Post by farmgal on Nov 8, 2012 23:15:23 GMT -5
November 08 is the 312th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 53 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1519 Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration. On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistadors first entered the great city of Mexico, the metropolis the Aztecs had built on a lake island. Don Hernando Cortes, who was accompanied by six hundred Spaniards and a great many native allies, at last could see for himself the temples and palaces about which he had heard so many marvels. When they reached a locality known as Xoloco, they were welcomed by the last of the Motecuhzomas, who had come out to meet them in the belief that the white men must be Quetzalcoatll and other gods, returning at last from across the waters now known as the Gulf of Mexico.
1775 Washington seeks to make militias into a military. On this day in 1775, General George Washington seeks to resolve several problems facing the army: how to encourage experienced troops to enlist, how to assemble a capable officer corps and how to overcome provincial differences and rivalries. Describing the problems, he wrote, "Connecticut wants no Massachusetts man in her corps. Massachusetts thinks there is no necessity for a Rhode Islander..."
Just as the British had discovered the difficulties of waging war with obstreperous Yankees for soldiers during the Seven Years' War, Washington, the Virginia planter-cum-soldier, was unimpressed upon meeting his supposed army outside Boston after being appointed commander in chief of Continental forces in 1775. He saw "stupidity" among the enlisted men, who were used to the easy familiarity of being commanded by neighbors in local militias with elected officers. Washington promptly insisted that the officers behave with decorum and the enlisted men with deference. Although he enjoyed some success with this original army, the New Englanders went home to their farms at the end of 1775, and Washington had to start fresh with new recruits in 1776.
Washington fought an uphill battle for military order until Friedrich von Steuben arrived at the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778. The Prussian military officer commenced training soldiers in close-order drill, instilling new confidence and discipline in the demoralized Continental Army. Before von Steuben's arrival, colonial American soldiers were notorious for their slovenly camp conditions. Von Steuben insisted on reorganization to establish basic hygiene, ordering that kitchens and latrines be put on opposite sides of the camp, with latrines facing a downhill slope. Just having latrines was a novelty to the Continental troops, who were accustomed to living in their own filth.
On the merit of his efforts at Valley Forge, Washington recommended that von Steuben be named inspector general of the Continental Army; Congress complied. In this capacity, von Steuben propagated his methods throughout the Patriot forces by circulating his "Blue Book," entitled "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States."
1789 Bourbon Whiskey, first distilled from corn (by Elijah Craig, Bourbon KY) The name Bourbon is due to the fact that the first whisky distilled in Kentucky was obtained from ground maize at the mill of one Elijah Craig, in Georgetown, Bourbon County. It was called Bourbon County Whisky at first, and the name Bourbon Whisky has been used ever since for whisky distilled wholly or chiefly from maize.
1804 The first U.S. patent for a separable electric attachment plug was issued to Harvey Hubbell of Bridgeport, Connecticut (No. 774,250). The plugs were first manufactured by Harvey Hubbell, Inc.
1837 Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later becomes Mount Holyoke College. It is the nation's oldest college for women. Mary insisted the school not be named after her, so it was named for a nearby mountain peak. Its motto was Psalm 144:12, "That our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similitude of a palace."
1861 American Civil War: The "Trent Affair" The USS San Jacinto stops the United Kingdom mail ship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US.
1864 Abraham Lincoln elected to his 2nd term as President. The Lincoln/Johnson ticket ran with the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of a stream," and over time a series of Union victories culminating in the capture of Atlanta, Georgia by forces led by General William Tecumseh Sherman restored Lincoln's popularity. The Republican/Union party made an all-out effort, ridiculing McClellan for his pacifist platform and denouncing Democrats as traitorous Copperheads. On November 8, Lincoln won by over 400,000 popular votes and easily clinched an electoral majority.
1870 The first storm warning was issued by the U.S. Signal Corps Weather Service. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
1880 Sarah Bernhardt made her American stage debut. Bernhardt appeared in "Adrienne Lecouvreur" in New York City. Her stage career started in 1862, when she was a student at the Comedie Francaise, a prestigious French academy for acting. She made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and was soon in demand all over Europe and in the United States in New York
1889 Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.
1892 The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
1901 Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.
1904 Émile Combs (1835–1921), French anti-clericalist politician, introduced a bill for the separation of church and state in France. The bill passed in December 1905, thereby ending the Concordat of 1801 and allowing complete liberty of conscience.
1910 The first U.S. patent for an "electric insect destroyer" was issued to William H. Frost of Spokane, Washington (No. 974,785). The invention used a number of electrically energized parallel wires such that a flying insect passing between them would complete the circuit by bridging the wires with its body and electrocute the insect. The patent describes using fine wire and tensioners to keep the parallel segments taut. The charge on the wires could be supplied using an induction coil and a battery. The form of the device could be as a flat frame, or as a cylindrical arrangement surrounding a light to attract the insects into the charged cage.
1925 Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, Illinois, was dedicated.
1931 Fredrick Allison, working in Alabama, reported (erroneously) the discovery of "alabamine", element 85, now known as astatine, the heaviest halogen. Astatine was first synthesized and correctly identified in 1940 by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles (Corson, MacKenzie, and Segré). All astatine isotopes are highly radioactive and very short lived. Thus the amount of astatine in nature is too small for Allison to have detected, using his own "Magneto-Optic Method of Chemical Analysis," (also debunked.) In the 1920's and 30's, scientists were eager to find the elements 85 and 87, as predicted by Mendeleev. Allison's reported discovery was premature because of poor experimental design and experimenter bias.
1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected the 32d President of the United States defeating Herbert Hoover.
1933 Great Depression: New Deal --US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.
1934 Ford C Frick becomes president of baseball's National League. In 1934 Frick became NL public relations director and succeeded the ailing William Heydler as NL president the next year. One of Frick's first acts as NL President was an enthusiastic endorsement of the proposed National Baseball Museum and a suggestion to include a Hall of Fame to honor the game's greats.
