Today in History in 1940 Actress Lucille Ball marries Desi Arnaz in Greenwich, Connecticut; in 1956 Floyd Patterson becomes heavyweight world boxing champion against Archie Moore; in 1982 Michael Jackson releases his hit, "Thriller"; and in 1993 Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List is first shown, in Washington, D.C.

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 30 is the 334th day of the year (335th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 31 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

3340 BC – Earliest believed record of an eclipse.

1700 – Battle of Narva: A Swedish army of 8,500 men under Charles XII of Sweden defeats a much larger Russian army at Narva (present-day Estonia, next to Russian border).

1707 – The Second Siege of Pensacola comes to an end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

1718 – Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten, Norway.

1731 – An earthquake in Beijing kills thousands of people.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris – In Paris, representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace agreements – they later become official in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

1786 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under the future Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes the first modern state to ban the death penalty.

1803 – In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1853 – Crimean War: Battle of Sinop – The Imperial Russian Navy under Pavel Nakhimov destroys the Ottoman Empire fleet under Osman Pasha at Sinop, present-day Turkey.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

1872 – The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow on Saint Andrew's Day, between Scotland and England. It ends 0–0.

1886 – The Folies Bergere in Paris stages its first performance.

1908 – 154 miners are killed in a mining explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania.

1916 – Costa Rica signs the Buenos Aires Copyright Convention.

1920 – Liberato Ribeiro Pinto becomes Prime Minister of Portugal.

1934 – The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive known to have reached a speed of 100 miles per hour.

1936 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.

1939 – Winter War: Soviet forces invade Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war.

1940 – Actress Lucille Ball marries Desi Arnaz in Greenwich, Connecticut.

1942 – World War II: Battle of Tassafaronga – A smaller squadron of Japanese destroyers led by Raizo Tanaka defeats a US cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.

1943 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin agree to the planned June 1944 invasion of Europe code-named Operation Overlord.

1953 – Edward Mutesa II, the last King of Buganda, is deposed and exiled to London by Andrew Cohen, British Governor of Uganda.

1954 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, an 8.5 lb (3.86 kg) sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio. She got a bad bruise. This is the only known case of a human being hit by a rock from space.

1956 – Floyd Patterson becomes heavyweight world boxing champion against Archie Moore.

1958 – French Equatorial Africa splits up into the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Chad and the Central African Republic, all of which becomes fully independent in 1960.

1966 – Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1967 – The People's Republic of South Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1967 – Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

1975 – Dahomey is renamed the "People's Republic of Benin".

1981 – Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17).

1982 – A parcel bomb is delivered to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street.

1982 – Michael Jackson releases his hit, "Thriller".

1989 – Richard Mallory of Palm Harbor, Florida becomes serial killer Aileen Wuornos's first victim.

1989 – German banker Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a Red Army Faction bomb. He was a board member at Deutsche Bank.

1993 – Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List is first shown, in Washington, DC.

1994 – The ship MS Achille Lauro catches fire off Somalia.

1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

1995 – Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland, as the first US president to do so.

1996 – The Stone of Scone is installed at Edinburgh Castle on its official return to Scotland from England.

1998 – Exxon and Mobil sign an agreement to merge.

1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems.

2001 – Green River Killer Gary Ridgway is arrested in Renton, Washington, ending a killing spree in which 49 people were murdered.

2004 – Lion Air Flight 538 crash-lands in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia, killing 26 people.

2004 – Longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah finally loses, leaving him with $2,520,700 USD, television's all-time biggest game show haul.

2005 – John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England when he becomes Archbishop of York.

2006 – Typhoon Durian causes a mud avalanche from the Mount Mayon volcano on Luzon, Philippines, killing 300 people.

2013 – Actor Paul Walker, star of the "Fast and Furious", is killed in a car crash.

2015 – Climate change talks begin in Paris.

2017 – Katrín Jakobsdóttir becomes Prime Minister of Iceland, leading a three-party coalition.