The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large cat and the only Panthera species native to the Americas. With a body length of 1.12 to 1.85 m (3 ft 8 in to 6 ft 1 in) and a weight of 56 to 96 kg (123 to 212 lb), it is the third-largest cat species in the world. Its coat is covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides. The jaguar's range extends from the southern U.S. through Mexico and across much of Central America to Paraguay and northern Argentina. It inhabits forested and open terrain, but prefers dense jungle. It is adept at swimming and is largely a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush apex predator. The wild jaguar population is thought to have declined since the late 1990s, and is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and human–wildlife conflict. Since 2002, it has been listed as a near-threatened species on the IUCN Red List. The jaguar has featured prominently in indigenous cultures of the Americas, including the Maya and Aztec civilizations. (Full article...)

Lyceum Theatre

• ... that the Lyceum Theatre (pictured) is New York City's oldest continuously operating legitimate theater?
• ... that Borocera cajani produces a form of wild silk that has been harvested for hundreds of years?
• ... that after failing to establish a colony for black Americans at Abeokuta, Robert Campbell founded the first newspaper in Lagos?
• ... that the Central Asian Orogenic Belt is a leading laboratory of geologically recent crustal growth?
• ... that the Atari 410 Program Recorder was used to store programs on the Atari 8-bit family, but was also used for computer aided instruction?
• ... that after Jonas Rose wrecked a second ship, he never worked again?
• ... that the ring shape of the casatiello represents Christ's crown of thorns?
• ... that James van Riemsdyk once scored a goal for the Philadelphia Flyers on a puck that bounced off of his face and into the net?

Nicolae Ciucă

• A coalition government, led by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă (pictured), takes office in Romania, ending a nearly three-month-long political crisis.
• At least fifty people are killed in a mining accident in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia.
• Twenty-seven people die when their dinghy capsizes in the English Channel.
• The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is launched to attempt to change the orbit of the asteroid moon Dimorphos.

November 29: First day of Hanukkah (Judaism, 2021); Liberation Day in Albania (1944)

Joint session of the National Diet in 2002

• 903 – The Abbasid Caliphate captured the Qarmatian leadership in the Battle of Hama in Syria, opening the way for the reconquest of Tulunid Egypt.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: British reinforcements brought an end to the Patriot attempt to capture Fort Cumberland in Nova Scotia.
• 1890 – The National Diet of Japan (pictured in session), a bicameral legislature modelled after both the German Reichstag and the British Westminster system, first met in Tokyo.
• 1947 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict in Mandatory Palestine by separating the territory into Jewish and Arab states.
• 2007 – During their trial for the 2003 Oakwood mutiny, Philippine soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes mutinied and seized a conference room in The Peninsula Manila hotel in Makati.