Today in History: November 24, Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Nov. 24, 1963, Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, in a scene captured on live television.

On this date:

In 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species,” which explained his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

In 1865, Mississippi became the first Southern state to enact laws which came to be known as “Black Codes” aimed at limiting the rights of newly freed Blacks; other states of the former Confederacy soon followed.

In 1941, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Edwards v. California, unanimously struck down a California law prohibiting people from bringing impoverished non-residents into the state.

In 1947, a group of writers, producers and directors, who would become known as the “Hollywood Ten,” were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry.

In 1971, a hijacker calling himself “Dan Cooper” (but who became popularly known as “D.B. Cooper”) parachuted from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 over the Pacific Northwest after receiving $200,000 in ransom; his fate remains unknown.

In 1974, the bone fragments of a 3.2 million-year-old hominid were discovered by scientists in Ethiopia; the skeletal remains were nicknamed “Lucy.”

In 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on terms to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles.

In 1989, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu (chow-SHES’-koo) was unanimously re-elected Communist Party chief. (Within a month, he was overthrown in a popular uprising and executed.)

In 1991, Queen singer Freddie Mercury died in London at age 45 of AIDS-related pneumonia.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into the bitter overtime struggle for the White House, agreeing to consider George W. Bush’s appeal against the hand recounting of ballots in Florida.

In 2012, fire raced through a garment factory in Bangladesh that supplied major retailers in the West, killing 112 people; an official said many of the victims were trapped because the eight-story building lacked emergency exits.

In 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly condemned the international community’s nuclear deal with Iran, calling it a “historic mistake” and saying he was not bound by the agreement.

In 2014, it was announced that a grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri, had decided against indicting Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown; the decision enraged protesters who set fire to buildings and cars and looted businesses in the area where Brown had been fatally shot.

In 2017, militants attacked a crowded mosque in Egypt with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, killing more than 300 people in the deadliest-ever attack by Islamic extremists in the country.

In 2020, Pennsylvania officials certified Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential vote in the state; the Trump campaign had gone to court trying to prevent the certification.

In 2021, three men were convicted of murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the Black man who was running through a Georgia subdivision in February 2020 when the white strangers chased him, trapped him on a quiet street and blasted him with a shotgun.