Today in History

Today is Sunday, Nov. 27, the 331st day of 2011. There are 34 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 27, 1901, the U.S. Army War College was established in Washington, D.C.

On this date:

In 1839, the American Statistical Association was founded in Boston.

In 1910, New York's Pennsylvania Station officially opened.

In 1911, the stage comedy "The Playboy of the Western World" by J.M. Synge received a hostile reception as it opened in New York because of theatergoers angered over its portrayal of Irish characters. Theatrical producer David Merrick was born in St. Louis.

In 1939, the play "Key Largo," by Maxwell Anderson, opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York.

In 1942, during World War II, the French navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of German troops.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI, visiting the Philippines, was slightly wounded at the Manila airport by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest.

In 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist, were shot to death inside City Hall by former supervisor Dan White.

In 1983, 181 people were killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near Madrid's Barajas airport.

In 1989, a bomb blamed on drug traffickers destroyed a Colombian Avianca Boeing 727, killing all 107 people on board and three people on the ground.

In 2005, doctors in France performed the world's first partial face transplant on a woman disfigured by a dog bite; Isabelle Dinoire received the lips, nose and chin of a brain-dead woman in a 15-hour operation.

Ten years ago: Afghan factions opened power-sharing talks outside Bonn, Germany.

Five years ago: President George W. Bush, stopping over in Estonia en route to a NATO summit in Latvia and meetings in Jordan, intensified diplomatic efforts to quell rising violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fire burned down a group home for the elderly and mentally ill in Anderson, Mo., killing 10 residents and a caretaker. (Faulty wiring was cited as the likely cause of the blaze.)

One year ago: The State Department released a letter from its top lawyer to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, warning that an expected imminent release of classified cables would put "countless" lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize U.S. relations with its allies.

Today's Birthdays: Actor James Avery is 63. Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (Film: "The Hurt Locker") is 60. TV host Bill Nye ("Bill Nye, the Science Guy") is 56. Actor William Fichtner is 55. Caroline Kennedy is 54. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri (Film: "Thelma and Louise") is 54. Rock musician Charlie Burchill (Simple Minds) is 52. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is 51. Rock musician Charlie Benante (Anthrax) is 49. Rock musician Mike Bordin (Faith No More) is 49. Actor Fisher Stevens is 48. Actress Robin Givens is 47. Actor Michael Vartan is 43. Rapper Skoob (DAS EFX) is 41. Actor Kirk Acevedo is 40. Rapper Twista is 39. Actor Jaleel White is 35. Actress Alison Pill is 26.

Thought for Today: "Man's loneliness is but his fear of life." -- Eugene O'Neill, American playwright (born 1888, died this date in 1953).

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.