Post by farmgal on Nov 1, 2012 23:53:02 GMT -5
November 02 is the 307th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 59 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days left until November 06, 2012: 5
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1164 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (ca. 1118–1170) began his six-year exile in France.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket
1772 American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_correspondence
1777 John Paul Jones sets sail. On this day in 1777, the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.
Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747. He became an apprentice to a merchant at 13 and soon went to sea, traveling first to the West Indies and then to North America as a young man. In Virginia at the onset of the American Revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775.
After departing Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England's Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in "gain than honor." Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones' crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife's teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship's captain and lieutenant.
In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, "I have not yet begun to fight!" A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship.
One of the greatest naval commanders in history, Jones is remembered as a "Father of the American Navy," along with fellow Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry.
John Paul Jones is buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland, where a Marine honor guard stands at attention whenever the crypt is open to the public.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones
1783 In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, General Washington bids farewell to his army. Washington, as he readied himself for the retirement to Mount Vernon he had so long sought, used his last weeks and months as Commander in Chief to educate his fellow citizens and soldiers about the future of their newly-independence nation. He used the occasion of his farewell orders to the Continental Army to admonish them about the virtues and personal character traits necessary for citizenship in a republic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Washington#Demobilization
1789 In the chaos of the French Revolution the property of the church in France was taken over by the state.
1824 Popular presidential vote first recorded; Jackson beats J.Q. Adams. It became clear that no candidate received the majority of either the popular vote or the electoral vote. Jackson was in the clear lead with 99 electoral votes and 152,901 popular votes. Adams had 84 electoral votes and 11,023 popular votes. Crawford was a poor third and Clay brought up the rear. Under the provisions of twelfth amendment to the constitution, the House voted for the President. Each state had one vote and only the top three vote recipients participated.
1830 A general convention of Methodist reformers opposed to the episcopal (i.e., bishop-led) form of church government met in Baltimore, MD, to establish the Protestant Methodist Church.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist_Protestant_Church
1861 Controversial Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command in the Western Department and replaced by David Hunter.
Fremont was one of the most prominent Union generals at the start of the war. Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, he joined the military in 1838 and helped map the upper Mississippi River. He made a significant career move in 1841 when he married Jesse Benton, the daughter of powerful Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. At first, the senator objected to the marriage, but he soon became Fremont's staunchest supporter. With his father-in-law's help, Fremont secured leadership of two famous expeditions to the West in the 1840s. He became involved in politics in the 1850s and was the fledgling Republican Party's first presidential candidate in 1856.
When the war started in 1861, Fremont became a major general in command of the Western Department based in St. Louis. In August 1861, the Union suffered a stunning defeat when an army under General Nathaniel Lyon was routed at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in southwestern Missouri. Many criticized Fremont for failing to provide proper support for Lyon, who was killed in the battle. In response, Fremont took action to demonstrate his control over the region. He declared martial law and proclaimed freedom for all slaves in Missouri. In doing so, he placed the Lincoln administration in a difficult position. Lincoln was trying to keep the Border States (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) from seceding from the Union. With the exception of Delaware, these states contained substantial numbers of slaveholders, and opinion over the issue of slavery was evenly divided. Fremont's freeing of slaves threatened to destroy the balance and send these states into the hands of the Confederacy. Of particular concern was Kentucky, Lincoln's native state. It was of vital strategic importance and the movement for secession there was very strong. Fremont's actions in Missouri fueled secessionist spirit and alienated many Northerners who were unwilling to wage a war to end slavery.
Lincoln requested privately that Fremont rescind the order, but he refused. Lincoln had no choice but to negate the order of emancipation and remove Fremont from command in the west. Fremont still had many supporters, so Lincoln placed him in charge of a small army in Virginia. He had little success in the Shenandoah Valley, where he was pitted against the brilliant Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Fremont resigned in 1862 after Jackson defeated his force, and Fremont's army was merged with the command of General John Pope, a longtime rival.
Some Republican allies urged Fremont to challenge Lincoln for the 1864 presidential nomination, but Fremont declined. After the war, he served as territorial governor of Arizona and died in New York in 1890.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Fr%C3%A9mont
1889 North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota
1895 The first gasoline-powered race in the United States. First prize: $2,000
1898 Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerleading#History
1902 First four-cylinder, gas-powered Locomobile hits the road. Engineer Andrew Riker delivers the first four-cylinder, gas-powered Locomobile—a $4,000, 12-horsepower Model C—to a buyer in New York City on this day in 1902. The Locomobile Company had been known for building heavy, powerful steam cars, but by the turn of the century it was clear that the future of the automobile—and thus of the Locomobile—lay in the internal-combustion engine. Until it went out of business in 1929, the company built elegant, luxurious touring-cars and streamlined racers for wealthy patrons. A Locomobile, ads crowed, was the "Best Built Car in America."
Steam-powered Locomobiles, built in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Worcester, Massachusetts, were solid, imposing, expensive machines. Like every other car powered by a steam boiler, they were also inconvenient. Steam cars had to warm up (literally: the water needed to boil in order to build up steam pressure) for about a half-hour before the car could be driven, and their water tanks needed to be refilled every 20 minutes or so. They also needed three kinds of fuel: water for the boiler, kerosene to heat the water and gasoline for the pilot light. (The car's "key" was an acetylene torch.)
In 1902, the Locomobile Company hired a young engineer and racecar driver named Andrew Riker to create a gasoline car that was good enough to bear the Locomobile name. He did, and they were: made of manganese bronze and heat-treated steel, the Riker cars really were among the best-built cars in America.
In 1908 a two-year-old Locomobile became the first American car to win an international race. The car, nicknamed "Old 16," was a 16-liter, four-cylinder, 120-horsepower two-seater piloted by 23-year-old George Robertson and his mechanic, Glenn Etheridge; the race was Long Island's 11-lap, 258.5-mile Vanderbilt Cup. According to one reporter, Old 16's victory "made Europeans sit up and take notice of American automotive efforts."
