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1776 - Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (Was the United Colonies)

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1492 -- Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.

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1507**Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini ("Mona Lisa").

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1989 - East German officials today opened the Berlin Wall, allowing travel from East to West Berlin.

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1969 - Sesame Street, a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut.

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1775 - Birth of the U.S. Marine Corps. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress passes a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces for the recently formed Continental Navy. The resolution, drafted by future U.S. president John Adams and adopted in Philadelphia, created the Continental Marines

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1963*****The body of assassinated President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Ironically

On this day JFK,Jr was born on November 25, 1960.

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1994 - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of 15 men, is beaten to death by a fellow inmate while performing cleaning duty in a bathroom at the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin.

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1979*Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope in 1,000 years to attend an Orthodox mass.

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1988 - Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground

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1790 - President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address to the assembled Congress in New York City.

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1990 - Flood is released.

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1493 - Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three “mermaids”–in reality manatees–and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”

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1901 - A drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry.

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2008 - At the New Delhi Auto Expo in India, Tata Motors debuts the Nano, billing it as the world’s cheapest car: The anticipated price tag is around $2,500.

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1965 - In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.

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1980 - In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.

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On this day in history, two national parks were established in the United States10 years apart, the Grand Canyon in 1919 and the Grand Tetons in 1929.

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1827 - A group of masked and costumed students dance through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, marking the beginning of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

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1953 - Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick announce that they have determined the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.

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1875 - Indoor ice hockey makes its public debut in Montreal, Quebec.

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1963 - The Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin. An estimated 25 million Hula-Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone.

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1899 - The Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co.

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1475 - Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, is born in the small village of Caprese.

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1959 - The first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City.