NOVEMBER
Nov. 1
– birthdays: 1871 – Stephen Crane (author – The Red Badge of Courage) / 1957 – Lyle Lovett (country singer – biggest hit = “Cowboy Man”)
– 1765 – the Stamp Act goes into effect
– 1800 – John Adams becomes the first President to live in the White House
– 1861 – Gen. George McClellan is given command of Union armies
– 1910 – first issue of “Crisis” by W.E.B. Du Bois
– 1913 – in a football game between Notre Dame and Navy, the forward pass is used for the first time
– 1927 – Ford Motor Company begins production on the replacement for the Model T – the Model A
– 1938 – Seabiscuit defeats Triple Crown winner War Admiral in one of the most famous horse races
Seabiscuit crosses the finish line ahead of War Admiral – Library of Congress
– 1945 – first issue of Ebony magazine published by John H. Johnson
– 1950 – two Puerto Rican nationalists attempt to kill President Truman as he naps at the Blair House
– 1952 – first hydrogen bomb is exploded at the Marshall Islands
– 1954 – the Senate censures Joseph McCarthy for misconduct
– 1969 – the Beatles’ Abbey Road goes #1 in the U.S. and stays for eleven weeks
– 1971 – Eisenhower dollar coin debuts
– 1977 – Pres. Carter raises the minimum wage from $2.30 to $3.35 (effective Jan. 1, 1981)
– 1997 – the movie Titanic premieres
Quote: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” – Abraham Lincoln 1863 Gettysburg Address
NOV. 2
– birthdays: 1734 – Daniel Boone (frontiersman) / 1795 – James K. Polk (11th President 1845-49) / 1865 – Warren G. Harding (29th President 1921-23) / 1913 – Burt Lancaster (movie actor – Elmer Gantry) / 1966 – David Schwimmer (actor – Friends) / 1974 – Nelly (rapper – biggest hit = “Shake Ya Tail Feather”)
– 1783 – Gen. Washington bids farewell to his army as he prepares to return to Mt. Vernon
– 1859 – abolitionist John Brown found guilty of murder, treason, and attempting to lead a slave rebellion after his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry
John Brown – Library of Congress
– 1898 – cheerleading begins as Johnny Campbell leads the crowd in cheers at a University of Minnesota football game
– 1907 – J. P. Morgan locks forty bankers in his home to get them to solve a financial crisis
– 1920 – KDKA radio station in Pittsburgh makes the first significant radio news broadcast when it announces the Election of 1920 results
– 1944 – Auschwitz begins gassing inmates
– 1947 – Howard Hughes flies his huge “Spruce Goose” for the first and last time; the largest aircraft ever built flew about a mile
– 1948 – Harry Truman pulls off a stunning upset of Thomas Dewey
– 1963 – South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem is overthrown and murdered
– 1983 – Pres. Reagan signs bill initiating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
– 1983 – Michael Jackson releases “Thriller”
Quote: ” – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln 1863, Gettysburg Address
Nov. 3
– birthdays: 1793 – Stephen F. Austin (founder of Texas) / 1908 – Bronco Nagurski (Hall of Fame NFL player) / 1921 – Charles Bronson (movie actor – Death Wish) / 1933 – Michael Dukakis (presidential nominee – 1988) / 1949 – Larry Holmes (heavyweight boxing champ 1978-85) / 1952 – Roseanne Barr (TV star – Roseanne) / 1987 – Colin Kaepernick (football quarterback who kneeled during the National Anthem)
– 1796 – John Adams elected second President
President John Adams – Library of Congress
– 1868 – first black congressman elected – John Menard from Louisiana
– 1914 – Mary Jacob patents the first soft brassiere (made of two silk handkerchiefs and a pink ribbon
– 1952 – Clarence Birdseye markets frozen peas
– 1956 – Wizard of Oz appears on TV for the first time
– 1957 – Sputnik II takes the first animal into space – Laika the dog
– 1979 – five members of the Communist Party of America are shot to death by Klansmen and neoNazis during a “Death to the Klan” protest in Greensboro, N.C.
