OnthisDay

On November 22, 1986, 20-year-old Mike Tyson knocks out 33-year-old Trevor Berbick in just five minutes and 35 seconds to become the youngest titleholder ever. “I’m the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in history,” Tyson told his manager after the fight, “and I’m going to be the oldest.” Tyson’s bravado wasn’t misplaced: When he walked into the ring to face Berbick, he had won all 27 of the matches he’d fought, knocking out 26 of his opponents. He threw unbelievably hard punches–“pineapples,” trainer Angelo Dundee called them. Ref Mills Lane agreed: “Everything he’s got has ‘good night’ written all over it,” he said. Berbick refused to be intimidated by the younger man’s furious arm and decided–unwisely, it turned out–to stand up to Tyson instead of boxing him. He didn’t bob or weave or even throw punches. He just stood there, wanting to show the world that he could take whatever Tyson was dishing out. “I was trying to prove to myself that I could take his best shot,” Berbic...

On this day in 1900, the first car to be produced under the Mercedes name is taken for its inaugural drive in Cannstatt, Germany. The car was specially built for its buyer, Emil Jellinek, an entrepreneur with a passion for fast, flashy cars. Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft: it was lighter and sleeker than any car the company had made before, and Jellinek was confident that it would win races so handily that besotted buyers would snap it up. (He was so confident that he bought 36 of them.) In exchange for this extraordinary patronage, the company agreed to name its new machine after Jellinek’s 11-year-old daughter, Mercedes. In 1886, the German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach had built one of the world’s first “horseless carriages,” a four-wheeled carriage with an engine bolted to it. In 1889, the two men built the world’s first four-wheeled automobile to be powered by a four-stroke engine. They formed D...

On this day in 2003, the actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento. Schwarzenegger, who became a major Hollywood star in the 1980s with such action movies as  Conan the Barbarian  and  The Terminator , defeated Governor Gray Davis in a special recall election on October 7, 2003. Prior to Schwarzenegger, another famous actor, Ronald Reagan, served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 before going on to become the nation’s 40th president in 1980. Schwarzenegger was born July 30, 1947, in Austria. He trained as a bodybuilder and at the age of 20 became the youngest person to win the Mr. Universe title. In 1968, Schwarzenegger, dubbed “The Austrian Oak,” came to the United States, speaking little English, and went on to win a dozen more world bodybuilding titles. In 1977, he gained notice when he was featured in the documentary  Pumping Iron , about the Mr. Oly...

Maharaja Ranjit Singh  (1780 –1839), was the leader of the Sikh Empire, which ruled the northwest Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. He survived smallpox in infancy but lost sight in his left eye. He fought his first battle alongside his father at age 10. After his father died, he fought several wars to expel the Afghans in his teenage years, and was proclaimed as the "Maharaja of Punjab" at age 21. His empire grew in the Punjab region under his leadership through 1839. Prior to his rise, the Punjab region had numerous warring misls (confederacies), twelve of which were under Sikh rulers and one Muslim. Ranjit Singh successfully absorbed and united the Sikh misls and took over other local kingdoms to create the Sikh Empire. He repeatedly defeated invasions by Muslim armies, particularly those arriving from Afghanistan, and established friendly relations with the British. ...

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure. On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of  World War I , Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independ...

Battle of Pratapgarh was fought on November 10, 1659 at ‘Fort of Pratapgad’ near Satara, Maharashtra. It was fought between  Shivaji  and the General Afzal Khan from Adilshahi dynasty. Adilshahi forces were defeated by Marathas in spite of more resources and people. The battle was  Maratha ’s first major win against a regional power, leading to final establishment of the Maratha Empire. The battle is known for the manner in which Afzal Khan was killed by Chhatrapati Shivaji. Afzal Khan had also killed Shivaji’s brother in a battle. Shivaji had sent an emissary saying that he did not want war. Even though a meeting was arranged, both of them were deeply suspicious of each other’s intentions. It was agreed that the two would meet unarmed but both were prepared for treachery. Afzal Khan had hidden a small dagger and Shivaji wore armour underneath his clothes with a concealed weapon in one hand. Afzal Khan tried to stab Shivaji in the back while trying to embrace him. Th...

On this day in 2001, the 3,400-seat Kodak Theatre, which was designed as the permanent home of the Academy Awards, opens in Hollywood. The Oscars were held at the Kodak Theatre for the first time on March 24, 2002. During the show, which was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg,  A Beautiful Mind  was named Best Picture, Halle Berry won Best Actress for her performance in  Monster’s Ball and Denzel Washington collected the Best Actor award for  Training Day . Berry and Washington’s wins marked the first time in Oscar history that African-American performers had triumphed in both the Best Actress and Best Actor categories. The Kodak Theatre, located on Hollywood Boulevard near the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, was designed by architect David Rockwell and cost some $94 million to construct. The theatre features a five-story lobby with a grand spiral staircase, columns commemorating past winners of the Best Picture Oscar and a main stage area me...

