Benjamin was born on Nov. 9, 1731 to free parents in Maryland. His grandmother was white and had come to America as an indentured servant. She taught him to read. As a teenager, a Quaker friend gave him access to his personal library and Benjamin occasionally attended his school. He Read more…
On Nov. 8, 1939, Hitler gave his annual speech commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch at the beer hall called the Burgerbraukeller. About fifteen minutes after he left the building, a massive explosion destroyed the speaker’s platform and brought down part of the roof. 7 people were killed and 63 Read more…
Pre-sliced bread was invented in 1928. With WWII underway, Secretary of Agriculture and head of the War Foods Administration Claude Wickard ordered a ban on the production of sliced bread. It is unclear what the motivation was. Some think Wickard was trying to conserve the wax paper that was Read more…
November 6, 1861 was the birthday of the Father of Basketball. James Naismith was born in Canada. He moved to the U.S. to become a physical educator. He was in graduate school at Springfield College in Massachusetts when his professor, Luther Gulick (the Father of Physical Education), assigned his Read more…
Today is the anniversary of the greatest war movie winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 1930. If you like war movies, you might want to check out my blog The War Movie Buff (https://warmoviebuff.blogspot.com/) and my Facebook group War Movie Lovers Group. There is a sequel called Read more…
America’s greatest humorist was born on Nov. 4, 1879. He was born in the Cherokee Nation in what is today Oklahoma. He was ¼ Cherokee. After some unsuccessful attempts at ranching and horse-breaking. He became an entertainer. He did rope trips. One day he was at a show in Read more…
When I was a kid, there were two big events on TV every year. One was the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special” and the other was the annual airing of “The Wizard of Oz”. It was first aired on Nov. 3, 1956. Here are some interesting facts about the movie. Read more…
His father immigrated to Pennsylvania. He was a Quaker. Daniel was the sixth of eleven children. He was born on Nov. 2, 1734. His family was forced to move to North Carolina when his father refused to apologize for two of his boys marrying “worldlings” (non-Quakers). He was kicked out Read more…
In 1508, Pope Julius II convinced Michelangelo to stop work on his tomb and paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The building is the chapel in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The ceiling was originally painted sky blue with gold stars. Michelangelo did not want the job. He Read more…