Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1863

President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

1922

Rebecca L. Felton, D-Ga., became the first woman to be seated in the U.S. Senate. She was appointed to serve out the remaining term of Sen. Thomas E. Watson.

1929

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formally changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

1941

Adolf Hitler declared in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been ''broken'' and would ''never rise again.''

1942

President Roosevelt established the Office of Economic Stabilization and authorized controls on farm prices, rents, wages and salaries.

1944

U.S. troops cracked the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany, during World War II.

1951

Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the deciding game of a three-game playoff series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Known as ''the shot heard 'round the world,'' the homer sent the Giants i

1955

''Captain Kangaroo'' premiered on CBS, and ''The Mickey Mouse Club'' premiered on ABC.

1974

Frank Robinson was named major league baseball's first black manager as he was placed in charge of the Cleveland Indians.

1981

Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended seven months of hunger strikes that had claimed 10 lives.

1990

West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a new unified country.

1994

Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced his resignation because of questions about gifts he had received. He was charged with corruption, but was acquitted of all charges in December 1998.

1995

The jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial found the former football star innocent of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later found liable in a civil proceeding.)

1997

Attorney General Janet Reno said she had found no evidence that President Clinton broke the law with White House coffees and overnight stays for big contributors.

1998

Pope John Paul II beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, the World War II archbishop of Zagreb and a controversial figure because many Serbs and Jews accused him of sympathizing with the Nazis.

1226

St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, died.

1860

Rembrandt Peale, American painter, writer and portraitist.

1999

Sony co-founder Akio Morita died in Tokyo at age 78.