1778 – The expedition led by James Cook reached Maui, the second largest of the Hawaiian Islands.
1842 – The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, USA was founded by members of the Roman Catholic Congregation of Holy Cross.
1862 - Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.
1899 -
Bruno Hauptmann, German kidnapper of Charles Augustus Lindbergh III born. (d. 1936)
1917 – The National Hockey League, the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, was formed at a meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
1922 -
Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist born. (d. 2000)
The Peanuts Gang
1942 – World War II: Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Partisans convened the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
1950 – Battle of Chosin Reservoir: Chinese forces in North Korea launched a massive counterattack against South Korean and United States armed forces, ending any thought of a quick end to the Korean War.
On This Day (November 25)
1177 - Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Chatillon defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
1835 -
Andrew Carnegie, British-born industrialist and philanthropist born. (d. 1919)
1844 -
Karl_Benz, German engineer born. (d. 1929)
1846 -
Carrie Nation, American temperance advocate born. (d. 1911)
1867 - Alfred Nobel patents dynamite.
1920 -
Gaston Chevrolet, French-born American race car driver and automobile pioneer died. (b. 1892)
1950 - The "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, paralyzes the northeastern United States and the Appalachians, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia records 57 inches of snow. 323 people die due to the storm.
1952 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London and eventually becomes the longest continuously-running play in history.
1963 - President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1968 -
Upton Sinclair, American journalist, politician, and writer died. (b. 1878)
On This Day (November 24)
1572 -
John Knox, Scottish reformer died.
1642 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
1690 -
Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer born. (d. 1750)
1787 -
Franz Xaver Gruber, Austrian organist born. (d. 1863)
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.
1864 -
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter born. (d. 1901)
1868 -
Scott Joplin, Ragtime Composer born. (d. 1917)
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald is assassinated by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters.
1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (AKA D.B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with US$200,000 in ransom money - neither he nor the money have ever been found.
1974 - Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.