Quote: “And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land” – Martin Luther King – 1968 – “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” Speech
Nov. 4
– birthdays: 1879 – Will Rogers (humorist and entertainer) / 1916 – Walter Cronkite (TV newsman – CBS Nightly News) / 1925 – Doris Roberts (actress – Everybody Loves Raymond) / 1946 – Laura Bush (First Lady 2001-2009) / 1969 – Matthew McConaughey (actor – Dallas Buyer’s Club) / 1969 – Puff Daddy (rapper – biggest hit – “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down”)
Will Rogers – Library of Congress
– 1842 – Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd
– 1880 – James and John Ritty invent the cash register
– 1979 – Iranian Hostage Crisis begins as Iranian students take 50 Americans hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran
– 2007 – Adrian Peterson sets record with 296 rushing yards in a game
Quote: Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else. – Will Rogers
Nov. 5
– birthdays: !855 – Eugene Debs (labor union leader; Socialist Party candidate for President) / 1911 – Roy Rogers (singing cowboy movie star) / 1941 – Art Garfunkel (singing partner of Paul Simon – their biggest hit = “A Bridge Over Troubled Water”) / 1963 – Tatum O’Neal (actress – Paper Moon) / 1968 – Sam Rockwell (actor – Moon) / 1992 – Odell Beckham (football star)
– 1862 – more than 300 Santee Sioux found guilty of the Minnesota Sioux Massacre and sentenced to death; Pres. Lincoln later commutes all but 39 of the hangings
– 1872 – Susan B. Anthony votes for Grant in the presidential election; two weeks later she is arrested and found guilty of illegally voting
– 1917 – doughboys see action on the Western Front for the first time
dougnboys go over the top – Library of Congress
– 1930 – “All Quiet on the Western Front” wins the third best picture award at the Academy Awards
– 1930 – Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature
– 1940 – FDR is reelected to an unprecedented third term
– 1946 – John F. Kennedy elected to the House of Representatives
Quote: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…” – Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
Nov. 6
– birthdays: 1854 – John Philip Sousa (the March King – “Stars and Stripes Forever”) / 1861 – James Naismith (Father of Basketball) / 1887 – Walter Johnson (Hall of Fame pitcher who threw a record 110 shutouts) / 1900 – Heinrich Himmler (head of Hitler’s S.S. and Gestapo) / 1946 – Sally Field (actress – Norma Rae) / 1948 – Glenn Fry (singer – The Eagles – biggest solo hit = “The Heat Is On”) / 1988 – Emma Stone (actress – La La Land)
– 1860 – Lincoln elected 16th President
– 1861 – Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy
– 1869 – Rutgers defeats Princeton 6-4 in the first college football game
– 2001 – 24 premieres
Quote: “I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita….”Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” – Robert Oppenheimer in The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965)
Nov. 7
– birthdays: 1918 – Billy Graham (evangelist) / 1922 – Al Hirt (jazz trumpet player) / 1943 – Joni Mitchell (singer – biggest hit = “Help Me”) / 1975 – Marc Luttrell – Navy SEAL; “Lone Survivor”)
– 1805 – Lewis and Clark sight the Pacific Ocean
– 1811 – Battle of Tippecanoe – Gen. William Henry Harrison defeats the Indian forces of Tecumseh
Battle of Tippecanoe – Library of Congress
– 1874 – Thomas Nast invents the elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party
Thomas Nast’s Republican elephant – Library of Congress
– 1916 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana is elected as the first female in House of Representatives
– 1940 – FDR wins an unprecedented third term as President
– 1972 – Nixon reelected after cheating in the Watergate Scandal
– 1989 – David Dinkins elected first African-American mayor of NYC and Douglas Wilder elected first African-American Governor (Virginia)
– 1991 – Magic Johnson announces he has the HIV virus and retires from basketball
– 2000 – election between George W. Bush and Al Gore ends inconclusively
Quote: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama – February 2008
Nov. 8
– birthdays: 1900 – Margaret Mitchell (author – Gone With the Wind)
– 1731 – Ben Franklin opens the first library in the 13 Colonies
– 1889 – Montana becomes the 41st state
– 1923 – Hitler stages the failed “Beer Hall Putsch”
– 1942 – Operation Torch begins
– 1960 – JFK is elected President
– 1991 – Carol Burnett Show premieres
Quote: The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. – John F. Kennedy
Nov. 9
– birthdays: 1731 – Benjamin Banneker (mathematician and surveyor) / 1801 – Gail Borden (inventor of condensed milk) / 1914 – Hedy Lamarr (actress and inventor of a radio guidance system for torpedoes) / 1918 – Spiro Agnew (Nixon’s Vice President who had to resign) / 1934 – Carl Sagan (astronomer)
– 1862 – Ambrose Burnside reluctantly agrees to replace George McClellan as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac
– 1906 – Pres. Teddy Roosevelt becomes first President to go outside the country – Puerto Rico and Panama
– 1918 – Kaiser William II abdicates
– 1936 – an American hunting party catches the first baby panda to be exhibited in America; Su-Lin only lives one year
– 1938 – cartoonist Al Capp creates Sadie Hawkins Day
– 1938 – Kristallnacht
Quote: “Determine never to be idle … It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.” — Thomas Jefferson.
