Today in History....November 30

* 1782, Treaty of Paris --- representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris)

* 1786, Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform making his country the first state to abolish the death penalty. November 30 is therefore commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day

* 1803, in New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase

* 1804, the Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase

* 1872, the first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England

* 1902, second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labor

* 1934, the steam locomotive Flying Scotsman becomes the first to officially exceed 100mph

* 1936, London's famed Crystal Palace, constructed for the Great Exhibition of 1851, was destroyed in a fire

* 1939, start of the Winter War: Soviet forces invade Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, launch the war

* 1943 , the Tehran Conference meets --- U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin establish an agreement concerning the planned June 1944 invasion of Europe code named Operation Overlord

* 1954, in Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, an 8.5 lb (3.86 kg) sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio, giving her a bad bruise, in the only unequivocally known case of a human being hit by a space rock

* 1971, Iran seizes the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from the United Arab Emirates

* 1972, during the Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000

* 1981, in Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17)

* 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law

* 1995, official end of Operation Desert Storm

* 1997, Czech Premier Vaclav Klaus formally handed in his government's resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal. In Tajikistan, French hostage Karine Mane was killed with five suspected kidnappers when a grenade exploded during a failed rescue operation; a companion had been released hours earlier

* 1998, Deutsche Bank announces a $10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world