1935 A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization charged with advancing industrial unionism.
1939 In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
1939 “Life with Father” longest running Broadway drama opens (closes 1947) The 1939 Broadway play ran for over seven years to become the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway, a record that it still holds. It opened at the Empire Theatre on November 8, 1939 and remained there until September 8, 1945. It continued to be performed on Broadway until July 12, 1947 and closed after 3,224 performances.
1940 The first National Football League championship was aired on national radio. The Chicago Bears beat the Washington Redskins, 73-0
1942 World War II: Operation Torch -- United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
1942 World War II: French resistance coup in Algiers, in which 400 civilian French patriots neutralize Vichyist XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of fighting, and arrest several Vichyst generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.
1943 An early season snowstorm raged across eastern South Dakota and Minnesota into northern Wisconsin. The storm produced 22 inches of snow at Fairbult and Marshall MN, 20 inches at Redwood Falls MN, and 10.1 inches at Minneapolis. Drifts fifteen feet high were reported in Cottonwood County MN. The storm produced up to two feet of snow in South Dakota smothering a million Thanksgiving day turkeys. (6th-8th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1950 Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, while piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight in history.
1951 Yogi Berra is the AL MVP. On November 8, 1951, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is voted the American League’s most valuable player for the first time in his career. St. Louis Browns’ ace pitcher and slugger Ned Garver almost won the award--in fact, a representative from the Baseball Writers Association of America phoned him and told him that he had won it--but after a recount it turned out that Berra had edged Garver out by a nose. "It’s great to be classed with fellows like DiMaggio and Rizzuto who have won the award," Berra told reporters that night. "I sure hope I can win it a couple of more times, like Joe did." He went on to be the league MVP twice more, in 1954 and 1955.
Berra had had a great season, for the most part--he’d been the Yanks’ leading slugger, with 27 homers and 88 RBI--but he’d had a dramatic slump near the end of the year. His teammate Allie Reynolds, meanwhile, had pitched two no-hitters in 1951, and Garver had won 20 games and batted .305 for the Browns, a "collection of old rags and tags" that had only managed to win 32 games that Garver wasn’t pitching. In the face of these performances, Berra was sure he wouldn’t win the award. "I was afraid I had blown it with the bad finish," he said.
In fact, it was one of the closest MVP races ever. Each member of the baseball writers’ association voted by naming the league’s 10 best players and then ranking them. A first-place vote got a player 14 points; second place was worth nine, third place eight, and so on. When the votes were tallied, the player with the most points overall won the MVP. Berra, Garver and Reynolds actually had the same number of first-place votes--six each--but Yogi squeaked by on his second-, third- and fourth-place points. (His final score was 187; Garver’s was 157; and Reynolds’ was 125.)
Berra was only the second catcher to win the AL MVP prize. (Mickey Cochrane was the first.) That same year, another catcher--Roy Campanella of the Dodgers--was the NL MVP.
1953 - Residents of New York City suffered through ten days of smog resulting in 200 deaths. (The Weather Channel)
1953 Kosaku Nao, the first Missouri Synod Japanese pastor, was installed at Kugenuma.
1954 AL approves Philadelphia A's move to Kansas City
1956 Cecile B. Demille's "The Ten Commandments" was copyright registered. The Ten Commandments was a 1956 epic film from Paramount Pictures in VistaVision directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which tells in the broadest Hollywood style the Bible story of Moses (Charlton Heston) as he struggles to get Pharaoh Ramesses II (Yul Brynner) to let the Israelites leave Egypt. It is the 5th highest grossing movie of all time, adjusted for inflation, with collections of $838,400,000.
1957 Operation Grapple X, Round C1: Britain conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test over Kiritimati in the Pacific.
1960 JFK (MA-D-Sen) beats VP Richard Nixon (R) for President. John F. Kennedy, a wealthy Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was elected president in 1960, defeating Vice President Richard Nixon. Though he clearly won the electoral vote, Kennedy's received only 118,000 more votes than Nixon in this close election. John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.
The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many observers believed that Kennedy's poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. Issues, however, also played a role in the election, and the nation's foreign policy was a major bone of contention between Kennedy and Nixon. Nixon took every opportunity to characterize Kennedy as too young and inexperienced to handle the awesome responsibilities of America's Cold War diplomacy. (Nixon was, in fact, only a few years older than Kennedy.) He defended the past eight years of Republican rule, arguing that Soviet power had been contained and America's strength increased. Kennedy responded by portraying foreign policy during the Eisenhower years as stagnant and reactionary. In particular, he charged the Republicans with losing Cuba and allowing a dangerous "missile gap" to develop, in which the Soviets had overtaken the United States in the building of missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Kennedy promised to reinvigorate America's foreign policy, relying on a flexible response to changing situations and exploring options ignored by the staid and conservative Eisenhower administration.
Kennedy claimed during the campaign that he looked forward to meeting the challenges facing the strongest nation in the Free World. He did not have long to wait before those challenges were upon him. During the first few months of the Kennedy presidency, Nixon's criticisms seemed to have some validity. Kennedy appeared overwhelmed, first by the catastrophic failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, then by a blustering Nikita Khrushchev during a summit meeting in Europe, and finally by the construction of the Berlin Wall. And there was also the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia to consider.
1962 Sun sets on the Ford Rotunda. On this day in 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stands in Dearborn, Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is destroyed in a massive fire. Some 1.5 million people visited the Rotunda each year, making it the fifth most popular tourist attraction in the U.S. (behind Niagara Falls, Smokey Mountain National Park, the Smithsonian, and the Lincoln Memorial).
Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to Dearborn when the fair ended. It was 130 feet high and designed to look like a stack of gears surrounding a 92-foot-wide courtyard. (In 1952, an 18,000-pound dome was added over the courtyard; it was the first real-world application of inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's lightweight geodesic dome.) Outside, the building's steel frame was covered in 114,000 square feet of Indiana limestone; inside, the walls were covered in murals showing the River Rouge assembly line. On the Rotunda's grounds were 19 "reproductions" of what Ford called the Roads of the World: the Appian Way, the Grand Trunk Road, the Oregon Trail and Detroit's Woodward Avenue.
Many people who grew up near Detroit during the 1950s remember the Rotunda for its spectacular Christmas displays. Every year since 1953, it had had a 37-foot-tall tree, an elaborate Santa's workshop and a life-size Nativity that the National Council of Churches called the "largest and finest" in the country. Each year's installation had a different theme: the 1958 display boasted a 15,000-piece hand-carved miniature circus, for instance, and the 1962 show was scheduled to be a woodland tableau featuring 2,500 dolls.
While workmen were preparing the Rotunda for that display, someone overturned a firepot or heater on the building's tar roof. Just after lunch, an employee spotted flames on the ceiling of the main floor. "Within a few minutes after the first alarm," The New York Times reported, "the octagonal top of the building resembled a huge chimney, with smoke and fumes pouring out." Workers evacuated, and the building burned to the ground in less than an hour. A group of schoolchildren visiting the Rotunda from South Bend watched in horror from a cafeteria across the street.
It would have cost at least $15 million to rebuild the Rotunda. The company opted not to spend the money, and razed the building's remains instead. Today, a satellite campus of the Michigan Technical Education Center stands in its place.
1964 Mickey Wright shoots a 62, lowest golf score for a woman pro. Wright won the U.S. Women's Open and the LPGA Championship four times each. She won the Vare Trophy five times, was the leading money winner four times, twice had winning streaks of four straight tournaments and held LPGA records for lowest round (62), lowest nine-hole score (30) and most birdies in a round (nine). Mickey Wright shot 9-under 62 at the 1964 Tall City Open.
1965 The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War, while the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment fight one of the first set-piece engagements of the war between Australian forces and the Vietcong at the Battle of Gang Toi.
1965 Lawrence Joel earns Medal of Honor. For action this day in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon, Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade earns the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living African American since the Spanish-American War to receive the nation's highest award for valor.
When his unit was outnumbered in an attack by an enemy force, Specialist Joel, who suffered a severe leg wound in the early stages of the battle, continued to administer aid to his wounded comrades. Wounded a second time—with a bullet lodged deep in his lungs—Joel continued to treat the wounded, completely disregarding the battle raging around him and his own safety. Even after the 24-hour battle had subsided, Joel, a 38-year-old father of two, continued to treat and comfort the wounded until his own evacuation was ordered.
President Johnson presented the Medal of Honor to Specialist Joel on March 9, 1967, in ceremonies held on the South Lawn of the White House.
1965 "Days of Our Lives" premiers on TV. Days of our Lives debuted on November 8, 1965, and can still be viewed weekdays on NBC. Originally, the show revolved solely around the Horton family, and has since expanded to tell the stories of other families, such as the Alamain, Brady, DiMera, Kiriakis, Black, Deveraux, Chandler, Johnson, and Lockhart clans.
1966 Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
1966 Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected governor of California
1966 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.
1966 The temperature in downtown San Francisco reached a November record of 86 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
1969 "Wedding Bell Blues" by 5th Dimension topped the charts. "Wedding Bell Blues" was the second of two #1 hits for the group. The first was "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." It was written by Laura Nyro, whose 1967 version enjoyed modest success. The group recorded this as an in-joke as members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. were engaged at the time. Producer Bones Howe thought it would be funny for McCoo to sing the first line, "Bill, I love you so" to Davis.
1970 Tom Dempsey of New Orleans Saints kicks NFL record 63 yard field goal. Dempsey was born without toes on his right foot (which was his kicking foot). He wore a modified shoe with a flattened and enlarged toe area, giving somewhat the appearance of a hammer. He used a straight approach to kick the ball as opposed to the "soccer style" used by nearly all place kickers today. Tom Dempsey's record 63-yard field goal with 2 seconds to play in 1970 that enabled New Orleans to beat Detroit 19-17 on the game's final play.
1973 Walt Disney's "Robin Hood" is released. Robin Hood, played as a fox, teams up with his band of outlaws including Little John (a bear), and Friar Tuck (a badger) to "steal from the rich to feed the poor" of Nottingham which is being taxed into oblivion by Prince John (a weak, sniveling lion) and his followers Sir Hiss (a snake) and the Sheriff of Nottingham (a wolf). King Richard (a strong lion) had left for the crusades and Prince John took his place on the throne. It was the first release following Walt's death.
1980 Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California announced the discovery of a 15th moon orbiting the planet Saturn, courtesy of Voyager I.
1983 W Wilson Goode (D) elected first Black mayor of Philadelphia
1984 Anna Fisher becomes the first "mom" to go into orbit. Dr. Fisher was a mission specialist on STS-51A, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, FL, on November 8, 1984. She was accompanied by Captain Frederick (Rick) Hauck (spacecraft commander), Captain David M. Walker (pilot), and fellow mission specialists, Dr. Joseph P. Allen, and Commander Dale H. Gardner. This was the second flight of the orbiter Discovery.
1984 The first attempt to rescue two crippled satellites scheduled on Discovery's mission. In the first space salvage mission in history the crew retrieved for return to earth the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI satellites. STS-51A completed 127 orbits of the Earth before landing at Kennedy Space Center, FL, on November 16, 1984.
1986 "Amanda" by Boston topped the charts. "Amanda" was the only #1 hit for Boston. After this became a hit, the previous 2 Boston albums re-entered the US chart.