Nov. 10
– birthdays: 1924 – Russell Johnson (the professor on Gilligan’s Island) / 1932 – Roy Scheider (actor – Jaws) / 1939 – Russell Means (Native American activist) / 1949 – Donna Fargo (first country music female to have back-to-back million selling singles – “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” and “Funny Face”) / 1956 – Sinbad (actor/comedian)
– 1865 – Henry Wirz is hanged for war crimes for his actions as commandant of the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp in Georgia
– 1871 – American journalist Henry Stanley locates Scottish missionary David Livingstone in Africa; “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” becomes a famous qoute
– 1911 – Andrew Carnegie starts the Carnegie Corporation to coordinate his charity efforts
– 1928 – Hirohito takes the throne as emperor of Japan
– 1940 – Walt Disney becomes an informer for the FBI; he reports on subversives in Hollywood
– 1954 – the Marine Corps War Memorial (a statue of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima) is unveiled in Washington, D.C.
– 1960 – America’s first nuclear power plant starts operating in Rowe, Massachusetts
– 1965 – The Great Northeast Blackout – NYC and parts of seven states are without electricity for a night
– 1969 – Sesame Street premieres
– 1990 – Home Alone premieres
http://wisdomquotes.com/history-quotes/ – source for the next series of quotes
Quote: History is who we are and why we are the way we are. – David McCullough
Nov. 11
– birthdays: 1885 – George Patton (general in WWII; “Old Blood and Guts”) / 1904 – Alger Hiss (government official convicted of spying for the Soviets) / 1922 – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (author – Slaughterhouse Five) / 1925 – Jonathan Winters (comedian –The Jonathan Winters Show) / 1962 – Demi Moore (actress – Ghost) / 1974 – Leonardo DiCaprio (actor – Inception)
– 1831 – Nat Turner hanged for leading the largest slave rebellion
– 1918 – the armistice ends WWI
– 1921 – Pres. Harding dedicates the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
– 1933 – massive dust storm hits South Dakota
– 1938 – Typhoid Mary dies, still under quarantine
– 1972 – the Dow Jones Index for the Stock Market passes 1,000 for the first time
– 1994 – Bill Gates buys Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Codex” for $30,800,000
Quote: A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. – Marcus Garvey
Nov. 12
– birthdays: 1815 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton (suffragist; partner of Susan B. Anthony) / 1926 – Jack Ryan (inventor – Barbie, Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy) / 1929 – Grace Kelly (actress – Rear Window; Princess of Monaco) / 1934 – Charles Manson (cult leader/murderer) / 1944 – Al Michaels (sports broadcaster – Monday Night Football) / 1980 – Ryan Gosling (actor – La La Land) / 1982 – Anne Hathaway (actress – The Princess Diaries)
– 1923 – Adolf Hitler arrested for the Beer Hall Putsch
– 1948 – Hideki Tojo and seven other Japanese government and military leaders are sentenced to death for war crimes
– 1954 – Ellis Island is closed
– 1966 – Buzz Aldrin takes the first selfie in space on a space walk outside his Gemini capsule
– 1980 – Voyager I passes within 77,000 miles of Saturn proving it has hundreds of rings, not just six
Quote: There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made. – Michelle Obama
Nov. 13
– birthdays: 1732 – John Dickinson (founding father; the “Penman of the Revolution” – wrote Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer) / 1833 – Edwin Booth (Shakespearean actor; brother of John Wilkes) / 1955 – Whoopi Goldberg (actress – Sister Act) / 1967 – Jimmy Kimmel (talk show host)
– 1916 – the Battle of the Somme ends in German victory and more than a million casualties
– 1931 – Hattie Caraway appointed first woman senator
– 1840 – Disney’s Fantasia debuts
– 1956 – the Supreme Court declares segregation on Alabama buses unconstitutional
– 1982 – the Vietnam War Memorial is dedicated; the wall has the names of the 57,39 Americans who died in Vietnam
– 2002 – Eminem releases “Lose Yourself” which goes on to be the first rap song to win the Academy Award for Best Original song
