November 22 ...

In 1718 English pirate Edward Teach -- better known as "Blackbeard" -- was killed during a battle off the Virginia coast. In 1899 jazz great Hoagy Carmichael was born in Bloomington, IN. In 1906 the "SOS" distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin. In 1928 "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel made its debut in Paris. In 1935 a flying boat, the China Clipper, took off from Alameda, CA, carrying more than 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight. In 1943 President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan; also on this day, lyricist Lorenz Hart died in New York at age 48. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot to death while riding in a motorcade in Dallas; Texas Gov. John B. Connally, in the same limousine as Kennedy, was seriously wounded. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated as the 36th U.S. President later that day. Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination. In 1975 Juan Carlos was proclaimed King of Spain. In 1977 regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis. In 1990 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win re-election of the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced her resignation. In 2004 tens of thousands of demonstrators jammed downtown Kiev, denouncing Ukraine's presidential runoff election as fraudulent and chanting the name of their reformist candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who ended up winning a revote the following month.