The song, Jesus Take the Wheel, performed by the country singer Carrie Underwood (above), was released today in 2005.
Tonight in 1992, the Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on the late night US comedy show, Saturday Night Live. The action was in protest at the Catholic Church’s failure to acknowledge its collusion in child abuse.
Revolution broke out in Portugal today in 1910. The first act of the new republic was to close down all the churches and seize their property.
Today in 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation which created the first Thanksgiving Day in the United States. On the same day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln assigned Thanksgiving to the last Thursday of November, where it stayed until 1939, when it was moved to the fourth Thursday of the month.
Giovanni Diodati, an Italian Calvinist who was the first person to translate the Bible into Italian from Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, died today in 1649.
Bishop Szilárd Bogdánffy, one of the many Catholics who suffered persecution and torture during the Communist period in Romania during the Cold War, died in solitary confinement in the notorious Aliud Prison today in 1953.
Image: MrHairyKnuckles