“History is a race between education and catastrophe.” -H.G. Wells
November 5th – Remembered as Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, for the anniversary of the failed “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I in 1605.
November 5, 1733 – The first issue of the New York Weekly Journal was published by John Peter Zenger, a colonial American printer and journalist. A year later, he was arrested on charges of libeling New York’s royal governor.
November 5, 1911 – Aviator C.P. Snow completed the first transcontinental flight across America, landing at Pasadena, California. He had taken off from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17th and flew a distance of 3,417 miles.
NOVEMBER 6
November 6, 1429 – Henry VI was crowned King of England at age eight. He had acceded to the throne at the age of nine months following the death of Charles VI.
November 6, 1860 – Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th U.S. President and the first Republican. He received 180 of 303 possible electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote.
November 6, 1917 – During World War I, the Third Battle of Ypres concluded after five months as Canadian and Australian troops took Passchendaele. Their advance, measuring five miles, cost at least 240,000 soldiers.
November 6, 1962 – The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning South Africa for its apartheid policies and recommended economic sanctions.
Birthday – American conductor John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was born in Washington, D.C. Best known for his rousing marches including The Stars and Stripes Forever, Semper Fidelis, and El Capitan.
Birthday – Polish composer, pianist and patriot, Ignace Paderewski (1860-1941) was born in Kurylowka, Podolia, Poland.
Birthday – Inventor of the game of basketball, James Naismith (1861-1939) was born in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.
NOVEMBER 7
November 7, 1659 – The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed, ending the Franco-Spanish war of 1648-59.
November 7, 1811 – General William H. Harrison led 1,000 Americans in battle, defeating the Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek near Lafayette, Indiana.
November 7, 1837 – A pro-slavery mob attacked and killed American abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy at his printing works in Alton, Illinois.
November 7, 1885 – Canada’s first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.
November 7, 1917 – Russian Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky in Petrograd. The Council of People’s Commissars was then established as the new government of Russia, with Nikolai Lenin as chairman, Leon Trotsky as foreign commissar and Josef Stalin as commissar of nationalities. This event was celebrated each year in the former USSR with parades, massive military displays and public appearances by top Soviet leaders.
November 7, 1944 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term, defeating Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt died less than a year later on April 12, 1945.
November 7, 1962 – Richard Nixon told news reporters in Los Angeles “…just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” Nixon’s statement came the day after he lost the election for California governor to incumbent Edmund G. Brown. In 1968, Nixon re-entered politics and won the presidency, defeating Hubert H. Humphrey. Re-elected in 1972, he resigned in 1974 during impeachment proceedings resulting from the Watergate scandal.
November 7, 1967 – Carl Stokes became the first African American mayor in the U.S., elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
November 7, 1989 – The East German government resigned after pro-democracy protests.
November 7, 1989 – L. Douglas Wilder became the first African American governor in U.S. history, elected governor of Virginia.
November 7, 1990 – Mary Robinson became Ireland’s first female president.
Birthday – Polish chemist Marie Curie (1867-1934) was born in Warsaw, Poland. In 1903, she and her husband received the Nobel Prize for physics for their discovery of the element Radium.
Birthday – Christian evangelist Billy Graham was born near Charlotte, North Carolina, November 7, 1918. After his conversion at a revival meeting at age 16, he embarked on a career of preaching and has become known worldwide.
NOVEMBER 8
November 8, 1519 – Cortes conquered Mexico. After landing on the Yucatan Peninsula in April, Cortes and his troops had marched into the interior of Mexico to the Aztec capital and captured Aztec Emperor Montezuma.
November 8, 1895 – X-rays (electromagnetic rays) were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.
November 8, 1923 – Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch took place in the Buergerbraukeller in Munich. Hitler, Goering and armed Nazis attempted, but ultimately failed, to forcibly seize power and overthrow democracy in Germany.
November 8, 1939 – An assassination attempt on Hitler failed at the Buergerbraukeller in Munich. A bomb exploded soon after Hitler had exited following a speech commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Seven others were killed.
November 8, 1942 – Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, began as 400,000 soldiers under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed at Morocco and Algeria.
Birthday – Astronomer and mathematician Edmund Halley (1656-1742) was born in London. He sighted the Great Comet of 1682 (now named Halley’s Comet) and foretold its reappearance in 1758. Halley’s Comet appears once each generation with the average time between appearances being 76 years. It is expected to be visible again in 2061.
Birthday – Dracula author Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin, Ireland.
Birthday – Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her romantic novel about the American Civil War sold over 10 million copies, was translated into 30 languages, and was made into one of the most popular movies of all time. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the novel, her only book. She died after being struck by an automobile in Atlanta.
