Nov. 22 history: JFK

Nov. 22 in history

In 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot to death during a motorcade in Dallas. Texas Gov. John B. Connally, riding in the same car as Kennedy, was seriously wounded. Suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. JFK assassination remembered by surviving witnesses including AP reporter | AP News

In 1718, English pirate Edward Teach - better known as “Blackbeard” - was killed during a battle off what is now North Carolina.

In 1783, John Hanson, the first president of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, dies in his home state of Maryland. Hanson is sometimes called the first president of the United States, but this is a misnomer, since the presidency did not exist as an executive position separate from Congress until the federal Constitution created the role upon its ratification in 1789.

In 1906, the “S-O-S” distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.

In 1935, a flying boat, the China Clipper, took off from Alameda, California, carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan.

In 1967, the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it had captured the previous June, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

In 1972, the United States loses its first B-52 of the Vietnam war. The 8-engine bomber was brought down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile near Vinh on the day when B-52s flew their heaviest raids of the war over North Vietnam. 

In 1977, regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis.

In 1986, 20-year-old Mike Tyson knocks out 33-year-old Trevor Berbick in just five minutes and 35 seconds to become the youngest heavyweight boxing champ ever.

In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win reelection to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced she would resign.

In 2005, Angela Merkel took power as Germany’s first female chancellor.

In 2017, Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general whose forces carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted of genocide and other crimes by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and sentenced to life behind bars. (History.com 11/22/23)