1987 Thunderstorms over Texas produced locally heavy rains in the Hill Country, with 3.50 inches reported at Lakeway, and 3.72 inches reported at Anderson Mill. Thunderstorms over Louisiana produced hail an inch in diameter at Clay and at Provencial. Blustery northwest winds, ushering cold air into western Kansas and into northwest Texas, gusted to 46 mph at Hill City KS. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1991 The Carol Burnette Show premieres on CBS-TV.
1994 The Republican Revolution. For the first time in 40 years, the Republican Party wins control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections. Led by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who subsequently replaced Democrat Tom Foley of Washington as speaker of the House, the empowered GOP united under the "Contract with America," a 10-point legislative plan to reduce federal taxes, balance the budget, and dismantle social welfare programs established during six decades of mostly Democratic rule in Congress.
Gingrich's House of Representatives, home to the majority of the Republican freshmen, led the "Republican Revolution" by passing every bill incorporated in the Contract with America--with the exception of a term-limits constitutional amendment--within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress.
1994 Salvatore "Sonny" Bono is elected to the U.S. Congress. If you had made a friendly wager back in 1974 as to which recent or current pop-music figure might go on to serve in the United States Congress in 20 years' time, you might have picked someone with an apparent political agenda, like Joan Baez, or at least one who was associated with some kind of cause, like nature-lover John Denver. You almost certainly wouldn't have placed your bet on Sonny Bono, a singer of arguably limited talents who appeared content to stand, literally and figuratively, in the shadow of his far more popular wife, Cher. It was indeed Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, however, who had a future in elective politics—a future that included his election to the United States House of Representatives from California's 44th Congressional District on this day in 1994
Sonny Bono fell almost completely out of the public eye following the cancellation of The Sonny and Cher Show in 1977. While his ex-wife and erstwhile musical partner, Cher, launched a hugely successful second phase of her career with well-received acting roles in the 1980s, Sonny left the spotlight behind to focus on the restaurant business. Although he presented himself as a none-too-bright bumbler during his days on television, Bono had been an astute operator in shepherding his and Cher's early musical career and in his later business dealings. The owner of several successful restaurants, Bono got involved in politics after growing frustrated with the bureaucratic hurdles placed before one of his restaurant construction projects by local officials in Palm Springs, California, in the late 1980s. Though he himself had registered to vote for the first time only one year earlier, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs in 1988. Following a failed run in the California Republican Senatorial primary in 1992, Bono turned his attention to the 44th District's Congressional seat in 1994. A conservative Republican, Bono was swept into office as part of the Newt Gingrich-led Republican "revolution" that year, and he was re-elected in 1996.
During his time in office, Bono did not treat his fellow lawmakers to any singing performances, but the man behind the hits "I Got You Babe" (1965) and "The Beat Goes On" (1967) did trade on his public persona as a good-natured, non-threatening nice guy. As The Washington Post noted in its obituary following Bono's death in a skiing accident in 1996, "Bono brought to Congress a rare skill: He could make lawmakers—even the most pompous among them—laugh at themselves." Or as President Bill Clinton said, ""His joyful entertainment of millions earned him celebrity, but in Washington he earned respect by being a witty and wise participant in policymaking processes that often seem ponderous to the American people."
1997 Johnny Paycheck officially became a member of "The Grand Ole Opry"
2000 A statewide recount began in Florida, which emerged as critical in deciding the winner of the 2000 presidential election
2000 Joey Chestnut consumes a world record 50 meatballs in 10 minutes. Joey Chestnut won the Martorano's Masters Meatball Eating Championship in Las Vegas gobbling 50 meatballs in 10 minutes. The 6.25 pounds was a world record and earned him $1500. Chestnut's resume also includes hot dog, pizza, and chicken wing eating competitions. Burp!
2003 The Harris Theater opens, commencing a renaissance in the Chicago performing arts community.
2004 War in Iraq: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
Births
1732 John Dickinson (d 1808) American lawyer and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. He was a militia officer during the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware and President of Pennsylvania. Among the wealthiest men in the British American colonies, he is known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; upon receiving news of his death, President Thomas Jefferson recognized him as being "among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain" whose "name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."[1] He is the namesake of Dickinson College.
1827 Gotthardt Dellman Bernheim, in Prussia, Lutheran pastor and educator in the Carolinas, (d 25 Oct 1916).
1836 Milton Bradley (d 1911), American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company.
1847 Hermann Daniel Uhlig, pioneer deaf missionary, (d. 15 Aug 1913).
1849 The first cornerstone was laid for Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis.
1881 Frank Gouldsmith Speck (d 1950) American cultural anthropologist and ethnographer of the Eastern Woodland Indians, who chose to study and preserve knowledge of their culture. As a boy, he lived with Fidelia Fielding, a Native American, and the last speaker of her tribal language, from whom he learned the Mohegan language and literature. With this rich background, at university he began study of anthropological linguistics, encouraged by anthropologist Franz Boas. Speck spent his career in extensive fieldwork. By staying with the Indian comunities he earned the trust of the tribes. He reconstructed scattered remnants of ritual and lore into an extensive record. He collected arts and crafts as artifacts of the material culture, and was a pioneer in ethnoscience and ethnomusicology.
1889 Oswald J. Smith, Canadian clergyman, author and composer of hymns, was born (d. 25 Jan 1986).
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/m/i/smith_oj.htm
1896 Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris (d 1977) Major League Baseball player, manager and executive. In 1975, the Veterans Committee elected Harris, as a manager, to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1897 Dorothy Day (d 1980) American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an Christian anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.
