Calendar for November 24th, 2012

2006: Thanksgiving Day

1639: The transit of Venus was first observed

Born 1784: Zachary Taylor (12th U.S. president)

Born 1849: Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (novelist)

1859: Charles Darwin's controversial Origin of Species published

1863: First national Thanksgiving celebration

Born 1864: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (artist)

Born 1868: Scott Joplin (pianist, "King of Ragtime")

1874: Joseph Glidden granted patent for barbed wire fencing

Born 1888: Cathleen Nesbitt (actress)

Born 1912: Garson Kanin (playwright)

1930: Ruth Nichols became the first woman to fly a transcontinental flight

Born 1948: Steve Yeager (baseball player)

1963: Lee Harvey Oswald, accused by Dallas police of assassinating President Kennedy, was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas municipal building while in police custody

Died 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald (suspected assassin of President John F. Kennedy)

Born 1964: Brad Sherwood (comedian)

Born 1977: Colin Hanks (actor)

Born 1978: Katherine Heigl (actress)

Died 1991: Freddie Mercury (musician)

Died 2002: John Rawls (leading figure in political philosophy and legal theory)

Died 2003: Warren Spahn (baseball player whose career spanned 21 seasons. He won 363 games, a record for a left-handed pitcher)

Died 2005: Pat Morita (actor)