Quote: Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. – Abraham Lincoln
Nov. 14
– birthdays: 1765 – Robert Fulton (inventor of the steamboat) / 1900 – Aaron Copeland (composer – Fanfare for the Common Man) / 1909 – Joseph McCarthy (anti-communist leader of the Red Scare of the 50’s) / 1922 – Veronica Lake (actress – Sullivan’s Travels) / 1954 – Condoleezza Rice (first African-American female Secretary of State)
– 1524 – Francisco Pizarro begins his expedition in Colombia
– 1851 – Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick
– 1889 – Nellie Bly begins her trip around the world in 72 days
– 1906 – Pres. Teddy Roosevelt visits Panama
– 1940 – 500 German bombers devastate the British city of Coventry, killing over a thousand Brits; some historians think Churchill knew of the upcoming attack due to Ultra decodings, but did not warn the city to preserve the secret of Ultra
– 1965 – first American battle in Vietnam – the Battle of Ia Drang – an American unit is surrounded, but punishes the North Vietnamese until they back off
– 1970 – Marshall University football team wiped out in a plane crash
Quote: History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals. – Malcolm X
Nov. 15
– birthdays: 1887 – Georgia O’Keefe (painter – “Cow Skull”) / 1891 – Erwin Rommel (Nazi general in WWII; “The Desert Fox”) / 1906 – Curtis LeMay (air force general in WWII Pacific) / 1940 – Sam Waterston (actor – Law and Order) / 1952 – “Macho Man” Randy Savage (pro wrestler)
– 1777 – the Articles of Confederation approved by the Continental Congress
– 1805 – Lewis and Clark reach the mouth of the Columbia River
– 1864 – Gen. Sherman leaves Atlanta smoking from the fires for his famous “March to the Sea”
– 1881 – the American Federation of Labor founded
– 1904 – King Gillette patents his razor blade
– 1938 – first live on-the-scene TV broadcast of a fire
– 1939 – FDR lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial
– 1956 – Elvis Presley’s first movie, Love Me Tender, premieres
– 1967 – Carl Yastrzemski wins the American League MVP for his Triple Crown season
– 1969 – over 2 million Americans protest against the Vietnam War
– 1969 – the first Wendy’s Hamburgers opens in Columbus, Ohio
– 1986 – The Beastie Boys release their debut album – Licensed to Ill
– 2012 – BP Oil Spill – Deep Water Horizon oil disaster begins
Quote: History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. – Martin Luther King Jr
Nov. 16
– birthdays: 1873 – W.C. Handy (Father of the Blues) / 1907 – Burgess Meredith (actor – Rocky) / 1977 – Maggie Gyllenhaal (actress – Donnie Darko)
– 1532 – Pizarro captures the Incan emperor
– 1901 – Booker T. Washington is invited to dine at the White House by Pres. Teddy Roosevelt resulting in anger from the South
– 1914 – the Federal Reserve Bank opens
– 1938 – LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann
– 1939 – Al Capone is freed from Alcatraz, but suffering from syphilis
– 1945 – the U.S. imports 88 German scientists (including Werner von Braun) to help with rocket technology
– 2000 – Clinton becomes first President to visit Vietnam since the war
Quote: We are not makers of history. We are made by history. – Martin Luther King Jr
Nov. 17
– birthdays: 1887 – Bernard Montgomery (British general in WWII) / 1925 – Rock Hudson (actor – Pillow Talk; AIDS victim) / 1942 – Martin Scorsese (film director – The Departed) / 1944 – Dany DeVito (actor – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) / 1944 – Lorne Michaels (producer – Saturday Night Live) / 1944 – Tom Seaver (Hall of Fame pitcher) / 1945 – Elvin Hayes (Hall of Fame NBA player) / 1948 – Howard Dean (Democratic Party leader) / 1960 – RuPaul (drag queen; TV star)
– 1800 – John Adams becomes the first President to live in the White House / Congress convenes for the first time in Washington
– 1913 – first ship sails through the Panama Canal
– 1940 – Green Bay Packers become first team to travel by plane
– 1970 – Douglas Engelbart receives a patent for the first computer mouse
– 1973 – Nixon declares “I am not a crook”
– 1991 – first condom ad on TV
