Today in HistoryToday is Monday, November 28, the 332nd day of 2005. There are 33 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1905, the Irish political party Sinn Fein was founded in Dublin by Arthur Griffith.

In 1912, Albania declared its independence after more than 400 years of Turkish rule.

In 1919, Lady Nancy Astor was elected as the first woman to sit in the House of Commons.

In 1925, the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville’s famed home of country music, made its radio debut on station WSM.

In 1942, nearly 500 people died in a fire that destroyed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston.

In 1943, Prime Minister Winston Churchill , US President Roosevelt and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during the Second World War.

In 1958, the African nation of Chad became an autonomous republic within the French community.

In 1964, the United States launched the space probe Mariner IV on a course to Mars.

In 1975, after a civil war, the left-wing Revolutionary Front for the Independent East Timor (Fretilin) declared East Timor independent from Indonesia.

In 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 en route to the South Pole crashed into a mountain in Antarctica, killing all 257 people aboard.

In 1985, the Irish Senate approved the Anglo-Irish accord concerning Northern Ireland.

In 1989, Czechoslovakia’s parliament voted to strip the Communist Party of its guaranteed monopoly on power.

In 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister during an audience with Queen Elizabeth II, who conferred the premiership on John Major.

In 1995, US President Clinton continued to press his case for sending 20,000 US ground troops to Bosnia.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“The first duty of love is to listen.” — Paul Tillich, American theologian (1886-1965).