Today in history—November 25

1507: Flemish jurist and civil servant Joost de Damhouder is born in Bruges. His Praxis Rerum Civilium (1567), a general treatist on the civil law, contains valuable descriptions of commercial law in the 16th-century Netherlands.

1795: Levi Wyman, the wandering son and sometime sailor who features in Mills v. Wyman, is born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

1952: The longest-running play in the known galaxy, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie (left) opens in London. If it had been a contract dispute instead of a murder, it no doubt would have been more popular.

1952: George Meany is elected president of the American Federation of Labor.