1 of 3 | On November 24, 1971, a passenger who became known as “D.B. Cooper” hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline — and disappeared. Composite Image courtesy of the FBI
Today is Friday, Nov. 24, the 328th day of 2023 with 37 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States, in 1784; architect Cass Gilbert, who designed the U.S. Supreme Court building, in 1859; painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec in 1864; ragtime composer Scott Joplin in 1868; lecturer/author Dale Carnegie in 1888; basketball Hall of Fame member Oscar Robertson in 1938 (age 85); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Donald “Duck” Dunn in 1941; drummer Pete Best in 1941 (age 82); comedian Billy Connolly in 1942 (age 81); basketball Hall of Fame member/former mayor of Detroit Dave Bing in 1943 (age 80); serial killer Ted Bundy in 1946; actor Dwight Schultz in 1947 (age 76); actor Stanley Livingston in 1950 (age 73); actor Shirley Henderson in 1965 (age 58); actor Stephen Merchant in 1974 (age 49); actor Colin Hanks in 1977 (age 46); actor Katherine Heigl in 1978 (age 45); actor Gwilym Lee in 1983 (age 40); actor Sarah Hyland in 1990 (age 33).
On this date in history:
In 1859, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published.
In 1863, Union Gen. U.S. Grant launched the U.S. Civil War battle of Chattanooga in Tennessee.
In 1869, women from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association.
In 1874, Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which altered the development of ranching on the Great Plains.
In 1917, nine officers and with the Milwaukee Police Department and two civilians were killed by a bomb, believed to have been made by Gallean anarchists. Prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001, this was the single most fatal event in U.S. law enforcement history.
In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the Dallas police headquarters basement two days after Kennedy was slain.
In 1969, Apollo 12 returned to Earth with astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., Richard Gordon and Alan Bean. It was NASA’s second moon-landing mission.
In 1971, a passenger who became known as “D.B. Cooper” hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline — and disappeared.
In 1985, Arab commandos forced an Egypt Air jetliner to Malta and began shooting passengers, fatally wounding two. Fifty-seven other people died when Egyptian commandos stormed the jet.
In 1992, the United States lowered its flag over the last U.S. base in the Philippines, ending nearly a century of military presence in its former colony.
In 1995, Irish voters passed a referendum removing a constitutional ban on divorce.
In 2007, a brigade of 5,000 U.S. troops left Diyala province in Iraq. It was considered the first significant pullback of American forces from the country.
In 2009, two men were executed in China for involvement in the country’s 2008 tainted milk scandal, which sickened 300,000 infants, killing six.
In 2012, at least 112 people were killed in a fire that swept through a clothing factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh.
In 2014, Cleveland police fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun. The officers involved were not charged, but the city agreed to pay his family $6 million to settle a lawsuit.
In 2021, a Georgia jury found three men guilty of murder for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.
A thought for the day: “All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased.” — Australian writer Clive James