Shimla, Nov. 28 Keekli Bureau
2012
Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a series of movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, had its world premiere in New Zealand.
1989
Queen Latifah released her debut album, All Hail the Queen, and its success helped redefine the traditionally male genre of rap.
1962
American comedian and actor Jon Stewart, who hosted (1999–2015) the satiric television news program The Daily Show, was born.
1961
Gridiron football player Ernie Davis of Syracuse University became the first African American to win the prestigious Heisman Trophy.
1960
Mauritania declared its independence and left the French Community.
1919
Lady Astor became the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons.
1912
Albanian national delegates, led by Ismail Qemal, issued the Vlorë proclamation, which declared Albania’s independence.
1908
French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, a leading exponent of structuralism, was born in Belgium.
1872
Wilhelm Reiss became the first climber to reach the top of Cotopaxi, the world’s highest active volcano, in Ecuador.
1820
German philosopher Friedrich Engels, coauthor with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto (1848), was born.
1757
English engraver, artist, poet, and visionary William Blake, whose notable works included the poetry collections Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), was born.
1720
Female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny went on trial and were subsequently convicted and sentenced to death; their executions were postponed because both were pregnant, and Bonny was eventually freed, though Read died in prison.
1582
Famed English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.
