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UPI Almanac for Friday, Nov. 28, 2014

Debut of the Grand Ole Opry, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub tragedy, Correa wins in Ecuador … on this date in history.

By United Press International
Kacey Musgraves performs in front of a Grand Ole Opry backdrop during the 48th Annual Country Music Awards in Nashville Nov. 5, 2014. UPI/Kevin Dietsch
1 of 7 | Kacey Musgraves performs in front of a Grand Ole Opry backdrop during the 48th Annual Country Music Awards in Nashville Nov. 5, 2014. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

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This is Friday, Nov. 28, the 332nd day of 2014 with 33 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn. Evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Uranus and Venus.

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include English writer John Bunyan in 1628; English poet William Blake in 1757; John Hyatt, inventor of celluloid, in 1837; architect Henry Bacon, designer of the Lincoln Memorial, in 1866; Motown Records founder and Rock and Roll Hall of fame member Berry Gordy in 1929 (age 85); actor Hope Lange in 1933; Oscar winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/composer Randy Newman in 1943 (age 71); ballet dancer Alexander Godunov and bandleader Paul Shaffer (age 65), both in 1949; actors Ed Harris in 1950 (age 64), S. Epatha Merkerson (TV's "Law and Order") in 1952 (age 62) and Judd Nelson in 1959 (age 55); movie director Alfonso Cuaron in 1961 (age 53); and comedian/TV host Jon Stewart in 1962 (age 52).

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On this date in history:

In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan entered the Pacific Ocean on his way around the world. He was the first European to sail the Pacific from the east.

In 1919, Virginia-born Nancy Astor became the first woman member of the British Parliament.

In 1925, "The Grand Ole Opry," the famed country music show, made its radio debut.

In 1942, a fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston killed 492 people. Most victims suffocated or were trampled to death.

In 1958, the United States fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time.

In 1963, Cape Canaveral, the space center in Florida, was renamed Cape Kennedy to honor the assassinated president. (Area residents later voted to revert to the original name.)

In 1989, Czechoslovakian Premier Ladislav Adamec agreed to a coalition government. (The next day, the Czech Parliament revoked the Communist Party's monopoly.)

In 1992, a fire destroyed parts of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, threatening the famous Lipizzaner stallions.

In 1993, Carlos Roberto Reina was elected president of Honduras.

In 1994, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and a second inmate were beaten to death by another prisoner at the Columbia Correctional Center in Portage, Wis.

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In 2003, an estimated 182 people were killed when two crowded ferries collided during a storm in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2004, a gas explosion in a central China mine killed more than 160 people. About 123 miners escaped.

In 2005, at least 150 miners were killed in a northeast China coal mine explosion. Seventy-one were reported missing.

In 2006, leftist candidate Rafael Correa was declared winner of the Ecuadorian presidential election.

In 2007, a U.S. airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed 22 Afghan civilian road-construction workers. The men, working on a U.S. military contract, died as they slept in tents in a remote mountainous area.

In 2008, at least 400 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in clashes in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians over local elections.

In 2010, reaction around the world was swift and mostly negative to a new batch of more than 200,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic documents published on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website. U.S. officials denounced the release, which included many items classified as secret, and branded them a threat to global security.

In 2012, seven expatriate Egyptians, all Coptic Christians who were involved in making an anti-Islam film, "Innocence of Muslims," were sentenced to death in absentia by the Cairo Criminal Court.

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In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama, in a Thanksgiving Day radio and Internet address, praised members of the military for defending "the freedom to think what we want and say what we think, to worship according to our own beliefs, to choose our leaders and, yes, criticize them without punishment."


A thought for the day: "Film is one if three universal languages; the other two mathematics and music." -- Frank Capra

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