Today in History in 1789 A national Thanksgiving Day is held in the United States; and in 1863 US President Abraham Lincoln declares Thanksgiving Day a national holiday, to be observed on the fourth Thursday in November.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

November 26 is the 330th day of the year (331st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 35 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

43 BC – The second Roman Triumvirate alliance is formed by Augustus, Marcus Aemelius Lepidus and Mark Antony.

783 - Asturian Queen Adosinda is put up in a monastery to prevent her closest family and friends from retaking the throne from Mauretagus.

986 - The French city of Montpellier is first mentioned.

1161 - Battle of Caishi in China: A Song dynasty fleet fights a naval engagement with Jin dynasty ships on the Yangtze River during the Jin-Song Wars.

1703 - The Great Storm of 1703, affecting Great Britain, sinks 12 Royal Navy ships, killing over 1,500 people.

1778 – James Cook becomes the first European to navigate around the island of Maui, Hawaii, but doesn't find a suitable place to land.

1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is held in the United States.

1842 - The University of Notre Dame is founded.

1863 – US President Abraham Lincoln declares Thanksgiving Day a national holiday, to be observed on the fourth Thursday in November.

1865 – Spanish-South American War: In the naval Battle of Papudo, the Chilean fleet under Juan Williams Rebolledo defeats the Spanish.

1894 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Alexandra Fyodorovna marry.

1898 - A storm off New England sinks the passenger ship Portland, killing 152 people. The storm kills 450 people in total.

1914 - British battleship Bulwark is destroyed by an explosion off Sheerness, killing 738 people, as only 12 of the people on board survive.

1917 – The NHL is founded.

1918 - The Podgorica Assembly in Montenegro votes for a "Union of the People", declaring that it merges with Serbia.

1922 – Howard Carter enters the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt.

1942 - Franklin D. Roosevelt orders gasoline rationing across the United States, starting on December 1.

1942 - An earthquake in Turkey kills 4,000 people.

1943 - World War II: The ship HMT Rohna is sunk by the German Luftwaffe in an air attack in the Mediterranean Sea north of Bejaia, Algeria.

1944 - World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworths shop on New Cross High Street, London, killing 168 people.

1949 - India agrees to the constitution proposed by B. R. Ambedkar. This leads to India becoming a republic two months later, on January 26, 1950.

1950 – Korean War: The People's Republic of China enters the war, launching a counterattack in North Korea against South Korea and UN troops.

1965 - In the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix 1, on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.

1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe 1.5 inches (38.1 millimetres) of rain fall in a minute, which is a world record.

1976 – The Last Waltz is held.

1979 - A Boeing 707 of Pakistan International Airlines, crashes during take-off from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 156 people on board.

1982 – Larry Holmes wins the heavyweight boxing world title, defeating Randall Cobb in Houston, Texas.

1983 – In London, 6,800 gold bars, worth nearly £ 26 million, are stolen from the Brink's MAT vault at Heathrow Airport.

1990 - The Delta II rocket makes its first flight.

1991 – Azerbaijan's national assembly abolishes the autonomous State of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomus Oblast, where the population is of mainly Armenian ethnicity, and renames all its cities back to their old names.

1992 - In the night to November 27, Vienna's Hofburg Castle is severely damaged by fire.

1998 - The Khanna rail disaster in India kills 212 people.

1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to speak at the Republic of Ireland's parliament.

2000 - George W. Bush is confirmed as the winner of Florida's electoral votes in the disputed US Presidential Election, making him the next President of the United States instead of Al Gore, who had won the most votes overall.

2003 – Concorde makes its last flight, over Bristol, England, United Kingdom.

2004 – In Ruzhou, China, a man enters a school dormitory and stabs 8 people to death, while he also wounds 4 others.

2008 – The 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks begin with killings and hostage takings in different parts of the city, committed by Islamist terrorists, of whom only one survives. The attacks end on November 29 after a stand-off at the Taj Mahal Hotel.

2011 – The New Zealand National Party, led by John Key, is elected to a second term in government.

2011 – The Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, is launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, on board an Atlas V rocket. It lands on Mars in August 2012.