Old 16 is currently on display at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1988, a 1928 Locomobile coupe appeared on a U.S. postage stamp.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomobile_Company_of_America
1904 Evangeline Cory Booth (1865–1950), daughter of Gen. William Booth, was appointed commander of the Salvation Army in the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline_Booth
1909 Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity is founded at Boston University.
www.lambdachi.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Chi_Alpha
1912 On this day, the XIT Ranch of Texas, once among the largest ranches in the world, sells its last head of cattle.
Despite the popular image of the cattle rancher as an independent and self-reliant pioneer, big-city capitalists and stockholders owned many of the most important 19th century ranches. The Chicago capitalists behind the XIT--also known as the Capitol Syndicate Ranch--were trying to get rich by catering to the growing American passion for fresh western beef. They received the land in exchange for financing a state capitol building in Texas.
Given the aridity of the region, the Chicago capitalists determined that ranching would be the only profitable use for their new land. They quickly built up a massive but highly efficient cattle-raising operation that stretched over parts of nine Texas counties. At its peak, the XIT had more than 160,000 head of cattle, employed 150 cowboys, and encompassed nearly 3 million acres of the Texas panhandle—an unusually large tract of land even by western standards.
As land prices increased in Texas and cattle prices fell, the owners of the XIT realized they could make more money by selling their land. By 1912, the XIT abandoned ranching altogether with the sale of its last herd of cattle. The corporate managers gradually sold the remainder of their property to farmers and smaller ranchers throughout the first half of the 20th century. By 1950, the once-mighty XIT had control of only 20,000 acres.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XIT_Ranch
1917 Britain supports creation of Jewish homeland. British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submits a declaration of intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestinewith the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".
The British government hoped that the formal declaration would help garner Jewish support for the Allied effort in World War I. The Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine, which was approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Arabs opposed the Balfour Declaration, fearing that the creation of a Jewish homeland would mean the subjugation of Arab Palestinians.
After World War I, the Jewish population in Palestine increased dramatically, as did Jewish-Arab violence. Arab resistance and failures to reach a compromise led Britain to delay deciding on the future of Palestine. In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, much of the international community took up the Zionist cause, and in 1948 the State of Israel was declared.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
1920 KDKA (Pittsburgh) goes on the air as first commercial radio station. KDKA started broadcasting on November 2, 1920 as the first commercial radio station in the United States. KDKA's roots began with the efforts of Frank Conrad who operated KDKA's predecessor 75 watt 8XK from the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania from 1916. Conrad's musical offerings proved unexpectedly popular and his operations continued until his employer, the Westinghouse Electric Company applied for an official broadcasting license. The KDKA callsign was assigned sequentially from a list maintained for the use of US-registry maritime stations, and on November 2, 1920, KDKA broadcast the US presidential election returns from a shack located on the roof of a Westinghouse building in East Pittsburgh. The first broadcast is the result of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDKA_(AM)
1929 Newsreel films were shown at the Embassy Theatre in New York City. By 1929, Movietone--the name Fox created for its sound reels--had cameramen and representatives operating around the world, and its newsreels were available in twenty-two languages. The Embassy Newsreel Theater, was a fixture on Broadway from 1929 until 1949. Using newsreels from Fox Movietone News and Hearst Metrotone News, the Embassy played a forty-five to fifty-minute program with fourteen showings daily.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsreel
1931 The DuPont Company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announced the first synthetic rubber this day. It was known as DuPrene, now renamed neoprene. Many scientists were trying to make natural rubber in the 1920s and 30s. One of the Carothers team, Gerard Berchet, happened to leave a sample of vinyl acetylene in a jar with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for about five weeks. Then another member of team, Arnold M. Collins happened to look in that jar and found a rubbery white material. The HCl had reacted with the vinylacetylene, making chloroprene, which then polymerized to become polychloroprene. The new rubber was expensive, but resisted oil and gasoline, which natural rubber didn't. It was the first good synthetic rubber.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber
1931 "Myrt and Marge" was heard for the first time -- on CBS radio. A vaudeville performer named Myrtle Vail created the show by basing the story on her real life. Apparently in order to attract Wrigley as a sponsor, she gave her characters the last name Spear and Minter (after the gum). She played Myrt, and her daughter played her character's daughter Marge. In their radio adventures, the two traveled across the country, facing love and violence.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrt_and_Marge_(radio)
1934 Babe Ruth tours Tokyo Japan. Sixty-five thousand fans cram Jingu Stadium in Tokyo to see the first game. Ruth hits fourteen homers and his team wins all seventeen games, but the highlight for Japanese fans is when a right-handed pitcher from Kyoto, Eiji Sawamura, strikes out Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in succession en route to a thrilling 1-0 loss. Sawamura, an outspoken anti-American, later is courted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but refuses to sign, saying: "My problem is I hate America and I cannot make myself like Americans." Sawamura dies in the Pacific War during the Battle of the Ryukus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Sawamura
1936 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome-Berlin_Axis
1937 "I’d Rather Be Right" opened in New York City. Opening three weeks before "Pins and Needles," "I'd Rather Be Right" went straight to the top for its satirical target: President Roosevelt himself. The four creators were good New York liberals, so the arrows sent FDR's way were not exactly tipped with venom, but the president was summarily chided for his attempt to pack the Supreme Court, his failure to balance the budget, his ambition for a third term, even his frequent browbeating at the hands of his overbearing mother. The high profiles of the creative staff, plus the electric performance of George M. Cohan, made the show the hit of the season, even with -- or perhaps because of -- its sentimental closing speech, which had FDR rallying America with a fireside chat.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27d_Rather_Be_Right
1942 British launch Operation Supercharge. On this day in 1942, General Montgomery breaks through Rommel's defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing a retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa.
In July 1942, having already taken Tobruk, Gen. Erwin Rommel and his mixed German-Italian forces attempted to push through the British defensive line at El Alamein, but failed. The Brits and the Axis had reached a standstill, and both sides took time to regroup before resuming the battle. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery took control of the British 8th Army, and on October 23 launched Operation Lightfoot, a broad offensive initiated by artillery fire. Rommel's forces had dug a five-mile-deep defensive area, replete with minefields and antitank guns. But this did not stop Montgomery, who had three armoured divisions and almost seven infantry divisions. The Axis forces were without their leader, as Rommel had taken ill and was convalescing in Austria. By the time the German general was recalled to Africa by Hitler, two days after the launching of Lightfoot, Monty and his forces had pushed passed his defensive line and were six miles beyond the original stalemate point.
