Today in History: November 29, the Sand Creek Massacre

Today is Friday, Nov. 29, the 334th day of 2024. There are 32 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 29, 1864, a Colorado militia launched an unprovoked attack on an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribal members, killing an estimated 230 people.

Also on this date:

In 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.

In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

In 1981, film star Natalie Wood drowned at age 43 while boating off California’s Santa Catalina Island with her husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken.

In 1987, a Korean Air 707 jetliner en route from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok was destroyed by a bomb planted by North Korean agents, killing all 115 people aboard.

In 2001, former Beatle George Harrison died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.

In 2012, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine non-observer member state status, a vote that came exactly 65 years after the General Assembly adopted a plan to divide Palestine into separate states for Jews and Arabs. (The 2012 vote was 138 in favor; nine members, including the United States, voted against and 41 abstained.)

In 2018, in a surprise guilty plea, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen confessed that he lied to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign.

In 2022, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win, handing the Justice Department a major victory in its massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (Rhodes would be sentenced to 18 years in prison in May 2023).

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Diane Ladd is 89. Musician Chuck Mangione is 84. Filmmaker Joel Coen is 70. Actor-TV personality Howie Mandel is 69. Actor Cathy Moriarty is 64. Actor Kim Delaney is 63. Actor Andrew McCarthy is 62. Actor Don Cheadle is 60. Pop singer Jonathan Knight (New Kids on the Block) is 56. Baseball Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera is 55. Actor Brian Baumgartner is 52. Actor Anna (AH’-nuh) Faris is 48. Rapper The Game is 45. Actor Gemma Chan is 42. Actor Lucas Black is 42. NFL quarterback Russell Wilson is 36.