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This Day in History for Friday, November 20, 2009
Information provided by Reference.com
Events
Events: 269: Diocletian was proclaimed emperor of Numerian in Asia Minor.
Events: 1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, approving 10 of the 12 amendments.
Events: 1818: Simón Bolívar, declared Venezuela independent of Spain.
Events: 1820: The whaler Essex, from Nantucket, Massachusetts, was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale near the western coast of South America. It was the first American vessel sunk by a whale.
Events: 1866: Howard University, the first university for African-American students, was founded in Washington, D.C. as the Howard Theological Seminary.
Events: 1914: Bulgaria proclaimed its neutrality in World War I.
Events: 1945: The Nuremberg Trials began for 24 top Nazis accused of war crimes and atrocities.
Events: 1947: Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth II, married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in a ceremony broadcast worldwide from Westminster Abbey.
Events: 1967: The U.S. census reported the population at 200 million.
Events: 1969: The Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT.
Events: 1974: The United States filed an antitrust suit to break up AT&T.
Events: 1980: In China, Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's widow, went on trial on charges of treason and government subversion.
Events: 2000: Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori resigned, ending a 10-year reign.
Holidays
-- Feast day of St. Edmund the Martyr, St. Maxentia of Beauvais, St. Nerses of Sahgerd, St. Bernward, St. Felix of Valois, and St. Dasius.
-- Mexico: Revolution Anniversary (by Francisco Madero, 1910).
-- United Nations: Universal Children's Day.
Births
-- Selma Lagerlof, Swedish author, first woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
-- Edwin Powell Hubble, American astronomer.
-- Sir Alistair Cooke, English journalist and TV host.
-- Emilio Pucci (Marchese Di Barsento), fashion designer.
-- Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist.
-- Robert F. Kennedy, American senator, attorney general, and presidential candidate.
-- Bo Derek, American film actress and model.