Rommel gave as good as he got, using his antitank weaponry to destroy four times as many British tanks as he lost (but still leaving the Brits with 800 against Rommel's 90). Montgomery's drive northward was stopped-but only temporarily. On November 2, he launched Operation Supercharge, switched the direction of his attack westward, and punched through the German-Italian line. Rommel retreated to Fukah but Hitler insisted that Rommel hold his position at El Alamein. Rommel obeyed, which was a mistake. Instead of making a stand at Fukah, he was forced to waste more time and more of his forces as the British pushed harder, forcing Rommel to retreat even farther as he attempted to escape sweeping British offensives from the south. By mid-January 1943, Rommel had been pushed through Libya into Tunisia. As Churchill would sum up: "Up to Alamein we survived. After Alamein we conquered."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Supercharge_(1942)
1946 A heavy wet snow began to cover the Southern Rockies. Up to three feet of snow blanketed the mountains of New Mexico, and a 31 inch snow at Denver CO caused roofs to collapse. (David Ludlum)
1947 Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, known as the Spruce Goose on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California. It was the first test of a U.S. plane with eight engines. Wing span was 319 feet, 11 inches. Originally conceived by Henry J. Kaiser, a steelmaker and builder of Liberty ships, the aircraft was designed and constructed by Hughes and his staff. The original proposal for the enormous, 400,000-pound wooden flying boat, with its spectacular 320-foot wingspan, came from the U.S. government in 1942.
The Hughes Flying Boat--the largest aircraft ever built--is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.
Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.
Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.
Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.
Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Goose
1948 Truman beats Dewey, confounding pollsters & newspapers. Truman's victory can be attributed to many factors: his aggressive, populist campaign style; Dewey's lack thereof; a rare shift in public opinion during course of a general election; general public approval of Truman's foreign policy, such as the Berlin Airlift; and widespread dissatisfaction with the what Truman called the "do-nothing Republican Congress."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman
1950 Concentrated milk was first test-marketed in the U.S. in Wilmington, Delaware. The Sealtest brand was produced by the Clover Dairy Company (a division of National Dairy Products Corporation). Fresh milk contains about 88% water. Partial water removal concentrates the milk to one-third of its original volume yielding a a heavy, creamy-looking milk. This gives benefits including improved shelf-life, reduced storage space, and lower weight saving transportation cost. The high-temperature processing of evaporated or condensed milk results in changed taste. Concentrated milk, however, is made at lower pressures and temperatures so that when water is added, it tastes like fresh whole milk with the same food values.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_protein_concentrate
1954 JS Thurmond 1st senator elected by write-in vote (SC)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
1955 American investigators Carlton Schwerdt and F.L. Schaffer crystallized the polio virus. This was the first animal virus to be obtained in crystalline form. (The first plant virus, tobacco mozaic virus, had been crystallized in 1935 by W.M. Stanley.) Each virus crystal is composed of many thousands of virus particles. Virus preparations pure enough to crystallize usually provide the best material for chemical studied. This was used to split the polio virus into infectious and non-infectious parts. Their research laid the groundwork for the polio vaccine.
histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/SchwerdtC.pdf
www.cosmeo.com/viewTodayInHistoryEvents.cfm?guidAssetId=d19e8494-5c42-4cfd-9e69-5ec80d61cc45&eventId=599
1955 Julie London's "Cry Me a River" stayed on the pop chart for five months.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Me_a_River
1955 Jim Henson's "Kermit the Frog" the first of the Muppets, was copyright registered. An early version of Kermit appeared in 1955, in a 5-minute puppet show for WRC-TV's Sam and Friends. The prototype Kermit was created from a green ladies' coat that Henson's mother had thrown in the trash can, and two ping-pong balls for eyes. The early Kermit was a sort of lizard-like creature; Kermit's first appearance as a frog was in the television special Hey Cinderella in 1969, and he's been a frog ever since.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_the_Frog
Time's "Man of the Year" for 1956 was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter
1956 Hungary appeals for UN assistance against Soviet invasion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communist_era_1947.E2.80.931989
1957 The first titanium mill was opened in Toronto, Ohio by the Titanium Metals Corp. of America (TIMET). The birth of a tonnage structural metal industry is an unusual event. Only three such births have occurred in the past 100 years - aluminum, magnesium, and titanium. This mill was the first in the U.S. for rolling and forging titanium. The same company had previously opened a titanium plant on 1 Jun 1951 which was the first U.S. fully self-contained and fully integrated producer of titanium metal ingots from titanium ore. In Toronto, Ohio the ingots are forged into slabs, billets and bars. Slabs are subsequently hot rolled to sheet and plate or cold rolled for strip and welded tube applications, bar, rod, and wire. Image: Titanium hip and knee bone implants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timet
1957 The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generates national publicity, and remains one of the most impressive UFO cases in American history.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_Case
1959 Charles Van Doren confesses, TV quiz show-"21," was fixed. When allegations of cheating were first circulated, Van Doren repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying "It's silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows." Finally, on November 2, 1959, he admitted to the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, a United States Congress subcommittee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Owen Harris, that he had been given questions and answers in advance of the show. "I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception...I have deceived my friends - and I had millions of them," Van Doren testified.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Van_Doren
1960 Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley%27s_Lover
1962 JFK announces Cuban missile bases were being dismantled. The crisis began on October 16, 1962 when U.S. reconnaissance data revealing Soviet nuclear missile installations on the island were shown to U.S. President John F. Kennedy and ended twelve days later on October 28, 1962, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the installations would be dismantled.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis#Crisis_ends
1963 Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated in South Vietnam.
Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. The United States subsequently became more heavily involved in Vietnam as it tried to stabilize the South Vietnamese government and beat back the communist rebels that were becoming an increasingly powerful threat. While the United States publicly disclaimed any knowledge of or participation in the planning of the coup that overthrew Diem, it was later revealed that American officials met with the generals who organized the plot and gave them encouragement to go through with their plans. Quite simply, Diem was perceived as an impediment to the accomplishment of U.S. goals in Southeast Asia. His increasingly dictatorial rule only succeeded in alienating most of the South Vietnamese people, and his brutal repression of protests led by Buddhist monks during the summer of 1963 convinced many American officials that the time had come for Diem to go. Three weeks later, an assassin shot President Kennedy. By then, the United States was more heavily involved in the South Vietnamese quagmire than ever. Its participation in the overthrow of the Diem regime signaled a growing impatience with South Vietnamese management of the war. From this point on, the United States moved step by step to become more directly and heavily involved in the fight against the communist rebels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
1964 King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Saud
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_of_Saudi_Arabia
1965 Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.
