Today in history

By Associated Press

Nov. 29

In 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.

In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

In 1981, film star Natalie Wood drowned at age 43 while boating off California’s Santa Catalina Island with her husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken.

In 1987, a Korean Air 707 jetliner en route from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok was destroyed by a bomb planted by North Korean agents, killing all 115 people aboard.

In 2001, former Beatle George Harrison died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.

In 2012, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine non-observer member state status, a vote that came exactly 65 years after the General Assembly adopted a plan to divide Palestine into separate states for Jews and Arabs. (The 2012 vote was 138 in favor; nine members, including the United States, voted against and 41 abstained.)

In 2018, in a surprise guilty plea, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen confessed that he lied to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign.

In 2022, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win, handing the Justice Department a major victory in its massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (Rhodes would be sentenced to 18 years in prison in May 2023).

Nov. 30

In 1782, the United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris for ending the Revolutionary War; the Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783.

In 1936, London’s Crystal Palace exhibition hall was destroyed by a massive fire.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

In 2004, “Jeopardy!” fans saw Ken Jennings end his 74-game winning streak as he lost to real estate agent Nancy Zerg.

In 2012, Israel approved the construction of 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements on occupied lands, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinians a day after their successful bid for recognition by the United Nations.

In 2013, actor Paul Walker, star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series, was killed in a single-car accident north of Los Angeles; Walker’s friend Roger Rodas, who was driving the car, also died. Walker was 40 years old.

In 2018, former President George H.W. Bush, a World War II hero who rose through the political ranks to the nation’s highest office, died at his Houston home at the age of 94; his wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush, had died in April.

In 2021, Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old sophomore, opened fire at a Michigan high school, killing four students and wounding seven other people.

In 2022, House Democrats elected Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to be the first Black American to head a major political party in Congress as long-serving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team stepped aside.

—From AP reports