Today is Sunday, November 22, the 326th day of 2009.

There are 39 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights

2005 – Conservative Angela Merkel takes power as Germany’s first female chancellor and the country’s first leader to grow up under communism in the Soviet-occupied East.

Other notable events

1906: The “SOS” distress signal is adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.

1935: The flying boat, The China Clipper, leaves San Francisco on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.

1943: Lebanon is granted independence after two decades of French mandate rule; Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D Roosevelt, and China’s Chiang Kai-shek agree in Cairo, Egypt, on measures to defeat Japan in World War II.

1963: US President John F Kennedy is assassinated as he rides in motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the 36th president.

1967: The UN Security Council approves Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967 Six Day War, and implicitly calls on adversaries to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

1972: US President Richard Nixon lifts 22-year-old ban on American travel to China.

1974: UN General Assembly gives the Palestine Liberation Organisation observer status.

1977: The British and French supersonic airliner Concorde begins service out of New York’s Kennedy International Airport after lengthy dispute over noise levels.

1989: Lebanese President Rene Mouawad is assassinated.

1990: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, after being defeated by John Major in a ballot for Conservative Party leader, resigns after 11 1/2 years in office.

1993: Mexican Senate approves North American Free Trade Agreement.

1994: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is placed under investigation in a bribery probe.

1996: President Alberto Fujimori of Peru announces the purchase of 12 MiG-29 war planes, but denies trying to start an arms race with Ecuador.

1998: Albanians ratify their country’s first post-Communist constitution in a referendum.

2001: The Turkish Parliament approves revisions to the country’s 75-year-old civil code to recognise men and women as equal before the law.

2002: Officials cancel the Miss World pageant in Nigeria and move it instead to London after news that the African nation will host the event sparks deadly riots.

2006: Nepal celebrates the end of a bloody 10-year communist insurgency by declaring a public holiday, and the international community hails the deal under which communist rebels will join an interim government.

2008: Martine Aubry, the architect of France’s 35-hour work week, wins the Socialist Party’s leadership in an extremely tight race.

Today’s Birthdays

Charles de Gaulle, French general-statesman (1890-1970); Benjamin Britten, English composer (1913-1976); Lew Hoad, Australian tennis champion (1934-1994); Jamie Lee Curtis, US actress (1958–); Mariel Hemingway, US actress (1961–); Boris Becker, German tennis professional and Wimbledon champion (1967–); Scarlett Johansson, US actress (1984–).