1966 A storm brought 18 inches of snow to Celia KY in 24 hours. It tied the state 24 hour snowfall record first established at Bowling Green. (The Weather Channel)
1966 The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Adjustment_Act
1967 Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wise_Men_(book)
1968 "For Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder released
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Once_in_My_Life
1972 Construction begins on the Kingdome, Seattle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdome
1976 Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter elected President. The country approached the 1976 election season already exhausted by a decade of war and scandal. The divisive Vietnam conflict and Richard Nixon's Watergate saga had undermined confidence in government and left public spirit at an all-time low. Traveling around the country long before other candidates began their campaigns, Carter listened, assessed the national mood, and decided it was the perfect time for an outsider like himself to run.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
1977 The identification of methanogens, a form of life dating back some 3.5 billion years, was reported by scientists at the University of Illinois. Microbiologist Carl R. Woese had long studied the evolutionary track of DNA and RNA. In 1976, he was approached by his colleague Ralph Wolfe, who presented a group of methane producing organisms. Woese studied their RNA and recognized their lack of the entire oligonucleotide sequences. He discovered the organisms were so different from bacteria, they deserved their own branch of the family tree as the third domain of life, Archaea. Methanogens are found in oxygen-deficient environments, and mostly obtain their energy by reducing carbon dioxide and oxidizing hydrogen, with the production of methane.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanogens
1978 John J. Riccardo, Chairman of Chrysler Corporation, hired Lee A. Iacocca as Chrysler President.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Iacocca
1978 M. William Howard, an African American clergyman, was elected president of the National Council of Churches. He was the youngest person to hold that office.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._William_Howard,_Jr.
1983 President Reagan signs a bill establishing Martin L King Day, making it the third national holiday born in the twentieth century. The first was Veterans Day, created as a "prayer for peace" in 1926. Memorial Day came second in 1948.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Martin_Luther_King.2C_Jr._Day
1984 Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
1985 For only the second time, a TV soundtrack LP topped the album charts. "Miami Vice" (title track by Jan Hammer) enjoyed a run of eleven weeks.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Vice
1986 Grete Waitz wins her eighth NYC marathon.
On November 2, 1986, Norwegian distance runner Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City marathon. She finished the 26-mile, 385-yard course in 2:28.6, more than a mile ahead of the second- and third-place women in the race. Waitz had won her first marathon in New York in 1978—setting a world record--and she won the NYC marathon again in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985. In 1988, she won it for the ninth time—something no runner had ever done in any marathon.
Waitz grew up in Oslo, Norway. She’d won national and international titles in shorter distances—400 meters, 800 meters, 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters, and the metric mile—but she had never run a marathon before 1978, when Fred Lebow, the director of the New York race, called her and invited her to participate. "He never thought I would complete the race," she remembered later, but "he needed a ‘rabbit,’ someone who would go out strong and set the pace for the elite women." Waitz agreed and set out for New York with her husband, Jack. The furthest she’d ever run was 12 miles. The night before the race, eager to celebrate their "second honeymoon" in Manhattan, the two went out to a swanky restaurant, where they ate shrimp cocktail, filet mignon and ice cream, and drank plenty of red wine. The next morning, bright and early, the 25-year-old Waitz started the marathon at the front of the pack and stayed there. But as the race dragged on, she started to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. "I continued running strong," she remembered, "but having no idea what mile I was on or where this place called Central Park was, I began to get annoyed and frustrated. Every time I saw a patch of trees, I thought, "Oh, this must be Central Park," but no. To keep motivated, I started swearing at my husband for getting me into this mess in the first place." When she finished the race, she hurled her shoes at Jack’s head. But she’d won, and she’d set a new world record, two minutes faster than the old one: 2:32.30.
The next year, Waitz quit her teaching job and started running full time. She won the silver medal at the 1984 Olympics (Norway, like the United States, had boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow). Along with her nine NYC Marathon titles, Waitz set 10 world records: in the 3,000 meters, 8,000 meters, 10,000 meters, 15,000 meters and 10 miles, along with the marathon.
Waitz retired from competitive running in 1990. She became a health and fitness expert and running coach in Oslo. In 1992, she accompanied Fred Lebow as he ran his own marathon for the first time while he was in remission from brain cancer. And in 2005, Waitz was diagnosed with cancer herself. Still, "I’m going to be in the marathon again," she told reporters. "And you know, I’ve won most of the races in my life. I expect to win this one, too."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grete_Waitz
1987 A dozen cities, mostly in the Ohio Valley, reported record high temperatures for the date. Record highs included 83 degrees at Paducah KY and 84 degrees at Memphis TN. Temperatures reached 70 degrees as far north as southern Lower Michigan. Showers and thundershowers over southern Florida, associated with a tropical depression, produced 4.77 inches of rain at Tavernier, located in the Upper Florida Keys. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 A computer "worm" unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student, Robert T. Morris, began replicating wildly, clogging thousands of computers around the country. Intended as an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program, Morris soon discovered that the program was infecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated. Computers were affected at many universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. When Morris realized what was happening he sent an anonymous message, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. Morris, was later tried, fined and given probation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_T._Morris
1988 A very intense low pressure system brought heavy rain, snow, and high winds, to parts of the northeastern U.S. Portland ME established a record for November with 4.52 inches of rain in 24 hours, and winds along the coast of Maine gusted to 74 mph at Southwest Harbor. Heavy snow blanketed parts of northern Vermont and upstate New York, with 15 inches reported at Spruce Hill NY. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Gwendolyn Graham is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for killing five elderly female residents of the Alpine Manor Nursing Home near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both Graham and her criminal and romantic partner, Catherine Wood, had been employed as nurses' aides at the home.
