Associated Press
On Nov. 12, 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.
1920- Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was elected baseball’s first commissioner.
1942- The World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began.
1948- Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal.
1954- Ellis Island closed after processing more than 20 million immigrants since opening in New York Harbor in 1892.
1982- Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee.
1985- Xavier Suarez was elected Miami’s first Cuban-American mayor.
1990- Japanese Emperor Akihito formally assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne.
1997- Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
1999- President Bill Clinton signed a sweeping measure knocking down Depression-era barriers and allowing banks, investment firms and insurance companies to sell each other’s products.
2001- An American Airlines flight crashed near New York’s Kennedy airport, killing 265 people.
2004- A jury convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay. (Peterson was later sentenced to death.)
2009- Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre.
2011- Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi resigned.
2011- The Arab League voted to suspend Syria over the country’s bloody crackdown on protesters.
Today’s Birthdays:
Actor Ryan Gosling turns 35 years old today.
Norman Y. Mineta, Former secretary of transportation, 84
Wallace Shawn, Actor, playwright, 72
Booker T. Jones, Rock musician (Booker T. & the MGs), 71
Al Michaels, Sportscaster, 71
Neil Young, Rock musician, 70
Jack Reed, U.S. senator, D-R.I., 66
Megan Mullally, Actress (“Will and Grace”), 57
Nadia Comaneci, Olympic gold medal gymnast, 54
Sammy Sosa, Baseball player, 47
Radha Mitchell, Actress, 42
Omarion, Singer, 31
Actress Anne Hathaway turns 33 years old today.