TODAY IN HISTORY

 

U.N. votes for partition of Palestine

Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state.

The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory. The Jews were Zionists, recent emigrants from Europe and Russia who came to the ancient homeland of the Jews to establish a Jewish national state. The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Radical Jewish groups employed guerilla tactics against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause. At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine.

The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, though they made up less than half of Palestine’s population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but the Jews secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory. On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan (now known as Jordan), Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded.

The Israelis managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territories, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of those conquered areas. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a Jewish majority.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2001

George Harrison, lead guitarist for the Beatles, dies

On November 29, 2001, English musician and songwriter George Harrison dies at the age of 58. Harrison achieved global fame as a member of the Beatles and went on to a successful solo career that included frequent collaborations with many of the foremost musicians of his generation. The youngest member of the Beatles, Harrison was born in Liverpool in 1943 and joined the group, then known as the Quarrymen, when he was barely 15. Harrison became the group’s lead guitarist and frequently sang, but he developed a reputation as the “quiet Beatle” and was oftentimes overshadowed by the duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Nonetheless, his influence on the group, and on rock music in general, was profound. Harrison’s use of sitar on the 1965 track “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” introduced the instrument to Western popular culture. Along with other Harrison innovations, such as the backwards guitar solo on “I’m Only Sleeping,” it became a defining feature of psychedelic rock. 

CRIME

2011

Dr. Conrad Murray receives four-year sentence in Michael Jackson’s death

On November 29, 2011, Conrad Murray, the physician convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of singer Michael Jackson, is sentenced in a Los Angeles County courtroom to four years behind bars. 

EXPLORATION

1929

Explorer Richard Byrd flies over South Pole

American explorer Richard Byrd and three companions make the first flight over the South Pole, flying from their base on the Ross Ice Shelf to the pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes. Richard Evelyn Byrd learned how to fly in the U.S. Navy and served as a pilot in World War I. An excellent navigator, he was deployed by the navy to Greenland in 1924 to help explore the Arctic region by air. Enamored with the experience of flying over glaciers and sea ice, he decided to attempt the first flight over the North Pole.

VIETNAM WAR

1967

Robert S. McNamara resigns as Secretary of Defense

Robert S. McNamara announces that he will resign as Secretary of Defense and will become president of the World Bank. Formerly the president of Ford Motor Company, McNamara had served as Secretary of Defense under two presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, from 1961 until 1968. He initially supported U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and encouraged President Johnson to escalate in 1964, but he later began privately to question U.S. policy and eventually advocated a negotiated settlement to the war. In the summer of 1967, he helped draft the San Antonio formula, a peace proposal offering to end the U.S. bombing of the north and asking North Vietnam to join in productive discussions. The North Vietnamese rejected the proposal in October.

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1963

LBJ forms commission to investigate Kennedy assassination

On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints a special commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which had occurred a week earlier, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. 

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1981

Actress Natalie Wood drowns

On November 29, 1981, the actress Natalie Wood, who starred in such movies as Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, drowns in a boating accident near California’s Catalina Island. She was 43 years old. 

COLD WAR

1952

President Eisenhower goes to Korea

Making good on his most dramatic presidential campaign promise, newly elected Dwight D. Eisenhower goes to Korea to see whether he can find the key to ending the bitter and frustrating Korean War. 

CIVIL WAR

1864

Sand Creek massacre

On November 29, 1864, peaceful band of Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe Native Americans are massacred by Colonel John Chivington’s Colorado volunteers at Sand Creek, Colorado. The causes of the Sand Creek massacre were rooted in the long conflict for control of the Great Plains of  eastern Colorado. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 guaranteed ownership of the area north of the Arkansas River to the Nebraska border to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe. However, by the end of the decade, waves of Euro-American miners flooded across the region in search of gold in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, placing extreme pressure on the resources of the arid plains. By 1861, tensions between new settlers and Native Americans were rising. 

WORLD WAR II

1942

Coffee rationing begins

On November 29, 1942, coffee joins the list of items rationed in the United States. Despite record coffee production in Latin American countries, the growing demand for the bean from both military and civilian sources, and the demands placed on shipping, which was needed for other purposes, required the limiting of its availability.