Today in History.....November 23

On this day in …

* 1499, Perkin Warbeck, who invaded England in 1497 claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV, is hanged for allegedly trying to escape from the Tower of London

* 1876, William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, leader of New York City's corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s, is delivered to authorities in New York City after his capture in Spain

* 1897, Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan, is issued a U.S.
patent for his "motor carriage," a gasoline-powered vehicle that he constructed the year before. In 1887, when he was only 18, Olds built his first automobile, a steam-propelled three-wheeled vehicle.
However, Olds soon recognized the advantages of an engine powered by gasoline, an abundant fuel source that was safer and more reliable than steam. Two months before receiving his patent, Olds had formed the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, a company that grew into the Olds Motors Works, in 1899.

* 1936, Life, the magazine created by Henry R. Luce, was first published

* 1940, Romania signs the Tripartite Pact, officially allying itself with Germany, Italy, and Japan

* 1943, during World War II, U.S. forces seized control of Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese

* 1963, President Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President Kennedy

* 1971, the People's Republic of China was seated in the U.N.
Security Council

* 1972, secret peace talks resume in Paris between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the North Vietnamese representative, but almost immediately reach an impasse

* 1981, President Reagan gives CIA authority to establish the Contras, a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua

* 1985, retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin was arrested and accused of spying for China. (He committed suicide a year after his
conviction.)

* 1995, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic grudgingly accepted the U.S.-backed peace plan for the former Yugoslavia after meeting with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic

* 2004, Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared himself the winner of Ukraine's disputed presidential election and took a symbolic oath of office. (He won a court-ordered revote in December

2004.) ALSO: Dan Rather announced he would step down as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News" in March 2005