DAY: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia elected Africa’s first female Head of State

Below are some of the major events that took place on November 23rd.

1890 – William III of Holland dies.

1976 – André Malraux dies. He was a French writer, adventurer, orator and revolutionary, and Charles, who was General Gaul’s long-term Minister of Culture.

1996 – A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 with 163 passengers and 12 crew members crashes into the sea off the Comoros Islands after apparently running out of fuel. 125 people died.

2001 – A United Nations war crimes tribunal indicts Slobodan Milosevic for genocide in Bosnia, making the third and most serious indictment against the former Yugoslav leader.

2002 – Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali takes office as Pakistan’s newly elected Prime Minister, returning the country to formal civil rule after three years of military dictatorship.

2003 – Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns, bowing to opposition protesters who stormed Parliament declaring a “velvet revolution” and demanding his resignation.

2004 – Ukrainian liberal opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko proclaims himself president, symbolically taking the oath of office in parliament, as he faces street protests from the opposition, alleging he was defrauded of the presidency by the government.

2005 – Former Liberian Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf becomes the first woman elected head of state for an African country.

2007 – Former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, one of Russia’s most influential hardline spymasters, is dismissed as KGB chief for his participation in the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

2010 – The world’s largest t-shirt made to help Qatar host the 2022 Soccer World Cup.

2011 – Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to step down from power for 33 years after 10 months of protests against his rule.

(Reuters)