– 1993 – Congress passes the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
– 2003 – at age 21, Britney Spears becomes youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Quote: History passes the final judgment. – Sidney Poitier
Nov. 18
– birthdays: 1787 – Sojourner Truth (abolitionist) / 1901 – George Gallup (pollster) / 1923 – Alan Shepard (astronaut; first American in space; hit a golf ball on the moon) / 1928 – Mickey Mouse (cartoon character – originally called “Steamboat Willie”) / 1956 – Warren Moon (NFL Hall of Fame quarterback) / 1968 – Owen Wilson (actor – Zoolander) / 1970 – Megyn Kelly (news personality; sexual harassment victim) / 1975 – David Ortiz (baseball player)
– 1497 – Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope
– 1865 – Mark Twain publishes his first story – “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
– 1872 – Susan B. Anthony is arrested for illegally voting
– 1883 – standard time zones are created for railroads
– 1874 – Women’s Christian Temperance Union is created
– 1928 – Mickey Mouse debuts as Steamboat Willie
– 1949 – Jackie Robinson wins the MVP
– 1959 – movie Ben Hur premieres, goes on to win a record 11 Academy Awards
– 1978 – 913 cult members led by Jim Jones “drink the Koolaid” at Jonestown in Guyana
– 1987 – the Iran-Contra hearings conclude that the Reagan Administration showed “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law.”
Quote: Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. – Edward R. Murrow
Nov. 19
– birthdays: 1752 – George Rogers Clark (Revolutionary War military leader) / 1831 – James Garfield (20th President 1881) / 1862 – Billy Sunday (evangelist) / 1933 – Larry King (talk show host) / 1936 – Dick Cavett (talk show host) / 1938 – Ted Turner (millionaire owner of CNN and the Atlanta Braves) / 1942 – Calvin Klein (fashion designer) / 1959 – Allison Janney (actress – Mom) / 1961 – Meg Ryan (actress – When Harry Met Sally) / 1962 – Jodie Foster (actress – Silence of the Lambs) / 1983 – Adam Driver (actor – BlacKkKlansman)
– 1493 – Columbus discovers Puerto Rico on his second voyage
– 1805 – Lewis and Clark reach the Pacific
– 1861 – Julia Ward Howe writes the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
– 1863 – the Gettysburg Address
– 1873 – Boss Tweed convicted of embezzling $6 million
– 1895 – Frederick Blaisdell patents the pencil
– 1950 – Eisenhower becomes the first commander of NATO
– 1969 – Charles Conrad and Alan Bean of Apollo 12 make the second moon landing
Quote: History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again. – Maya Angelou
Nov. 20
– birthdays: 1889 – Edwin Hubble (astronomer) / 1925 – Robert F. Kennedy / 1942 – Joe Biden / 1971 – Joel McHale (actor – Community)
– 1817 – First Seminole War begins in Florida
– 1820 – the whaler Essex is sunk by a whale, inspiring Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”
– 1866 – James Haven and Charles Hittrick receive a patent for the yo-yo
– 1943 – Marines land on Tarawa
– 1945 – the Nuremberg Trials begin
– 1977 – Walter Payton rushes for a record 275 yards
Quote: You don’t hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school. – Stephen Ambrose
Nov. 21
– birthdays: 1834 – Hetty Green (millionaire businesswoman and financier known as “The Witch of Wall Street” for her miserliness) / 1860 – Tom Horn (outlaw) / 1920 – Stan Musial (Hall of Fame baseball player) / 1941 – Doctor John (singer – “Right Place, Wrong Time”) / 1942 – Tweetie Bird (cartoon character) / 1944 – Earl “the Pearl” Monroe (Hall of Fame basketball player) / 1945 – Goldie Hawn (actress – Private Benjamin) / 1969 – Ken Griffey, Jr. (Hall of Fame baseball player) / 1985 – Carly Rae Jepsen (singer – biggest hit – “Call Me Maybe)
– 1620 – Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact
– 1877 – Edison announces his first great invention – the phonograph
– 1946 – Truman becomes first President to go down in a submarine
– 1974 – Freedom of Information Act passes (over Ford’s veto)
– 1976 – “Rocky” premieres
– 2013 – Pharrell Williams releases “Happy”
Quote: The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor? – David McCullough
Nov. 22