A Texas native, Graham moved to Michigan in 1986 and found employment at Alpine Manor. Catherine Wood, Graham's supervisor, had recently divorced and soon became her lover. Before long, Graham enlisted Wood's aid in a brutal scheme: the duo decided to kill people whose initials would spell out the word "murder" when the spree was over. The first victim, however, fought back harder than expected so the pair abandoned the "initials game" and instead began focusing on the weakest women in the nursing home. According to Wood, Graham suffocated her victims with a washcloth while Wood stood guard as a lookout. Reportedly, Graham and Wood often boasted about the murders but colleagues did not take them seriously. Wood claimed that in April 1987, Graham challenged her to "prove her love" by murdering someone. When she refused, Graham dumped her for another woman and returned to Texas. Wood, who later claimed that she was concerned that Graham would continue her killing spree in the South, confided in her ex-husband about the murders.
The story of the women's exploits reached the police in late 1988. The deaths of five elderly women, who were originally believed to have died of natural causes, were then investigated by police officers. Although authorities could find no direct physical evidence linking Graham and Wood to the deaths, they were both arrested in December 1988. In return for a reduced sentence of 20 to 40 years, Wood agreed to testify against Graham. Graham was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility for parole.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Graham_and_Cathy_Wood
1989 Squalls in the Upper Great Lakes Region the first three days of the month buried Ironwood MI under 46 inches of snow, and produced 40 inches at Hurley WI. Arctic cold invaded the Southern Plains Region. Midland TX reported a record low of 22 degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
2000 An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first permanent residents of the international space station, at the start of their four-month mission. After their Soyuz spacecraft linked up at 11:00am GMT, William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko entered the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and proceeded to set up a live television link with the Russian mission control to confirm that the move-in was going well. They were confined to two of the space station’s three rooms until space shuttle Endeavor arrived in early Dec. with giant solar panels that would provide all the necessary power.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(spacecraft)
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_02.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov02.html
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spruce-goose-flies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_02
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1102.htm
www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm#lk
There are 59 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days left until November 06, 2012: 5
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1164 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (ca. 1118–1170) began his six-year exile in France.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket
1772 American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_correspondence
1777 John Paul Jones sets sail. On this day in 1777, the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.
Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747. He became an apprentice to a merchant at 13 and soon went to sea, traveling first to the West Indies and then to North America as a young man. In Virginia at the onset of the American Revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775.
After departing Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England's Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in "gain than honor." Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones' crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife's teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship's captain and lieutenant.
In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, "I have not yet begun to fight!" A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship.
One of the greatest naval commanders in history, Jones is remembered as a "Father of the American Navy," along with fellow Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry.
John Paul Jones is buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland, where a Marine honor guard stands at attention whenever the crypt is open to the public.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones
1783 In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, General Washington bids farewell to his army. Washington, as he readied himself for the retirement to Mount Vernon he had so long sought, used his last weeks and months as Commander in Chief to educate his fellow citizens and soldiers about the future of their newly-independence nation. He used the occasion of his farewell orders to the Continental Army to admonish them about the virtues and personal character traits necessary for citizenship in a republic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Washington#Demobilization
1789 In the chaos of the French Revolution the property of the church in France was taken over by the state.
1830 A general convention of Methodist reformers opposed to the episcopal (i.e., bishop-led) form of church government met in Baltimore, MD, to establish the Protestant Methodist Church.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist_Protestant_Church
1861 Controversial Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command in the Western Department and replaced by David Hunter.
Fremont was one of the most prominent Union generals at the start of the war. Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, he joined the military in 1838 and helped map the upper Mississippi River. He made a significant career move in 1841 when he married Jesse Benton, the daughter of powerful Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. At first, the senator objected to the marriage, but he soon became Fremont's staunchest supporter. With his father-in-law's help, Fremont secured leadership of two famous expeditions to the West in the 1840s. He became involved in politics in the 1850s and was the fledgling Republican Party's first presidential candidate in 1856.
When the war started in 1861, Fremont became a major general in command of the Western Department based in St. Louis. In August 1861, the Union suffered a stunning defeat when an army under General Nathaniel Lyon was routed at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in southwestern Missouri. Many criticized Fremont for failing to provide proper support for Lyon, who was killed in the battle. In response, Fremont took action to demonstrate his control over the region. He declared martial law and proclaimed freedom for all slaves in Missouri. In doing so, he placed the Lincoln administration in a difficult position. Lincoln was trying to keep the Border States (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) from seceding from the Union. With the exception of Delaware, these states contained substantial numbers of slaveholders, and opinion over the issue of slavery was evenly divided. Fremont's freeing of slaves threatened to destroy the balance and send these states into the hands of the Confederacy. Of particular concern was Kentucky, Lincoln's native state. It was of vital strategic importance and the movement for secession there was very strong. Fremont's actions in Missouri fueled secessionist spirit and alienated many Northerners who were unwilling to wage a war to end slavery.
Lincoln requested privately that Fremont rescind the order, but he refused. Lincoln had no choice but to negate the order of emancipation and remove Fremont from command in the west. Fremont still had many supporters, so Lincoln placed him in charge of a small army in Virginia. He had little success in the Shenandoah Valley, where he was pitted against the brilliant Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Fremont resigned in 1862 after Jackson defeated his force, and Fremont's army was merged with the command of General John Pope, a longtime rival.
Some Republican allies urged Fremont to challenge Lincoln for the 1864 presidential nomination, but Fremont declined. After the war, he served as territorial governor of Arizona and died in New York in 1890.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Fr%C3%A9mont
1889 North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota
1895 The first gasoline-powered race in the United States. First prize: $2,000
1898 Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerleading#History
1902 First four-cylinder, gas-powered Locomobile hits the road. Engineer Andrew Riker delivers the first four-cylinder, gas-powered Locomobile—a $4,000, 12-horsepower Model C—to a buyer in New York City on this day in 1902. The Locomobile Company had been known for building heavy, powerful steam cars, but by the turn of the century it was clear that the future of the automobile—and thus of the Locomobile—lay in the internal-combustion engine. Until it went out of business in 1929, the company built elegant, luxurious touring-cars and streamlined racers for wealthy patrons. A Locomobile, ads crowed, was the "Best Built Car in America."
