Highlights in history on this date:

1499 - Perkin Warbeck, pretender to English throne, is executed.

1531 - Peace of Kappel ends second civil war in Switzerland.

1848 - The Female Medical Educational Society is established in Boston, Massachusetts the same year the all-male American Medical Association is formed.

1890 - Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is separated from the Netherlands.

1891 - Deodoroda Fonseca, first president of Brazil, is ousted by a navy revolt.

1903 - Italian singer Enrico Caruso makes his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, appearing in "Rigoletto."

1932 - The kingdoms of Nejd and Hejaz merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud.

1936 - Life magazine, created by American Henry R. Luce, is first published.

1943 - U.S. forces defeat Japanese in Pacific battle of Tarawa in World War II.

1945 - Most U.S. wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ends.

1963 - Sixty-three elderly people _ most of them sleeping _ are killed by a fire destroying the one-story Golden Age Nursing Home near Fitchville, Ohio.

1971 - China takes seat as a permanent member of U.N. Security Council.

1976 - The Thai government returns 26 refugees to Cambodia saying that they are a threat to national security. The government says some 70,000 refugees in Thailand who escaped Communist rule in other Indochina states, including 10,000 Cambodians, will also not be permitted to stay.

1980 - An earthquake hits the Naples area in Italy, killing 2,570 people and leaving 30,000 homeless.

1986 - Philippine President Corazon Aquino dismisses defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile after reported coup attempt.

1989 - At least 300,000 people jam Prague's Wenceslas Square to demand democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia.

1990 - Iraq ends curfew in occupied Kuwait, but begins calling up army reservists in their thirties.

1991 - The bodies of 35 drowned Haitian refugees are recovered off the coast of eastern Cuba.

1993 - Record cold is blamed for at least 34 deaths in parts of Europe and prompts the French army to send out troops to feed the homeless in Paris.

1994 - A large cache of bomb-grade uranium is transferred from Kazakhstan to the United States.

1995 - A wave of violence in Haiti claims at least three more lives following President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Nov. 7 call for a disarmament campaign.

1996 - A hijacked Ethiopian airliner carrying 175 passengers runs out of fuel and crashes on the Comoros Islands, killing 125 people.

1997 - Somali villagers isolated for weeks by flooding finally receive aid from boats traveling down the Juba river.

1998 - The European Union lifts a worldwide export ban on British beef. The ban was imposed after experts announced a possible link between "mad cow" disease and a fatal disease in humans.

1999 - Kuwait's Parliament rejects a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office.

2000 - The U.S. presidential election stretches into the Thanksgiving Day holiday without a president-elect as the fierce tug of war between George W. Bush and Al Gore over Florida's crucial electoral votes reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

2001 - A crew digs for bodies and survivors under mud after a huge landslide sweeps over gold miners illegally digging into the side of a mountain in western Colombia, killing at least 28 people.

2002 - The Peace Corps suspends operations in Jordan, where some U.S. Embassy personnel and family members had been authorized to leave following the killing of an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

2003 - Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns in the face of massive, almost daily protests that followed the flawed November 2 parliamentary elections.

2004 - Russia lashes out at the United States for what it calls "unprecedented interference" in domestic affairs after U.S. officials allegedly took Moscow to task for recognizing Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's victory in the presidential election.

2005 - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is confirmed as the winner in Liberia's first postwar elections. The new president says her victory marks a new beginning for her country and for African women.

2006 - In London, a rare radioactive substance is used to kill ex-KGB spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who called Russian President Vladimir Putin "barbaric and ruthless" and blamed him personally for the poisoning.

2007 - Lebanon's political tumult intensifies as President Emile Lahoud leaves office at the end of his term without a successor and hands security powers to the army. The rival, pro-Western Cabinet rejects the declaration.

2008 - President Hugo Chavez's allies win a majority in Venezuela's state and municipal elections, but the opposition makes important gains.

Today's Birthdays:

Thomas Birch, English historian (1705-1766); Boris Karloff, British-born actor (1887-1969); Paul Celan, Romanian poet (1920-1970); Vo Van Kiet, former Vietnamese Prime Minister (1922-2008); Krzysztof Penderecki, Polish composer (1933--); Bruce Hornsby, U.S. singer (1954--); Oded Fehr, Israeli actor (1970--).

Thought For Today:

It is better to debate an important matter without settling it than to settle it without debating it _ Anonymous.