– birthdays: 1744 – Abigail Adams (second First Lady) / 1890 – Charles De Gaulle (leader of France during and after WWII) / 1921 – Rodney Dangerfield (comedian who “didn’t get no respect”) / 1943 – Billie Jean King (tennis player who won 20 Wimbleton championships) / 1958 – Jamie Lee Curtis (actress – Halloween) / 1967 – Mark Ruffalo (actor -The Incredible Hulk) / 1984 – Scarlett Johansson (actress – Lost in Translation)
– 1497 – Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on his first voyage to India
– 1718 – pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard) is killed in a battle with British ships off the coast of North Carolina
– 1930 – Elijah Muhammad founds the Nation of Islam
– 1963 – JFK assassination
– 1976 – comic strip Cathy debuts
– 1986 – Mike Tyson, age 20, becomes the youngest heavyweight boxing champ
– 1995 – Toy Story released, first completely computer generated movie
Quote: No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read. – David McCullough
Nov. 23
– birthdays: 1804 – Franklin Pierce (14th President 1853-57) / 1859 – Billy the Kid (outlaw) / 1887 – Boris Karloff (actor – Frankenstein) / 1888 – Harpo Marx (silent member of the Marx Brothers) / 1950 – Chuck Schumer (Democratic Party leader) / 1992 – Miley Cyrus
– 1835 – Henry Burden invents the first machine for making horse shoes and goes on to be the biggest horse shoe maker in America
– 1889 – first juke box at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco
– 1897 – J. L. Love patents the pencil sharpener
– 1971 – the Republic of China replaces Nationalist China on the United Nations Security Council
– 1993 – Snoop Doggy Dogg releases his first album “Doggystyle”
Quote: History is a vast early warning system. – Norman Cousins
Nov. 24
– birthdays: 1784 – Zachary Taylor (12th President 1849-50; Mexican War general) / 1868 – Scott Joplin (King of Ragtime – “Maple Leaf Rag”) / 1935 – William F. Buckley (conservative commentator) / 1938 – Oscar Robertson (Hall of Fame NBA player) / 1978 – Catherine Heigl (actress – Grey’s Anatomy)
– 1863 – the North wins the Battle of Chattanooga
– 1874 – Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire
– 1947 – the House Un-American Activities Committee finds the “Hollywood Ten” in contempt for refusing to rat out actors and directors as communists
– 1954 – Air Force One christened
– 1960 – Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA record with 55 rebounds in a game
– 1969 – the U.S., U.S.S.R. and many other nations sign a nuclear nonproliferation treaty
– 1974 – Pres. Ford and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT 2 Treaty to reduce nuclear missiles
– 1979 – U.S. government admits that American soldiers were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam
Quote: If you think you have it tough, read history books. – Bill Maher
Nov. 25
– birthdays: 1835 – Andrew Carnegie (steel magnate) / 1846 – Carrie Nation (temperance advocate) / 1914 – Joe Dimaggio (baseball Hall of Famer; 56 game hitting streak; husband of Marilyn Monroe) / 1960 – Amy Grant (Christian rock singer – biggest hit = “Baby, Baby”) / 1971 – Christina Applegate (actress – Married With Children)
– 1792 – Benjamin Banneker publishes his almanac
– 1940 – Woody Woodpecker debuts in Knock Knock
– 1957 – Pres. Eisenhower suffers a mild stroke
– 1986 – the Iran-Contra Scandal breaks
Quote: It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions. – Norman Mailer
Nov. 26
– birthdays: 1832 – Mary Edwards Walker (Civil War surgeon who is the only female to be awarded the Medal of Honor) / 1861 – Albert Fall (only Cabinet member convicted of a felony – Teapot Dome Scandal) / 1876 – Willis Carrier (inventor of modern air conditioning) / 1899 – Bruno Hauptmann (Lindbergh baby kidnapper) / 1922 – Charles Schulz (Peanuts comic strip) / 1939 – Tina Turner (singer – biggest hit – “What’s Love Got To Do With It”)
– 1716 – Captain Arthur Savage exhibits the first lion in America
– 1789 – first national Thanksgiving proclaimed by Washington to celebrate the signing of the Constitution
– 1832 – first streetcar railway opens in NYC (12 cent fare)
– 1842 – Notre Dame University is founded
