Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Tuesday, Nov. 26, the 330th day of 2013 with 35 to follow. The moon is waning. The morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Saturn. The evening stars are Neptune, Uranus and Venus. Advertisement Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include German composer Johannes Bach in 1604; English clergyman and college benefactor John Harvard in 1607; English poet William Cowper in 1731; surgeon and women's rights leader Mary Walker Edwards in 1832; gambler, frontier lawman and sports writer William "Bat" Masterson in 1853; air conditioning engineer Willis Carrier in 1876; baseball Hall of Fame member Lefty Gomez in 1908; French playwright Eugene Ionesco in 1909; TV journalist Eric Sevareid in 1912; science fiction writer Frederik Pohl in 1919; cartoonist Charles Schulz ("Peanuts") in 1922; Argentine pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel in 1931 (age 82); singer Robert Goulet in 1933; impressionist Rich Little in 1938 (age 75); and singer Tina Turner in 1939 (age 74); pop singer Jean Terrell in 1944 (age 69); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John McVie in 1945 (age 68); and football Hall of Fame member Art Shell in 1946 (age 67). Advertisement On this date in history: In 1789, U.S. President George Washington declared Nov. 26, 1789, to be Thanksgiving Day. It was the first U.S. holiday by presidential proclamation. In 1832, the first streetcar railway in America started public service in New York City from City Hall to 14th Street. The car was pulled by a horse and the fare was 12 1/2 cents. In 1842, the University of Notre Dame was founded in South Bend, Ind. In 1922, In Egypt's Valley of the Kings, British archaeologists Howard Carter and George Carnarvon became the first humans to enter King Tutankhamen's treasure-laden tomb in more than 3,000 years. In 1940, German Nazis forced 500,000 Jews in Warsaw to live in a ghetto surrounded by an 8-foot concrete wall. In 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted U.S. proposals to the Japanese peace envoys in Washington. In 1956, bandleader Tommy Dorsey died at age 51. His records sold more than 110 million copies. In 1965, France launched a satellite into space, becoming the world's third space power after the United States and the Soviet Union. Advertisement In 1984, the United States and Iraq restored diplomatic relations, ending a 17-year break. In 1997, the price of gold in New York City fell to $298 per ounce, the lowest level in 12 years. In 2001, a three-day Afghanistan prison revolt claimed the life of a CIA operative, Johnny Michael Spann, 32, a former U.S. Marine captain. His was the first U.S. combat death in the war. In 2004, a man broke into a high school dormitory in central China and killed eight students with a knife as they were sleeping. The killer got away. In 2005, a 67-year-old textile tycoon in India, Vijaypat Singhania, set the world record for the highest flight in a hot-air balloon, reaching 69,852 feet over Mumbai. In 2008, militants launched a series of coordinated attacks on Mumbai landmarks and commercial hubs popular with foreign tourists, killing at least 173 people and wounding about 300 more. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a 10-year, nationwide effort to move U.S. students to the head of the global class in science and math achievement. In 2011, Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of violence-wracked Yemen for 33 years, obeyed an earlier agreement and stepped down -- the fourth Arab leader swept away by protests during the year. Advertisement In 2012, rebels in Syria said airstrikes and other violence in the war-torn country killed at least 117 people, including children on a playground. A thought for the day: Helmuth von Moltke wrote, "A war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune."
