Today in History

Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.

First partial human face transplant completed Amiens, France.

Pope John Paul II returns relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

Helen Clark becomes first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Britain and Spain sign the Brussels Agreement to enter discussions over the status of Gibraltar.

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) founded; militant group that fought an armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan.

US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States, following Spiro Agnew’s resignation; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.

Syria joins the pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.

Charles DeGaulle vetoes Great Britain’s entry into the Common Market again.

Princess Desiree of Hohenzollern.

Demonstrators march in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the United States.

Caroline Kennedy, author, attorney, only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline “Jackie” Bouvier; named US Ambassador to Japan (2013– ).

Bill Nye, scientist, educator, TV host; known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, host of the Disney/PBS children’s show of the same name.

Alger Hiss, convicted of being a Soviet spy, is freed after 44 months in prison.

East of the Choosing River, Chinese forces annihilate an American task force.

Jimi Hendrix, influential rock musician.

Great Britain’s Anthony Eden warns Hitler that Britain will fight to protect Belgium.

Allied delegates bar the Soviets from the Near East peace conference.

Bulgaria signs peace treaty with Allies at Unequally, France, fixing war reparations and recognizing Yugoslavian independence.

James Agee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (A Death in the Family).

The German colonial army defeats Hottentots at Warm bad in southwest Africa.

U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank Dalton, brother of the three famous outlaws, is killed in the line of duty near Fort Smith, Ark.

Charles A. Beard, distinguished American historian who wrote History of the United States.

Joe Mack, builder of gasoline-powered delivery wagons which eventually evolved into the Mack Truck Company.

Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer‘s 7th Cavalry kills Chief Black Kettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River.

George Armstrong Custer meets his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving party.

Jebediah Smith’s expedition reaches San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the continent.

One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte’s army across the Beresina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.

Anders Celsius, astronomer who devised the centigrade temperature scale.

The French nobility, led by Olivier de Clisson, crush the Flemish rebels at Flanders.

In Clermont, France, Pope Urbana II makes an appeal for warriors to relieve Jerusalem. He is responding to false rumors of atrocities in the Holy Land.

Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and his kingdom is divided between his four sons.

Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the triumvirate of Rome.