– 1941 – the Japanese fleet sails for Pearl Harbor
– 1942 – the movie “Casablanca” premieres
– 1941 – FDR officially declares the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving
– 1956 – The Price is Right debuts
– 1968 – O.J. Simpson wins the Heisman Trophy
Quote: Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists. – Thomas Friedman
Nov. 27
– birthdays: 1746 – Robert Livingston (Founding Father who gave Pres. Washington his oath of office) / 1843 – Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad Robber Baron) / 1917 – “Buffalo Bob” Smith (host of the Howdy Doody Show) / 1940 – Bruce Lee (martial arts actor – Enter the Dragon) / 1942 – Jimi Hendrix (rock guitarist – biggest hit – “All Along the Watchtower”) / 1951 – Kathryn Bigelow (first female director to win Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker) / 1955 – Bill Nye (The Science Guy)
– 1868 – Custer and his 7th Cavalry attack a Cheyenne village on the Washita River killing 103 Indians
– 1924 – first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
– 1934 – Baby Face Nelson is killed by the FBI
– 1943 – Tehran Conference with FDR, Churchill, and Stalin
– 1945 – the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (C.A.R.E.) is founded to provide relief for war-damaged Europe
– 1956 – Al Oerter wins his first of four consecutive discus gold medals at the Olympics
– 1978 – San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay City Supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White
– 2013 – Frozen premieres
Quote: No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. – William Hazlitt
Nov. 28
– birthdays: 1853 – Helen Magill White (first American woman to get a PhD.) / 1866 – Henry Bacon (architect of the Lincoln Memorial) / 1929 – Barry Gordy, Jr. (founder of Motown Records) / 1943 – Randy Newman (songwriter – biggest hit – “Short People”) / 1949 – Paul Shaffer (David Letterman’s music director) / 1962 – Jon Stewart (comedian – The Daily Show)
– 1521 Magellan begins crossing the Pacific
– 1775 – the Second Continental Congress establishes the U.S. Navy
– 1895 – first car race; Chicago to Evanston and back; 55 miles; 6 cars; winner – Frank Duryea; average speed 7 mph
– 1908 – 154 miners die in coal mine explosion in Pennsylvania
– 1925 – The Grand Ole Opry debuts
– 1929 – Richard Byrd makes his first flight at the South Pole
– 1942 – 492 die in Coconut Grove night club fire
– 1942 – the first B-24 Liberator bomber rolls off the assembly line at Ford’s Willow Run plant
– 1981 – Bear Bryant becomes the winningest college football coach
Quote: The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. – George Orwell
Nov. 29
– birthdays: 1932 – Louisa May Alcott (author – Little Women) / 1927 – Vin Scully (baseball announcer) / 1955 – Howie Mandel (comedian) / 1964 – Don Cheadle (actor – Hotel Rwanda) / 1976 – Anna Faris (actress – Mom) / 1988 – Russell Wilson (football quarterback)
– 1864 – the Sand Creek Massacre
– 1877 – Edison demonstrates his phonograph
_ 1929 – Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole
– 1952 – President-elect Eisenhower fulfills his promise to visit Korea
– 1961 – Freedom Riders are attacked by a mob at a bus station in MIssissippi
– 1961 – the first American satellite carrying an animal (a chimp named Enos) is launched
– 1963 – President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the Kennedy assassination
Quote: Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out. – Carl Sagan
Nov. 30
– birthdays: 1835 – Mark Twain / 1874 – Winston Churchill / 1924 – Shirley Chisholm (first black Congresswoman) / 1929 – Dick Clark (American Bandstand) / 1936 – Abbie Hoffman (Yippie leader) / 1985 – Chrissy Tiegen (model)
– 1887 – the first softball game is played
– 1982 – Michael Jackson releases album Thriller
– 1993 – Clinton signs Brady Gun Control Bill
– 1993 – Schindler’s List premieres
– 1993 – Pres. Clinton signs the Brady Bill which requires a waiting period to purchase a hand gun
– 2004 – Ken Jennings loses on Jeopardy after 74 consecutive wins and $2,520,700
Quote: The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding. – Will Durant