November 26th

Today's Highlight in History:
On November 26th, 1942, the motion picture "Casablanca," starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Theater in New York.

On this date:
In 1832, public streetcar service began in New York City. The fare: 12 and a-half cents.

In 1825, the first college social fraternity, Kappa Alpha, was formed at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

In 1940, the half-million Jews of Warsaw, Poland, were forced by the Nazis to live within a walled ghetto.

In 1942, President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December first.

In 1949, India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth.

In 1950, China entered the Korean conflict, launching a counter-offensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the US and South Korea.

In 1965, France launched its first satellite, sending a 92-pound capsule into orbit.

In 1973, President Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she'd accidentally caused part of the 18-and-a-half-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

In 1975, a federal jury in Sacramento, California, found Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Ford.

In 1986, President Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Senator John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

Ten years ago: Hungary held a national referendum in which voters decided that the country's next president would be chosen by parliament, following free elections.

Five years ago: Thirty clergymen were elevated to the rank of cardinal in a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope John Paul the Second. Margaret Garrish, a 72-year-old Detroit woman, committed suicide in the presence of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

One year ago: In the first speech ever by a British prime minister to an Irish parliament, Tony Blair predicted that Northern Ireland's troubled peace accord would ultimately work because of a strengthened cooperative spirit uniting Britain and Ireland. In India, at least 211 people died when two trains collided in the northern state of Punjab.

"Love your neighbors, but don't pull down the fence."

-- Chinese proverb.