1900 Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (d 1949) American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her epic novel Gone with the Wind, her only major publication. This novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies (see list of best-selling books). The film adaptation of it, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and it received a record-breaking ten Academy Awards (a record since eclipsed by Ben Hur, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Titanic). Mitchell has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 1¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
1908 Martha Gellhorn (d 1998) American novelist, travel writer and journalist, considered to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century.[who?] She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career. Gellhorn was also the third wife of American novelist Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945. At the age of 89, ill and nearly completely blind, she committed suicide. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is named after her
1920 Esther Rolle (d 1998) American actress of stage and television. She was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Florida Evans on the CBS television sitcom Maude and its spin-off Good Times.
1921 Jerome A. Hines, Jerome Albert Link Heinz (d 2003) basso opera singer who was associated with the Metropolitan Opera for many years. His height (6ft 6 inches, or 2m), stage presence and stentorian voice made him ideal for such roles as Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Mephistopheles in Faust, Ramfis in Aida, the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos, the title role of Boris Godunov and King Mark in Tristan und Isolde. A born-again Christian and member of the Salvation Army, Hines composed an opera on the life of Jesus, I Am the Way. He sang the role of Jesus at the Met in 1968 and performed the work many times around the world.
1923 Jack St. Clair Kilby (d 2005) Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at Texas Instruments (TI). He is also the inventor of the handheld calculator and thermal printer.
1927 Clara Ann Fowler known by her professional name Patti Page, American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records. Her nickname is The Singin' Rage.
1929 Robert Cleckler "Bobby" Bowden Birmingham, Alabama, retired college football coach. He coached the Florida State Seminoles football team from the 1976 to 2009 seasons. During his time at Florida State, Bowden led FSU to an Associated Press and Coaches Poll National Title in 1993 and a BCS National Championship in 1999, as well as twelve Atlantic Coast Conference championships since FSU joined the conference in 1991. After a difficult 2009 season and amid questioning fans, Bowden announced his retirement from FSU on December 1, 2009, just weeks after his 80th birthday. His final coaching appearance was the 2010 Gator Bowl game on January 1, 2010, with a 33-21 victory over his former program, West Virginia.
1931 Morley Safer Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.
Deaths
1674 John Milton, philosopher, hymnist, poet and theologian (b. 9 Dec 1608).
1877 Rebekah Hope Taylor (nee Morley), hymn translator. She was a daughter of S. Morley, M.P., and married H. W. Taylor, a member of the Plymouth Brethren. She contributed to the Enlarged London Hymn Book (1873). Her Letters were published in 1878. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 586]
1880 Edwin Laurentine Drake (b 1819) American driller of the first productive oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, that launched the modern U.S. petroleum industry. A former railroad conductor, his success in hitting oil was based on his belief that drilling would be the best way to obtain petroleum from the earth. He organized Seneca Oil Co., leased land, and on August 27, 1859, struck oil at a depth of 69 feet. Drake used an old steam engine to power the drill. After his well began to produce oil, other prospectors drilled wells nearby. Other men, with better business sense, grew rich from the oil boom, yet Drake died in poverty, after years of crippling illnesses.
1887 John Henry "Doc" Holliday, American gambler gunslinger, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis. (b. 1851)
Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and advised a move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas.
By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice. Unfortunately, cards interested him more than teeth, and he earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout. Thereafter, the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at card tables and aggravating his tuberculosis with heavy drinking and late nights.
Holliday was famously friendly with Wyatt Earp, who believed that Holliday saved his life during a fight with cowboys. For his part, Holliday was a loyal friend to Earp, and stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bloody feud that followed.
In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, forcing him to seek treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He died in his bed at only 36 years old.
1920 Abraham Kuyper (b. 29 Oct 1837), Dutch Calvinist theologian and statesman
1928 Robert Battey (b 1828) Augusta, Georgia, a surgeon in the Nineteenth Georgia Volunteer Regiment during the War between the States. Dr. Battey’s field of study was in gynecology and was well known all over Europe because of the procedure known as "Battey's Operation". On August 27, 1872 he performed the first successful Oophorectomy in Rome, Georgia. The patient, Julie Omberg, had diseased ovaries and lived to be 80 years old. There was lynch mob waiting for Dr. Battey, if he failed the operation. In 1873, he became professor of obstetrics at the Atlanta Medical College where he stayed until 1875. Dr. Battey continued to practice medicine until his death on November 8, 1895.
1934 James Mark Baldwin (b 1861) Philosopher and theoretical psychologist who exerted influence on American psychology during its formative period in the 1890s. Concerned with the relation of Darwinian evolution to psychology, he favoured the study of individual differences, stressed the importance of theory for psychology, and was critical of narrow experimentalism.
1959 Frank Sherman Land, founder of DeMolay International (b. 1890)
1965 Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (b 1913) American journalist and television game show panelist known nationally for her coverage of the Sam Sheppard trial, her syndicated newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, and her role as panelist on the television game show What's My Line?.
1969 Vesto Melvin Slipher (b 1875) American astronomer whose systematic observations (1912-25) of the extraordinary radial velocities of spiral galaxies provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory. Died at Flagstaff, Ariz.
1974 Ivory Joe Hunter (b 1914) African American R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist, best known for his hit recording, "Since I Met You, Baby" (1956). Billed as The Baron of the Boogie, he was also known as The Happiest Man Alive.
1978 Norman Percevel Rockwell (b 1894) 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades.[1] Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter (although his Rosie was reproduced less than others of the day), Saying Grace (1951), and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his work for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA); producing covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations.
1983 Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (b 1881), rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator, the ideologue of Reconstructionist Judaism which he founded with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.
1994 Michael O'Donoghue (b 1940) 20th century American writer and performer. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, was a major contributor to National Lampoon magazine, and was the first head writer of the highly influential American television program Saturday Night Live.
2003 Lucy Douglas Cochrane (b 1920) American stage actress, author, columnist, horsewoman, fashion designer, and socialite who achieved a degree of fame as a fashion icon. She was frequently seen wearing elegant designs by famous designers like Mainbocher. Her unfussy, clean-cut style was seen as typically American.
