In 2011, the United States launched an Atlas V rocket to look for life on Mars. Aboard was the rover Curiosity, which would explore the planet, searching for signs of life. In 2023, Irish writer Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for his dystopian novel Prophet Song, a fictional account of tyranny and war described as "soul shattering."

In 1789, U.S. President George Washington declared Nov. 26, 1789, to be Thanksgiving Day. It was the first U.S. holiday by presidential proclamation. In 1922, in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, British archaeologists Howard Carter and George Carnarvon became the first humans to enter King Tutankhamen's treasure-laden tomb in more than 3,000 years.