Sitara Devi  (8 November 1920 – 25 November 2014) was an eminent Indian dancer of the classical Kathak style of dancing. Rabindranath Tagore described her as  Nṛitya Sāmrājñi , meaning the empress of dance, after watching her performance when she was just 16 years old. The epithet continues, and she is still described as the  Kathak queen . She gave performances in several parts of India, and in several other countries, including at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1967; and at the Carnegie Hall, New York in 1976.

Brett Bob Lee  (born 8 November 1976) is a former  Australian  international  cricketer , who played all three formats of the game. During his international career, Lee was recognised as one of fastest bowlers in the world of cricket along with  Shoaib Akhtar . He is known for his consistency of pace, going over 150 kilometres per hour (93 mph) throughout his career. His quickest delivery was 161.8 km/h (100.5 mph) in a test match against the West Indies in 2002, but because they were playing in a charity match, it was not officially recognised as the fastest delivery ever. After that the world record for the fastest delivery ever is held by  Shoaib Akhtar  at 161.4 km/h (100.3 mph). Lee's quickest delivery in ODIs is 161.1 km/h (100.1 mph) playing against New Zealand in 2005. He is also widely regarded as one of the best pace bowlers ever to have played the sport. Lee was known for reaching a hundred miles an ho...

On this day in 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible. Rontgen’s discovery occurred accidentally in his Wurzburg, Germany, lab, where he was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-rays because of their unknown nature. X-rays are electromagnetic energy waves that act similarly to light rays, but at wavelengths approximately 1,000 times shorter than those of light. Rontgen holed up in his lab and conducted a series of experiments to better understand his discovery. He learned that X-rays penetrate human flesh but not higher-density substances such as bone or lead and that they can be photographed. Rontgen’s discovery was labeled a medical miracle and X-rays soo...

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois. Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, first gained national stature during his campaign against Stephen Douglas of Illinois for a U.S. Senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the you...

On this day in 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeats Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first African American elected to the White House. The 47-year-old Democrat garnered 365 electoral votes and nearly 53 percent of the popular vote, while his 72-year-old Republican challenger captured 173 electoral votes and more than 45 percent of the popular vote. Obama’s vice-presidential running mate was Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, while McCain’s running mate was Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the first female Republican ever nominated for the vice presidency. Obama, who was born in 1961 in Hawaii to a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, graduated from Harvard Law School and was a law professor at the University of Chicago before launching his political career in 1996, when he was elected to the Illinois State Senate. He was re-elected to that post in 1998 and 2000. In March 2004, he shot to national prominence by winnin...

Monali Thakur  (born 3 November 1985) is an Indian singer and actress. She is the recipient of a  National Film Award  and a  Filmfare Award . Thakur won the  National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer  for the song "Moh Moh Ke Dhaage" from the film  Dum Laga Ke Haisha  (2015) and the  Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer  for the song "Sawaar Loon" from the film  Lootera (2013). She is presently an "expert" on Colors TV's  Rising Star .

The Soviet Union launches the first animal into space—a dog name Laika—aboard the  Sputnik 2  spacecraft. Laika, part Siberian husky, lived as a stray on the Moscow streets before being enlisted into the Soviet space program. Laika survived for several days as a passenger in the USSR’s second artificial Earth satellite, kept alive by a sophisticated life-support system. Electrodes attached to her body provided scientists on the ground with important information about the biological effects of space travel. She died after the batteries of her life-support system ran down. At least a dozen more Russian dogs were launched into space in preparation for the first manned Soviet space mission, and at least five of these dogs died in flight. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, aboard the spacecraft  Vostok 1 . He orbited Earth once before landing safely in the USSR.

Shah Rukh Khan  (born  Shahrukh Khan ; 2 November 1965), also known as  SRK , is an Indian film actor, producer and television personality. Referred to in the media as the " Baadshah  of Bollywood", "King of Bollywood" or "King Khan", he has appeared in more than 80 Bollywood films, and earned  numerous accolades , including 14  Filmfare Awards . Khan has a significant following in Asia and the  Indian diaspora  worldwide. In terms of audience size and income, he has been described as one of the most successful film stars in the world.

Aishwarya Rai  (born 1 November 1973) , also known by her married name  Aishwarya Rai Bachchan , is an  Indian  actress, model and the winner of the  Miss World 1994  pageant. Through her successful acting career, she has established herself as one of the most popular and influential celebrities in India.  Rai has received  numerous awards and accolades , including two  Filmfare Awards  from eleven nominations, and she was awarded the  Padma Shri  by the  Government of India  in 2009. She has often been called "the most beautiful woman in the world". Today is one of my favorite days. On this day a wonderful person came on earth. For me you are like the sun rays. Happy birthday and I Love You!