2010 Jack Levine, American painter (b. 1915)
2010 Quintin Dailey, American basketball player (b. 1961)
2010 Alex Fagan, American law enforcement official (b. 1950)
2011 Bil Keane, American cartoonist (b. 1922)
Christian Feast Day:
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity (Roman Catholic Church)
Four Crowned Martyrs
Godfrey of Amiens
Willehad of Bremen
November 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the other Bodiless Powers: the Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Salaphiel, Jegudiel, and Barachiel
Righteous Martha, princess of Pskov (1300)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_8
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_08.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov08.html
www.christianhistorytimeline.com/lives_events/birthday/index.php
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.history.com/
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_8_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1108.htm
There are 53 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1519 Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration. On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistadors first entered the great city of Mexico, the metropolis the Aztecs had built on a lake island. Don Hernando Cortes, who was accompanied by six hundred Spaniards and a great many native allies, at last could see for himself the temples and palaces about which he had heard so many marvels. When they reached a locality known as Xoloco, they were welcomed by the last of the Motecuhzomas, who had come out to meet them in the belief that the white men must be Quetzalcoatll and other gods, returning at last from across the waters now known as the Gulf of Mexico.
1775 Washington seeks to make militias into a military. On this day in 1775, General George Washington seeks to resolve several problems facing the army: how to encourage experienced troops to enlist, how to assemble a capable officer corps and how to overcome provincial differences and rivalries. Describing the problems, he wrote, "Connecticut wants no Massachusetts man in her corps. Massachusetts thinks there is no necessity for a Rhode Islander..."
Just as the British had discovered the difficulties of waging war with obstreperous Yankees for soldiers during the Seven Years' War, Washington, the Virginia planter-cum-soldier, was unimpressed upon meeting his supposed army outside Boston after being appointed commander in chief of Continental forces in 1775. He saw "stupidity" among the enlisted men, who were used to the easy familiarity of being commanded by neighbors in local militias with elected officers. Washington promptly insisted that the officers behave with decorum and the enlisted men with deference. Although he enjoyed some success with this original army, the New Englanders went home to their farms at the end of 1775, and Washington had to start fresh with new recruits in 1776.
Washington fought an uphill battle for military order until Friedrich von Steuben arrived at the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778. The Prussian military officer commenced training soldiers in close-order drill, instilling new confidence and discipline in the demoralized Continental Army. Before von Steuben's arrival, colonial American soldiers were notorious for their slovenly camp conditions. Von Steuben insisted on reorganization to establish basic hygiene, ordering that kitchens and latrines be put on opposite sides of the camp, with latrines facing a downhill slope. Just having latrines was a novelty to the Continental troops, who were accustomed to living in their own filth.
On the merit of his efforts at Valley Forge, Washington recommended that von Steuben be named inspector general of the Continental Army; Congress complied. In this capacity, von Steuben propagated his methods throughout the Patriot forces by circulating his "Blue Book," entitled "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States."
1789 Bourbon Whiskey, first distilled from corn (by Elijah Craig, Bourbon KY) The name Bourbon is due to the fact that the first whisky distilled in Kentucky was obtained from ground maize at the mill of one Elijah Craig, in Georgetown, Bourbon County. It was called Bourbon County Whisky at first, and the name Bourbon Whisky has been used ever since for whisky distilled wholly or chiefly from maize.
1804 The first U.S. patent for a separable electric attachment plug was issued to Harvey Hubbell of Bridgeport, Connecticut (No. 774,250). The plugs were first manufactured by Harvey Hubbell, Inc.
1837 Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later becomes Mount Holyoke College. It is the nation's oldest college for women. Mary insisted the school not be named after her, so it was named for a nearby mountain peak. Its motto was Psalm 144:12, "That our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similitude of a palace."
1861 American Civil War: The "Trent Affair" The USS San Jacinto stops the United Kingdom mail ship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US.
1864 Abraham Lincoln elected to his 2nd term as President. The Lincoln/Johnson ticket ran with the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of a stream," and over time a series of Union victories culminating in the capture of Atlanta, Georgia by forces led by General William Tecumseh Sherman restored Lincoln's popularity. The Republican/Union party made an all-out effort, ridiculing McClellan for his pacifist platform and denouncing Democrats as traitorous Copperheads. On November 8, Lincoln won by over 400,000 popular votes and easily clinched an electoral majority.
1870 The first storm warning was issued by the U.S. Signal Corps Weather Service. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
1880 Sarah Bernhardt made her American stage debut. Bernhardt appeared in "Adrienne Lecouvreur" in New York City. Her stage career started in 1862, when she was a student at the Comedie Francaise, a prestigious French academy for acting. She made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and was soon in demand all over Europe and in the United States in New York
1889 Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.
1892 The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
1901 Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.
1904 Émile Combs (1835–1921), French anti-clericalist politician, introduced a bill for the separation of church and state in France. The bill passed in December 1905, thereby ending the Concordat of 1801 and allowing complete liberty of conscience.
1910 The first U.S. patent for an "electric insect destroyer" was issued to William H. Frost of Spokane, Washington (No. 974,785). The invention used a number of electrically energized parallel wires such that a flying insect passing between them would complete the circuit by bridging the wires with its body and electrocute the insect. The patent describes using fine wire and tensioners to keep the parallel segments taut. The charge on the wires could be supplied using an induction coil and a battery. The form of the device could be as a flat frame, or as a cylindrical arrangement surrounding a light to attract the insects into the charged cage.
1925 Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, Illinois, was dedicated.
