- 1863 – The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by President Abraham Lincoln.
- 1922 – Rebecca Felton, a Georgia Democrat, was chosen to become the first woman to serve in the Senate following the premature death of Sen. Thomas E. Watson.
- 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon to become the world’s third nuclear power.
- 1957 – The California State Superior Court rules the book Howl and Other Poems is not obscene.
- 1972 – President Richard Nixon and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko signed strategic arms limitation agreements, putting the first restrictions on the two countries’ nuclear weapons.
- 1990 – Communist East Germany merged with West Germany, ending 45 years of post-war division.
- 1993 – The two-day Battle of Mogadishu began during the Somali Civil War, killing 19 Americans and between 200 and 300 Somalis. A militia shot down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and became the inspiration for the movie Black Hawk Down.
- 1995 – O.J. Simpson was acquitted of charges that he killed his former wife, Nichole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