Steam-powered Locomobiles, built in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Worcester, Massachusetts, were solid, imposing, expensive machines. Like every other car powered by a steam boiler, they were also inconvenient. Steam cars had to warm up (literally: the water needed to boil in order to build up steam pressure) for about a half-hour before the car could be driven, and their water tanks needed to be refilled every 20 minutes or so. They also needed three kinds of fuel: water for the boiler, kerosene to heat the water and gasoline for the pilot light. (The car's "key" was an acetylene torch.)
In 1902, the Locomobile Company hired a young engineer and racecar driver named Andrew Riker to create a gasoline car that was good enough to bear the Locomobile name. He did, and they were: made of manganese bronze and heat-treated steel, the Riker cars really were among the best-built cars in America.
In 1908 a two-year-old Locomobile became the first American car to win an international race. The car, nicknamed "Old 16," was a 16-liter, four-cylinder, 120-horsepower two-seater piloted by 23-year-old George Robertson and his mechanic, Glenn Etheridge; the race was Long Island's 11-lap, 258.5-mile Vanderbilt Cup. According to one reporter, Old 16's victory "made Europeans sit up and take notice of American automotive efforts."
Old 16 is currently on display at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1988, a 1928 Locomobile coupe appeared on a U.S. postage stamp.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomobile_Company_of_America
1904 Evangeline Cory Booth (1865–1950), daughter of Gen. William Booth, was appointed commander of the Salvation Army in the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline_Booth
1909 Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity is founded at Boston University.
www.lambdachi.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Chi_Alpha
1912 On this day, the XIT Ranch of Texas, once among the largest ranches in the world, sells its last head of cattle.
Despite the popular image of the cattle rancher as an independent and self-reliant pioneer, big-city capitalists and stockholders owned many of the most important 19th century ranches. The Chicago capitalists behind the XIT--also known as the Capitol Syndicate Ranch--were trying to get rich by catering to the growing American passion for fresh western beef. They received the land in exchange for financing a state capitol building in Texas.
Given the aridity of the region, the Chicago capitalists determined that ranching would be the only profitable use for their new land. They quickly built up a massive but highly efficient cattle-raising operation that stretched over parts of nine Texas counties. At its peak, the XIT had more than 160,000 head of cattle, employed 150 cowboys, and encompassed nearly 3 million acres of the Texas panhandle—an unusually large tract of land even by western standards.
As land prices increased in Texas and cattle prices fell, the owners of the XIT realized they could make more money by selling their land. By 1912, the XIT abandoned ranching altogether with the sale of its last herd of cattle. The corporate managers gradually sold the remainder of their property to farmers and smaller ranchers throughout the first half of the 20th century. By 1950, the once-mighty XIT had control of only 20,000 acres.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XIT_Ranch
1917 Britain supports creation of Jewish homeland. British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submits a declaration of intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestinewith the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".
The British government hoped that the formal declaration would help garner Jewish support for the Allied effort in World War I. The Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine, which was approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Arabs opposed the Balfour Declaration, fearing that the creation of a Jewish homeland would mean the subjugation of Arab Palestinians.
After World War I, the Jewish population in Palestine increased dramatically, as did Jewish-Arab violence. Arab resistance and failures to reach a compromise led Britain to delay deciding on the future of Palestine. In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, much of the international community took up the Zionist cause, and in 1948 the State of Israel was declared.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
1920 KDKA (Pittsburgh) goes on the air as first commercial radio station. KDKA started broadcasting on November 2, 1920 as the first commercial radio station in the United States. KDKA's roots began with the efforts of Frank Conrad who operated KDKA's predecessor 75 watt 8XK from the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania from 1916. Conrad's musical offerings proved unexpectedly popular and his operations continued until his employer, the Westinghouse Electric Company applied for an official broadcasting license. The KDKA callsign was assigned sequentially from a list maintained for the use of US-registry maritime stations, and on November 2, 1920, KDKA broadcast the US presidential election returns from a shack located on the roof of a Westinghouse building in East Pittsburgh. The first broadcast is the result of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDKA_(AM)
1929 Newsreel films were shown at the Embassy Theatre in New York City. By 1929, Movietone--the name Fox created for its sound reels--had cameramen and representatives operating around the world, and its newsreels were available in twenty-two languages. The Embassy Newsreel Theater, was a fixture on Broadway from 1929 until 1949. Using newsreels from Fox Movietone News and Hearst Metrotone News, the Embassy played a forty-five to fifty-minute program with fourteen showings daily.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsreel
1931 The DuPont Company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announced the first synthetic rubber this day. It was known as DuPrene, now renamed neoprene. Many scientists were trying to make natural rubber in the 1920s and 30s. One of the Carothers team, Gerard Berchet, happened to leave a sample of vinyl acetylene in a jar with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for about five weeks. Then another member of team, Arnold M. Collins happened to look in that jar and found a rubbery white material. The HCl had reacted with the vinylacetylene, making chloroprene, which then polymerized to become polychloroprene. The new rubber was expensive, but resisted oil and gasoline, which natural rubber didn't. It was the first good synthetic rubber.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber
1931 "Myrt and Marge" was heard for the first time -- on CBS radio. A vaudeville performer named Myrtle Vail created the show by basing the story on her real life. Apparently in order to attract Wrigley as a sponsor, she gave her characters the last name Spear and Minter (after the gum). She played Myrt, and her daughter played her character's daughter Marge. In their radio adventures, the two traveled across the country, facing love and violence.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrt_and_Marge_(radio)
1934 Babe Ruth tours Tokyo Japan. Sixty-five thousand fans cram Jingu Stadium in Tokyo to see the first game. Ruth hits fourteen homers and his team wins all seventeen games, but the highlight for Japanese fans is when a right-handed pitcher from Kyoto, Eiji Sawamura, strikes out Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in succession en route to a thrilling 1-0 loss. Sawamura, an outspoken anti-American, later is courted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but refuses to sign, saying: "My problem is I hate America and I cannot make myself like Americans." Sawamura dies in the Pacific War during the Battle of the Ryukus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Sawamura
1936 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome-Berlin_Axis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27d_Rather_Be_Right
1942 British launch Operation Supercharge. On this day in 1942, General Montgomery breaks through Rommel's defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing a retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa.