1931 Fredrick Allison, working in Alabama, reported (erroneously) the discovery of "alabamine", element 85, now known as astatine, the heaviest halogen. Astatine was first synthesized and correctly identified in 1940 by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles (Corson, MacKenzie, and Segré). All astatine isotopes are highly radioactive and very short lived. Thus the amount of astatine in nature is too small for Allison to have detected, using his own "Magneto-Optic Method of Chemical Analysis," (also debunked.) In the 1920's and 30's, scientists were eager to find the elements 85 and 87, as predicted by Mendeleev. Allison's reported discovery was premature because of poor experimental design and experimenter bias.
1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected the 32d President of the United States defeating Herbert Hoover.
1933 Great Depression: New Deal --US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.
1934 Ford C Frick becomes president of baseball's National League. In 1934 Frick became NL public relations director and succeeded the ailing William Heydler as NL president the next year. One of Frick's first acts as NL President was an enthusiastic endorsement of the proposed National Baseball Museum and a suggestion to include a Hall of Fame to honor the game's greats.
1935 A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization charged with advancing industrial unionism.
1939 In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
1939 “Life with Father” longest running Broadway drama opens (closes 1947) The 1939 Broadway play ran for over seven years to become the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway, a record that it still holds. It opened at the Empire Theatre on November 8, 1939 and remained there until September 8, 1945. It continued to be performed on Broadway until July 12, 1947 and closed after 3,224 performances.
1940 The first National Football League championship was aired on national radio. The Chicago Bears beat the Washington Redskins, 73-0
1942 World War II: Operation Torch -- United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
1942 World War II: French resistance coup in Algiers, in which 400 civilian French patriots neutralize Vichyist XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of fighting, and arrest several Vichyst generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.
1943 An early season snowstorm raged across eastern South Dakota and Minnesota into northern Wisconsin. The storm produced 22 inches of snow at Fairbult and Marshall MN, 20 inches at Redwood Falls MN, and 10.1 inches at Minneapolis. Drifts fifteen feet high were reported in Cottonwood County MN. The storm produced up to two feet of snow in South Dakota smothering a million Thanksgiving day turkeys. (6th-8th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1950 Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, while piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight in history.
1951 Yogi Berra is the AL MVP. On November 8, 1951, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is voted the American League’s most valuable player for the first time in his career. St. Louis Browns’ ace pitcher and slugger Ned Garver almost won the award--in fact, a representative from the Baseball Writers Association of America phoned him and told him that he had won it--but after a recount it turned out that Berra had edged Garver out by a nose. "It’s great to be classed with fellows like DiMaggio and Rizzuto who have won the award," Berra told reporters that night. "I sure hope I can win it a couple of more times, like Joe did." He went on to be the league MVP twice more, in 1954 and 1955.
Berra had had a great season, for the most part--he’d been the Yanks’ leading slugger, with 27 homers and 88 RBI--but he’d had a dramatic slump near the end of the year. His teammate Allie Reynolds, meanwhile, had pitched two no-hitters in 1951, and Garver had won 20 games and batted .305 for the Browns, a "collection of old rags and tags" that had only managed to win 32 games that Garver wasn’t pitching. In the face of these performances, Berra was sure he wouldn’t win the award. "I was afraid I had blown it with the bad finish," he said.
In fact, it was one of the closest MVP races ever. Each member of the baseball writers’ association voted by naming the league’s 10 best players and then ranking them. A first-place vote got a player 14 points; second place was worth nine, third place eight, and so on. When the votes were tallied, the player with the most points overall won the MVP. Berra, Garver and Reynolds actually had the same number of first-place votes--six each--but Yogi squeaked by on his second-, third- and fourth-place points. (His final score was 187; Garver’s was 157; and Reynolds’ was 125.)
Berra was only the second catcher to win the AL MVP prize. (Mickey Cochrane was the first.) That same year, another catcher--Roy Campanella of the Dodgers--was the NL MVP.
1953 - Residents of New York City suffered through ten days of smog resulting in 200 deaths. (The Weather Channel)
1953 Kosaku Nao, the first Missouri Synod Japanese pastor, was installed at Kugenuma.
1954 AL approves Philadelphia A's move to Kansas City
1956 Cecile B. Demille's "The Ten Commandments" was copyright registered. The Ten Commandments was a 1956 epic film from Paramount Pictures in VistaVision directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which tells in the broadest Hollywood style the Bible story of Moses (Charlton Heston) as he struggles to get Pharaoh Ramesses II (Yul Brynner) to let the Israelites leave Egypt. It is the 5th highest grossing movie of all time, adjusted for inflation, with collections of $838,400,000.
1957 Operation Grapple X, Round C1: Britain conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test over Kiritimati in the Pacific.
1960 JFK (MA-D-Sen) beats VP Richard Nixon (R) for President. John F. Kennedy, a wealthy Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was elected president in 1960, defeating Vice President Richard Nixon. Though he clearly won the electoral vote, Kennedy's received only 118,000 more votes than Nixon in this close election. John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.
The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many observers believed that Kennedy's poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. Issues, however, also played a role in the election, and the nation's foreign policy was a major bone of contention between Kennedy and Nixon. Nixon took every opportunity to characterize Kennedy as too young and inexperienced to handle the awesome responsibilities of America's Cold War diplomacy. (Nixon was, in fact, only a few years older than Kennedy.) He defended the past eight years of Republican rule, arguing that Soviet power had been contained and America's strength increased. Kennedy responded by portraying foreign policy during the Eisenhower years as stagnant and reactionary. In particular, he charged the Republicans with losing Cuba and allowing a dangerous "missile gap" to develop, in which the Soviets had overtaken the United States in the building of missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Kennedy promised to reinvigorate America's foreign policy, relying on a flexible response to changing situations and exploring options ignored by the staid and conservative Eisenhower administration.
