Today in history

By Associated Press

Nov. 22

In 1718, English pirate Edward Teach — better known as “Blackbeard” — was killed during a battle off what is now North Carolina.

In 1935, a flying boat, the China Clipper, took off from Alameda, California, carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

In 1986, 20-year-old Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in history, stopping WBC titleholder Trevor Berbick in the second round of their championship bout in Las Vegas.

In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win reelection to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced she would resign.

In 2005, Angela Merkel took office as Germany’s first female chancellor.

In 2010, a panicked crush at a festival in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh left some 350 dead and hundreds injured in what the prime minister called the country’s biggest tragedy since the 1970s reign of terror by the Khmer Rouge.

In 2017, Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb general whose forces carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted of genocide and other crimes by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and sentenced to life behind bars.

Nov. 23

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1971, the People’s Republic of China was seated in the United Nations Security Council.

In 1980, an estimated 2,500-3,000 people were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.

In 1996, a commandeered Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the water off the Comoro Islands, killing 125 of the 175 people on board, including all three hijackers.

In 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president of Liberia, becoming the first woman to lead an African country.

In 2006, former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2008, the U.S. government unveiled a bold plan to rescue Citigroup, injecting a fresh $20 billion into the troubled firm as well as guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars in risky assets.

In 2011, Yemen’s authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down amid a fierce uprising to oust him after 33 years in power.

—From AP reports