in contempt because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists. Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Samuel Ornitz, Ring Lardner, Jr., Lester Cole, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, and Robert Adrian Scott were charged with contempt of Congress. Movie studio executives met in New York the next day agree to blacklist the “Hollywood 10,” who were cited and jailed for contempt of Congress when they failed to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
1954 – Air Force One is christened as the first U.S. Presidential airplane. The presidential call sign was established in 1953 after a commercial aircraft with the same call sign entered the same airspace as the presidential aircraft.
1963 – The first live murder is shown on TV when Jack Ruby shoots Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in a police station. Watch the murder as it happened live.
1971 – Dan “DB” Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Airlines 727 with $200,000 he extorted from the airlines. A small portion of the ransom money was found in 1980 along the Colorado River, but Cooper’s body was never found. In 2016, the FBI announced it was suspending active investigation of the DB Cooper case after 45 years.
1979 – The U.S. government finally admits that troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.
2014 – A 12-year-old boy is shot dead by police in a playground in Cleveland, Ohio, after brandishing what turned out to be a fake gun. The police were responding to a call of a male who kept pointing a gun at people.
2015 – Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-yearo-old Laquan McDonald. Although sentenced to 81 months in prison, Van Dyke is no longer incarcerated.
November 25
1792 – The Farmer’s Almanac is first published. It is the oldest continuously published periodical in the U.S. It was published during George Washington’s administration. Robert B. Thomas was the first editor.
1920 – The first Thanksgiving Parade in the U.S. is sponsored by Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City started in 1924.
1963 – President John F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy lit the eternal flame that still burns over JFK’s grave. Watch a CBS Sunday Morning report on the eternal flame.
1973 – The maximum speed limit in the U.S. is reduced to 55 MPH as an energy conservation measure during the oil crisis. In April 1987, Congress passed the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, which permitted states to raise the legal speed limit on rural interstates to 65 mph. Congress lifted all federal speed limit controls in the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, returning all speed limit determination authority to the states.
1986 – The Iran-Contra affair erupts when President Reagan reveals a secret arms deal with Iran in exchange for the release of hostages. The funds went to support the Contras in Nicaragua.
2014 – Missouri Governor Jay Nixon orders hundreds more U.S. National Guard troops to the town of Ferguson to prevent a second night of rioting and looting. The Guard members were never utilized.
November 26
1789 – The first national Thanksgiving is celebrated.
1916 – President Woodrow Wilson, addressing the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, Ohio, declares, “The business of neutrality is over. The nature of modern war leaves no state untouched.”
1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1939, Roosevelt had signed a bill that changed the celebration of Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November.
1948 – The first Polaroid Model 95 Land camera, developed by inventor Edwin Land, is sold at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston for $89.75. The name “Land” was removed from the camera after Edwin Land retired in 1982.
1956 – “The Price Is Right” debuts on TV and is the longest running game show of al time. The first host was Bill Cullen. Bob Barker hosted the show from 1972 to 2007. Drew Carey has been the host since 2007.
1973 – President Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of 18½-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.
1975 – A federal jury finds Lynette Fromme guilty of the attempted assassination of President Ford. Fromme, a member of the Manson family cult, was released from prison in 2009 after serving 34 years. Her parole was delayed after she escaped from prison and her sentence was lengthened. Fromme is now 77 years old.
1990 – The first Billboard Music Awards are handed out. Among the winners were Janet Jackson for Song of the Year (“Miss You Much”) and her brother Michael for album of the year (“Bad”).
2013 – After a street tirade is captured on video, Alec Baldwin’s show “Up Late with Alec Baldwin” was cancelled after only five episodes. Baldwin, now 67, was arrested on November 2, 2018, and charged with assault over a parking space. In October 2021, Baldwin shot two people, killing one, on a movie set. Watch an ABC Report.
November 27
1870 – The New York Times dubs baseball “The National Game.”
1924 – In New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held. Watch a History Channel report on the history of the parade.
1934 – Bank robber Lester Gillis (aka Baby Face Nelson) dies in a shoot-out with the FBI. He was 25 years old. J. Edgar Hoover named him “Public Enemy #1.”
1957 – Army troops leave Little Rock, Arkansas, after escorting nine black students into Central High School, ending desegregation. Democrat Governor Guy Faubus had blocked the “Little Rock 9” from integrating Little Rock High School.