In July 1942, having already taken Tobruk, Gen. Erwin Rommel and his mixed German-Italian forces attempted to push through the British defensive line at El Alamein, but failed. The Brits and the Axis had reached a standstill, and both sides took time to regroup before resuming the battle. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery took control of the British 8th Army, and on October 23 launched Operation Lightfoot, a broad offensive initiated by artillery fire. Rommel's forces had dug a five-mile-deep defensive area, replete with minefields and antitank guns. But this did not stop Montgomery, who had three armoured divisions and almost seven infantry divisions. The Axis forces were without their leader, as Rommel had taken ill and was convalescing in Austria. By the time the German general was recalled to Africa by Hitler, two days after the launching of Lightfoot, Monty and his forces had pushed passed his defensive line and were six miles beyond the original stalemate point.
Rommel gave as good as he got, using his antitank weaponry to destroy four times as many British tanks as he lost (but still leaving the Brits with 800 against Rommel's 90). Montgomery's drive northward was stopped-but only temporarily. On November 2, he launched Operation Supercharge, switched the direction of his attack westward, and punched through the German-Italian line. Rommel retreated to Fukah but Hitler insisted that Rommel hold his position at El Alamein. Rommel obeyed, which was a mistake. Instead of making a stand at Fukah, he was forced to waste more time and more of his forces as the British pushed harder, forcing Rommel to retreat even farther as he attempted to escape sweeping British offensives from the south. By mid-January 1943, Rommel had been pushed through Libya into Tunisia. As Churchill would sum up: "Up to Alamein we survived. After Alamein we conquered."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Supercharge_(1942)
1946 A heavy wet snow began to cover the Southern Rockies. Up to three feet of snow blanketed the mountains of New Mexico, and a 31 inch snow at Denver CO caused roofs to collapse. (David Ludlum)
The Hughes Flying Boat--the largest aircraft ever built--is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.
Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.
Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.
Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.
Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Goose
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman
1950 Concentrated milk was first test-marketed in the U.S. in Wilmington, Delaware. The Sealtest brand was produced by the Clover Dairy Company (a division of National Dairy Products Corporation). Fresh milk contains about 88% water. Partial water removal concentrates the milk to one-third of its original volume yielding a a heavy, creamy-looking milk. This gives benefits including improved shelf-life, reduced storage space, and lower weight saving transportation cost. The high-temperature processing of evaporated or condensed milk results in changed taste. Concentrated milk, however, is made at lower pressures and temperatures so that when water is added, it tastes like fresh whole milk with the same food values.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_protein_concentrate
1954 JS Thurmond 1st senator elected by write-in vote (SC)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
1955 American investigators Carlton Schwerdt and F.L. Schaffer crystallized the polio virus. This was the first animal virus to be obtained in crystalline form. (The first plant virus, tobacco mozaic virus, had been crystallized in 1935 by W.M. Stanley.) Each virus crystal is composed of many thousands of virus particles. Virus preparations pure enough to crystallize usually provide the best material for chemical studied. This was used to split the polio virus into infectious and non-infectious parts. Their research laid the groundwork for the polio vaccine.
histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/SchwerdtC.pdf
www.cosmeo.com/viewTodayInHistoryEvents.cfm?guidAssetId=d19e8494-5c42-4cfd-9e69-5ec80d61cc45&eventId=599
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Me_a_River
1955 Jim Henson's "Kermit the Frog" the first of the Muppets, was copyright registered. An early version of Kermit appeared in 1955, in a 5-minute puppet show for WRC-TV's Sam and Friends. The prototype Kermit was created from a green ladies' coat that Henson's mother had thrown in the trash can, and two ping-pong balls for eyes. The early Kermit was a sort of lizard-like creature; Kermit's first appearance as a frog was in the television special Hey Cinderella in 1969, and he's been a frog ever since.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_the_Frog
Time's "Man of the Year" for 1956 was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter
1956 Hungary appeals for UN assistance against Soviet invasion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communist_era_1947.E2.80.931989
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timet
1957 The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generates national publicity, and remains one of the most impressive UFO cases in American history.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_Case
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Van_Doren
1960 Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley%27s_Lover
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis#Crisis_ends
1963 Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated in South Vietnam.
Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. The United States subsequently became more heavily involved in Vietnam as it tried to stabilize the South Vietnamese government and beat back the communist rebels that were becoming an increasingly powerful threat. While the United States publicly disclaimed any knowledge of or participation in the planning of the coup that overthrew Diem, it was later revealed that American officials met with the generals who organized the plot and gave them encouragement to go through with their plans. Quite simply, Diem was perceived as an impediment to the accomplishment of U.S. goals in Southeast Asia. His increasingly dictatorial rule only succeeded in alienating most of the South Vietnamese people, and his brutal repression of protests led by Buddhist monks during the summer of 1963 convinced many American officials that the time had come for Diem to go. Three weeks later, an assassin shot President Kennedy. By then, the United States was more heavily involved in the South Vietnamese quagmire than ever. Its participation in the overthrow of the Diem regime signaled a growing impatience with South Vietnamese management of the war. From this point on, the United States moved step by step to become more directly and heavily involved in the fight against the communist rebels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
1964 King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Saud
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_of_Saudi_Arabia
1965 Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.
