Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
1034 - Malcolm II of Scotland died. Duncan, the son of his second daughter, instead of Macbeth, the son of his eldest daughter, inherited the throne
1177 - Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Chatillon defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard
1491 - The siege of Granada, last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins
1542 - Battle of Solway Moss. An English army invades Scotland and defeats a Scottish army
1783 - American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge - At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg
1874 - The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party made primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873
1940 - Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film Knock Knock
1947 - New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom
1952 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London (as of 2003 it is the longest continuously running play in history)
1960 - The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic were assassinated
1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: The late US President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery
1984 - 36 of Britain and Ireland’s top pop musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio as Band Aid to record the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia
1992 - The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia starting on 1 January 1993
1999 - The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women

Births
1577 - Piet Hein (Netherlands), naval commander and folk hero (d. 1629)
1817 - John Bigelow, American statesman, author (d. 1911)
1835 - Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, philanthropist (d. 1919)
1844 - Karl Benz, engineer (d. 1929)
1881 - Pope John XXIII (d. 1963)
1904 - Lillian Copeland, American athlete
1914 - Joe DiMaggio, baseball player (d. 1999)
1920 - Ricardo Montalban, actor
1925 - Jeffrey Hunter, actor (d. 1969)
1926 - Poul Anderson, science fiction writer (d. 2001)
1940 - Joe Gibbs, Football Hall of Fame coach
1960 - Amy Grant, singer
1960 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., son of President John F. Kennedy (d. 1999)
1986 - Amber Hagerman, kidnapping, murder victim (d. 1996)

Deaths
311 - Peter of Alexandria, “The Seal of the Martyrs”, believed to be the last one to lose his life for the faith in the Diocletian Persecutions
1034 - King Malcolm II of Scotland (killed)
1185 - Pope Lucius III
1920 - Gaston Chevrolet, automobile pioneer
1748 - Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter
1884 - Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, chemist
1920 - Gaston Chevrolet, automobile pioneer
1972 - Henri Coanda, aerodynamics pioneer

Holidays & observances
Feast day of St Catherine Laboure