Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Nov. 25. The world mourned on this date in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in Dallas three days earlier, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Advertisement Chicago went into mourning on this date in 1987 when the city's first black mayor, Harold Washington, died in office of a heart attack at the age of 65. The Iran-Contra scandal began, more or less, on this date in 1986 when President Reagan announced the resignation of national security adviser John Poindexter and the firing of Poindexter aide Lt. Col. Oliver North in the aftermath of the secret sale of arms to Iran. Money from the arms sales went to support the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua, at a time when Congress said such aid was illegal. More than 6,000 British troops evacuated New York City on this date in 1783 after the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War was signed. Poland's first direct presidential elections took place on this date in 1990. Because no candidate received a majority of vote, labor leader Lech Walesa was forced into a run-off against businessman Stanislaw Tyminski, while Polish President Tadeusz Maziwoecki was knocked out of the race. Walesa would eventually win the presidency. Advertisement It was on this date in 1992 that the Czechoslovak Parliament voted to dissolve the country at the end of the year into separate Czech and Slovak states. As the gasoline shortage continued, President Nixon on this date in 1973 ordered the national highway speed limit cut from 70 to 55 miles per hour to save lives and also to save gas. Sales of radar detectors and CB radios began to boom. On this date in 1919, radio station WTAW in College Station, Texas, broadcast the first play-by-play description of a football game, between Texas and Texas A&M. The world would never be the same. By the way, A&M blanked Texas, 7-0. And Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest running play, opened in London on this date in 1952. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
