Today in History....November 30

On this day in …

1782, the United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War

1803, Spain completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France, which had sold it to the United States
1866, work on the first underwater highway tunnel in the United States began in Chicago

1954, the first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being occurs at Sylacauga, Alabama, when a meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and into a living room, bounces off a radio, and strikes Elizabeth Hodges on the hip

1972, Defense Department sources said that there would not be a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam until a final truce agreement was signed, and that such an agreement would not affect the 54,000 U.S. servicemen in Thailand or the 60,000 aboard 7th Fleet ships off the Vietnamese coast

1981, the United States and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe

1993, President Clinton signed the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers

1994, the Achille Lauro cruise ship catches fire and sinks to the bottom of the sea near Somalia. The large luxury liner had a checkered history that included deaths and, in 1985, terrorism, when it was hijacked by practitioners of that "religion of peace" who shot and murdered a wheelchair-bound American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer

1996, some 150,000 people filled the streets of Belgrade to protest Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic

2001, Robert Tools, the first person in the world to receive a fully self-contained artificial heart, died in Louisville, Ky., of complications after severe abdominal bleeding; he had lived with the device for 151 days

2005, Shimon Peres quit Israel's Labor Party, his political home of six decades, to campaign for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new organization, Kadima