1962 – The first Boeing 727 rolls out. The first flight of the Boeing 727 was on February 9, 1963. It was designed to service smaller airport with shorter runways and carry 131 passengers plus its crew. Watch a narrated video of the certification test flight.
2013 – “Frozen,” the highest-grossing animated film at the time, is released. It has grossed $1.29 billion worldwide. It was surpassed by “Frozen II” in 2019, which has grossed $1.45 billion. “Frozen 3” is scheduled to be released in 2027.
2017 – American actress Meghan Markle, and Britain’s Prince Harry announce their engagement. They were married in May 2018 and moved to the U.S. in 2020. The couple split from the Royal Family in February 2021 and moved to California.
November 28
1895 – America’s first auto race is organized by the “Chicago Times-Herald” Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back. Six cars travel a distance 55 miles, with the winner averaging 7 MPH.
1907 – Scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer of Haverhill, Massachusetts, opens his first movie theater, formerly a burlesque theater called the “Garlic Box.” In 1918, the Russian-born Mayer moved to Los Angeles to form the Louis B. Mayer Pictures Company. He merged his company to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1924.
1919 – U.S.-born Lady Nancy Astor is elected and serves as the first female member of British Parliament. Astor sat in the House of Commons until her retirement in 1945.
1925 – The Grand Ole Opry premieres as the WSM Barn Dance on WSM radio in Nashville, Tennessee. The Ryman Auditorium was the venue for the Opry until 1974. Since 1974, the show has been broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry House east of downtown Nashville. Watch the 2010 grand reopening of the Opry after the Nashville flooding.
1963 – President Johnson announces that Cape Canaveral would be renamed Cape Kennedy in honor of his assassinated predecessor. The name was changed back to Cape Canaveral in 1973 by a vote of residents.
1984 – William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States over 250 years after their deaths. Hannah administered the Province of Pennsylvania for eight years after William’s death, until her death in 1726.
1994 – Convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by an inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institution gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin, where he was serving 15 consecutive life terms for multiple murders. He was 34.
2016 – The musical “Hamilton” sets a new record for the most money earned in a single week on Broadway at $3.3 million.
November 29
1890 – The first Army-Navy football game is played. Final score: Navy 24, Army 0. The game was played at West Point.
1915 – Fire destroyed most of the buildings in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, California. Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. purchased the resort in 1919. Wrigley’s Santa Catalina Island Company built the iconic Avalon Casino in 1928-29 and became the setting for many movies.
1929 – U.S. Navy Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd makes the first airplane flight over the South Pole. In 1926, Byrd and Floyd Bennett flew over the North Pole.
1963 – President LBJ set up the Warren Commission to investigate assassination of President JFK. In 1992, Congress ordered JFK documents to be released within 25 years. Over 3,800 documents were released in 2017 by the National Archives.
1975 – Bill Gates adopted the name Microsoft for the company he and Paul Allen formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair.
1995 – President Bill Clinton lifted the ban on exports of oil from the Alaskan North Slope that was imposed after the oil embargo by Arab oil producers in 1973.
2004 – Godzilla received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Watch Godzilla make a personal appearance to receive his star.
November 30
1782 – The U.S. and Britain sign the Preliminary Peace Articles in Paris, signaling the end the Revolutionary War. The Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783.
1866 – Work begins on the first U.S. underwater highway tunnel near Chicago. The Winston Tunnel was built by hand and took 23 years and $500,000 for workers to complete the 1,500-foot tunnel beneath the Chicago River. It was abandoned in 1972.
1967 – Julie Nixon (daughter of the president) and David Eisenhower (grandson of the former president) announce their engagement. They were married on December 22, 1968, and are still married. They have 3 children. Watch their wedding (no sound).
1993 – President Clinton sighs the Brady gun Control bill into law.
2004 – Longtime “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah, finally loses. He left the show with $2,520,700, television’s all-time biggest game show winnings. Long-time host Alex Trebek died in 2020 at age 80. Ken Jennings replaced Trebek as host. Watch Jennings’ surprise loss.
2007 – Leeland Eisenberg enters the presidential campaign office of Hillary Clinton in Rochester, New Hampshire, with a device suspected of being a bomb. He held three people hostage for five hours. Eisenberg spent about 2 years in jail for the incident. He had a long criminal and mental health history.
Image from: fbi.gov
