November 23 ...

In 1765 Frederick County, MD, repudiated the British Stamp Act. In 1804 14th president of the US Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsboro, NH. In 1888 comedian Harpo Marx was born in New York City. In 1903 singer Enrico Caruso made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, appearing in "Rigoletto." In 1936 Life magazine was first published. In 1943 US forces seized control of Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese. In 1945 most US wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ended. In 1963 President Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President Kennedy. In 1971 the People's Republic of China was seated in the UN Security Council. In 1979 Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon was sentenced to life in prison in Dublin, Ireland, for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten. In 1980 some 4,800 people were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy. In 1985 retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin was arrested and accused of spying for China. (He committed suicide a year after his conviction.) In 1995 Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic grudgingly accepted the US-backed peace plan for the former Yugoslavia after meeting with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. In 2003 Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigned following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections. In 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 on this day, Dan Rather announced he would step down as principal anchorman of The CBS Evening News the next March.