Birthday – Pioneering heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard (1922-2001) was born in Beaufort West, Cape of Good Hope Province, South Africa. He headed the surgical team that achieved the first-ever human heart transplant in 1967.
NOVEMBER 9
November 9, 1872 – The Great Boston Fire started in a dry-goods warehouse then spread rapidly in windy weather, destroying nearly 800 buildings. Damage was estimated at more than $75 million. The fire’s bright red glare could be seen in the sky for nearly 100 miles.
November 9, 1918 – German Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his throne in the closing days of World War I and fled to Holland. In Germany, Philip Scheidemann, a Socialist leader, then proclaimed a democratic Republic and became its first Chancellor.
November 9-10, 1938 – Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) occurred in Germany as Nazi mobs burned synagogues and vandalized Jewish shops and homes.
November 9, 1965 – At 5:16 p.m., the Great Blackout of the Northeast began as a tripped circuit breaker at a power plant on the Niagara River caused a chain reaction sending power surges knocking out interconnected power companies down the East Coast. The blackout affected over 30 million persons, one-sixth of the entire U.S. population. Electricity also failed in Ontario and Quebec.
November 9, 1989 – The Berlin Wall was opened up after standing for 28 years as a symbol of the Cold War. The 27.9-mile wall had been constructed in 1961.
Birthday – Architect Stanford White (1853-1906) was born in New York City. He designed New York’s old Madison Square Garden, the Washington Arch, and the Players, Century and Metropolitan Clubs. White was shot to death on the roof of the Madison Square Garden by an acquaintance on June 25, 1906.
Birthday – Spiro Agnew (1918-1996) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as Richard Nixon’s vice-president from 1969-73. He resigned amid charges of income tax evasion on kickbacks received while he was governor of Maryland and after he became vice-president. As Nixon’s vice-president, Agnew was known as an outspoken critic of the counterculture and anti-war movements of the late 1960s and early 70s.
NOVEMBER 10
November 10, 1775 – The U.S. Marine Corps was established as part of the U.S. Navy. It became a separate unit on July 11, 1789.
November 10, 1871 – Explorer Henry M. Stanley found missionary David Livingstone at Ujiji, Africa. Stanley began his search the previous March for Livingstone who had been missing for two years. Upon locating him, he simply asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
November 10, 1928 – Hirohito was crowned Emperor of Japan. He was Imperial Japan’s Emperor during World War II. Following Japan’s defeat, he was allowed to stay and remained Emperor until his death in 1989.
November 10, 1942 – Following the British victory at El Alamein in North Africa during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Birthday – Reformation founder Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben, Saxony. In 1517, Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg’s castle church asserting the Bible should be the sole authority of the church and calling for reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.
Birthday – Actor Richard Burton (1925-1984) was born in Pontrhydyfen, South Wales (as Richard Jenkins). The son of a coal miner, he came to be regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of his day, although he never received an Oscar and was never knighted. He led a tempestuous personal life, highlighted by twice marrying actress Elizabeth Taylor. He died at age 58 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
NOVEMBER 11
November 11th – Celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day (formerly called Armistice Day) with parades and military memorial ceremonies.
November 11, 1918 – At 5 a.m., in Marshal Foch’s railway car in the Forest of Compiegne, the Armistice between the Allied and Central Powers was signed, silencing the guns of World War I effective at 11 a.m. – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In many places in Europe, a moment of silence in memory of the millions of fallen soldiers is still observed.
November 11, 1938 – Irving Berlin’s God Bless America was first performed. He had written the song especially for radio entertainer Kate Smith who sang it during her regular radio broadcast. It soon became a patriotic favorite of Americans and was one of Smith’s most requested songs.
November 11, 1972 – The U.S. turned over its military base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese, symbolizing the end of direct American military participation in the Vietnam War.
November 11, 1973 – Egypt and Israel signed a cease-fire agreement sponsored by the U.S.
November 11, 1987 – In Russia, Boris Yeltsin was removed as Moscow Communist Party chief for criticizing the slow pace of Soviet reform.
November 11, 1992 – The Church of England voted to allow women to become priests.
Birthday – Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She was the wife of John Adams, the 2nd U.S. President.
Birthday – Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow. Best known for The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.
Birthday – World War II General George S. Patton (1885-1945) was born in San Gabriel, California. In 1942, he led the Allied task force that landed at Casablanca in North Africa. He commanded the U.S. 7th Army during the invasion of Sicily, then received worldwide attention and an official reprimand for slapping a hospitalized soldier suffering from battle fatigue. After D-Day, he led the U.S. 3rd Army across France and into Germany. He died at Heidelberg, Germany on December 21, 1945, of injuries from an automobile accident.