1966 A storm brought 18 inches of snow to Celia KY in 24 hours. It tied the state 24 hour snowfall record first established at Bowling Green. (The Weather Channel)
1966 The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Adjustment_Act
1967 Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wise_Men_(book)
1968 "For Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder released
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Once_in_My_Life
1972 Construction begins on the Kingdome, Seattle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdome
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
1977 The identification of methanogens, a form of life dating back some 3.5 billion years, was reported by scientists at the University of Illinois. Microbiologist Carl R. Woese had long studied the evolutionary track of DNA and RNA. In 1976, he was approached by his colleague Ralph Wolfe, who presented a group of methane producing organisms. Woese studied their RNA and recognized their lack of the entire oligonucleotide sequences. He discovered the organisms were so different from bacteria, they deserved their own branch of the family tree as the third domain of life, Archaea. Methanogens are found in oxygen-deficient environments, and mostly obtain their energy by reducing carbon dioxide and oxidizing hydrogen, with the production of methane.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanogens
1978 John J. Riccardo, Chairman of Chrysler Corporation, hired Lee A. Iacocca as Chrysler President.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Iacocca
1978 M. William Howard, an African American clergyman, was elected president of the National Council of Churches. He was the youngest person to hold that office.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._William_Howard,_Jr.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Martin_Luther_King.2C_Jr._Day
1984 Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
1985 For only the second time, a TV soundtrack LP topped the album charts. "Miami Vice" (title track by Jan Hammer) enjoyed a run of eleven weeks.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Vice
1986 Grete Waitz wins her eighth NYC marathon.
On November 2, 1986, Norwegian distance runner Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City marathon. She finished the 26-mile, 385-yard course in 2:28.6, more than a mile ahead of the second- and third-place women in the race. Waitz had won her first marathon in New York in 1978—setting a world record--and she won the NYC marathon again in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985. In 1988, she won it for the ninth time—something no runner had ever done in any marathon.
Waitz grew up in Oslo, Norway. She’d won national and international titles in shorter distances—400 meters, 800 meters, 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters, and the metric mile—but she had never run a marathon before 1978, when Fred Lebow, the director of the New York race, called her and invited her to participate. "He never thought I would complete the race," she remembered later, but "he needed a ‘rabbit,’ someone who would go out strong and set the pace for the elite women." Waitz agreed and set out for New York with her husband, Jack. The furthest she’d ever run was 12 miles. The night before the race, eager to celebrate their "second honeymoon" in Manhattan, the two went out to a swanky restaurant, where they ate shrimp cocktail, filet mignon and ice cream, and drank plenty of red wine. The next morning, bright and early, the 25-year-old Waitz started the marathon at the front of the pack and stayed there. But as the race dragged on, she started to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. "I continued running strong," she remembered, "but having no idea what mile I was on or where this place called Central Park was, I began to get annoyed and frustrated. Every time I saw a patch of trees, I thought, "Oh, this must be Central Park," but no. To keep motivated, I started swearing at my husband for getting me into this mess in the first place." When she finished the race, she hurled her shoes at Jack’s head. But she’d won, and she’d set a new world record, two minutes faster than the old one: 2:32.30.
The next year, Waitz quit her teaching job and started running full time. She won the silver medal at the 1984 Olympics (Norway, like the United States, had boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow). Along with her nine NYC Marathon titles, Waitz set 10 world records: in the 3,000 meters, 8,000 meters, 10,000 meters, 15,000 meters and 10 miles, along with the marathon.
Waitz retired from competitive running in 1990. She became a health and fitness expert and running coach in Oslo. In 1992, she accompanied Fred Lebow as he ran his own marathon for the first time while he was in remission from brain cancer. And in 2005, Waitz was diagnosed with cancer herself. Still, "I’m going to be in the marathon again," she told reporters. "And you know, I’ve won most of the races in my life. I expect to win this one, too."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grete_Waitz
1987 A dozen cities, mostly in the Ohio Valley, reported record high temperatures for the date. Record highs included 83 degrees at Paducah KY and 84 degrees at Memphis TN. Temperatures reached 70 degrees as far north as southern Lower Michigan. Showers and thundershowers over southern Florida, associated with a tropical depression, produced 4.77 inches of rain at Tavernier, located in the Upper Florida Keys. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 A computer "worm" unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student, Robert T. Morris, began replicating wildly, clogging thousands of computers around the country. Intended as an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program, Morris soon discovered that the program was infecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated. Computers were affected at many universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. When Morris realized what was happening he sent an anonymous message, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. Morris, was later tried, fined and given probation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_T._Morris
1988 A very intense low pressure system brought heavy rain, snow, and high winds, to parts of the northeastern U.S. Portland ME established a record for November with 4.52 inches of rain in 24 hours, and winds along the coast of Maine gusted to 74 mph at Southwest Harbor. Heavy snow blanketed parts of northern Vermont and upstate New York, with 15 inches reported at Spruce Hill NY. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Gwendolyn Graham is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for killing five elderly female residents of the Alpine Manor Nursing Home near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both Graham and her criminal and romantic partner, Catherine Wood, had been employed as nurses' aides at the home.
A Texas native, Graham moved to Michigan in 1986 and found employment at Alpine Manor. Catherine Wood, Graham's supervisor, had recently divorced and soon became her lover. Before long, Graham enlisted Wood's aid in a brutal scheme: the duo decided to kill people whose initials would spell out the word "murder" when the spree was over. The first victim, however, fought back harder than expected so the pair abandoned the "initials game" and instead began focusing on the weakest women in the nursing home. According to Wood, Graham suffocated her victims with a washcloth while Wood stood guard as a lookout. Reportedly, Graham and Wood often boasted about the murders but colleagues did not take them seriously. Wood claimed that in April 1987, Graham challenged her to "prove her love" by murdering someone. When she refused, Graham dumped her for another woman and returned to Texas. Wood, who later claimed that she was concerned that Graham would continue her killing spree in the South, confided in her ex-husband about the murders.
The story of the women's exploits reached the police in late 1988. The deaths of five elderly women, who were originally believed to have died of natural causes, were then investigated by police officers. Although authorities could find no direct physical evidence linking Graham and Wood to the deaths, they were both arrested in December 1988. In return for a reduced sentence of 20 to 40 years, Wood agreed to testify against Graham. Graham was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility for parole.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Graham_and_Cathy_Wood
1989 Squalls in the Upper Great Lakes Region the first three days of the month buried Ironwood MI under 46 inches of snow, and produced 40 inches at Hurley WI. Arctic cold invaded the Southern Plains Region. Midland TX reported a record low of 22 degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
2000 An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first permanent residents of the international space station, at the start of their four-month mission. After their Soyuz spacecraft linked up at 11:00am GMT, William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko entered the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and proceeded to set up a live television link with the Russian mission control to confirm that the move-in was going well. They were confined to two of the space station’s three rooms until space shuttle Endeavor arrived in early Dec. with giant solar panels that would provide all the necessary power.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(spacecraft)
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_02.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov02.html
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spruce-goose-flies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_02
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1102.htm
www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm#lk