November 28

1520 – After 38 days, the naval expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan completes the first passage through the Strait of Magellan and enters the Pacific Ocean.

1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, where the U.S. acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now eastern Tennessee.

1794 – Former Continental Army Inspector Major General, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben dies, age 64 at his estate in Oneida County – later Steuben – New York.

1798 – Trade between the United States and modern day Uruguay begins when John Leamy’s frigate John arrives in Montevideo.

1811 – Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

1821 – The nation of Panama separates from Spain and joins Gran Colombia.

1843 – The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.

1895 – The first American automobile road race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

1908 – An explosion in the Pittsburg Buffalo Company’s mine in Marianna, Pennsylvania, kills 154 men, leaving only 1 survivor.

1912 – Taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the First Balkan War, Albania, which was not one of the belligerents, declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

1914 – Closed in July due to the outbreak of war in Europe, the New York Stock Exchange reopens for bond trading.

1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee on clear channel radio station WSM.

1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people

1943 – During World War II, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy.

1958 – The U.S. makes the first successful flight of the SM-65 Atlas, the first operational intercontinental U.S. ballistic missile.

1964 –National Security Council members agree to recommend that President Johnson adopt a plan for a two stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.

1965 – In response to President Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam, Philippine President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam.

1967 – The first pulsar, PSR B1919+21, is discovered in the constellation of Vulpecula by astronomers Jocelyn Burnell and Antony Hewish at the  Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge, England.

1971 – Wasfi al-Tal, Prime Minister of Jordan, is assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

1994 – Jeffrey Dahmer completes his life imprisonment term for multiple murders by being murdered himself by another inmate.

2016 – A chartered Avro RJ85 plane carrying 77 people, including the Chapecoense football team, crashes near Medellín, Colombia.

2020 – David Prowse, English weight-lifting champion, and the actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original trilogy, dies, age 85, in London.