Kennedy claimed during the campaign that he looked forward to meeting the challenges facing the strongest nation in the Free World. He did not have long to wait before those challenges were upon him. During the first few months of the Kennedy presidency, Nixon's criticisms seemed to have some validity. Kennedy appeared overwhelmed, first by the catastrophic failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, then by a blustering Nikita Khrushchev during a summit meeting in Europe, and finally by the construction of the Berlin Wall. And there was also the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia to consider.
1962 Sun sets on the Ford Rotunda. On this day in 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stands in Dearborn, Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is destroyed in a massive fire. Some 1.5 million people visited the Rotunda each year, making it the fifth most popular tourist attraction in the U.S. (behind Niagara Falls, Smokey Mountain National Park, the Smithsonian, and the Lincoln Memorial).
Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to Dearborn when the fair ended. It was 130 feet high and designed to look like a stack of gears surrounding a 92-foot-wide courtyard. (In 1952, an 18,000-pound dome was added over the courtyard; it was the first real-world application of inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's lightweight geodesic dome.) Outside, the building's steel frame was covered in 114,000 square feet of Indiana limestone; inside, the walls were covered in murals showing the River Rouge assembly line. On the Rotunda's grounds were 19 "reproductions" of what Ford called the Roads of the World: the Appian Way, the Grand Trunk Road, the Oregon Trail and Detroit's Woodward Avenue.
Many people who grew up near Detroit during the 1950s remember the Rotunda for its spectacular Christmas displays. Every year since 1953, it had had a 37-foot-tall tree, an elaborate Santa's workshop and a life-size Nativity that the National Council of Churches called the "largest and finest" in the country. Each year's installation had a different theme: the 1958 display boasted a 15,000-piece hand-carved miniature circus, for instance, and the 1962 show was scheduled to be a woodland tableau featuring 2,500 dolls.
While workmen were preparing the Rotunda for that display, someone overturned a firepot or heater on the building's tar roof. Just after lunch, an employee spotted flames on the ceiling of the main floor. "Within a few minutes after the first alarm," The New York Times reported, "the octagonal top of the building resembled a huge chimney, with smoke and fumes pouring out." Workers evacuated, and the building burned to the ground in less than an hour. A group of schoolchildren visiting the Rotunda from South Bend watched in horror from a cafeteria across the street.
It would have cost at least $15 million to rebuild the Rotunda. The company opted not to spend the money, and razed the building's remains instead. Today, a satellite campus of the Michigan Technical Education Center stands in its place.
1964 Mickey Wright shoots a 62, lowest golf score for a woman pro. Wright won the U.S. Women's Open and the LPGA Championship four times each. She won the Vare Trophy five times, was the leading money winner four times, twice had winning streaks of four straight tournaments and held LPGA records for lowest round (62), lowest nine-hole score (30) and most birdies in a round (nine). Mickey Wright shot 9-under 62 at the 1964 Tall City Open.
1965 The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War, while the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment fight one of the first set-piece engagements of the war between Australian forces and the Vietcong at the Battle of Gang Toi.
1965 Lawrence Joel earns Medal of Honor. For action this day in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon, Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade earns the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living African American since the Spanish-American War to receive the nation's highest award for valor.
When his unit was outnumbered in an attack by an enemy force, Specialist Joel, who suffered a severe leg wound in the early stages of the battle, continued to administer aid to his wounded comrades. Wounded a second time—with a bullet lodged deep in his lungs—Joel continued to treat the wounded, completely disregarding the battle raging around him and his own safety. Even after the 24-hour battle had subsided, Joel, a 38-year-old father of two, continued to treat and comfort the wounded until his own evacuation was ordered.
President Johnson presented the Medal of Honor to Specialist Joel on March 9, 1967, in ceremonies held on the South Lawn of the White House.
1965 "Days of Our Lives" premiers on TV. Days of our Lives debuted on November 8, 1965, and can still be viewed weekdays on NBC. Originally, the show revolved solely around the Horton family, and has since expanded to tell the stories of other families, such as the Alamain, Brady, DiMera, Kiriakis, Black, Deveraux, Chandler, Johnson, and Lockhart clans.
1966 Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
1966 Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected governor of California
1966 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.
1966 The temperature in downtown San Francisco reached a November record of 86 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
1969 "Wedding Bell Blues" by 5th Dimension topped the charts. "Wedding Bell Blues" was the second of two #1 hits for the group. The first was "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." It was written by Laura Nyro, whose 1967 version enjoyed modest success. The group recorded this as an in-joke as members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. were engaged at the time. Producer Bones Howe thought it would be funny for McCoo to sing the first line, "Bill, I love you so" to Davis.
1970 Tom Dempsey of New Orleans Saints kicks NFL record 63 yard field goal. Dempsey was born without toes on his right foot (which was his kicking foot). He wore a modified shoe with a flattened and enlarged toe area, giving somewhat the appearance of a hammer. He used a straight approach to kick the ball as opposed to the "soccer style" used by nearly all place kickers today. Tom Dempsey's record 63-yard field goal with 2 seconds to play in 1970 that enabled New Orleans to beat Detroit 19-17 on the game's final play.
1973 Walt Disney's "Robin Hood" is released. Robin Hood, played as a fox, teams up with his band of outlaws including Little John (a bear), and Friar Tuck (a badger) to "steal from the rich to feed the poor" of Nottingham which is being taxed into oblivion by Prince John (a weak, sniveling lion) and his followers Sir Hiss (a snake) and the Sheriff of Nottingham (a wolf). King Richard (a strong lion) had left for the crusades and Prince John took his place on the throne. It was the first release following Walt's death.
1980 Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California announced the discovery of a 15th moon orbiting the planet Saturn, courtesy of Voyager I.
1983 W Wilson Goode (D) elected first Black mayor of Philadelphia
1984 Anna Fisher becomes the first "mom" to go into orbit. Dr. Fisher was a mission specialist on STS-51A, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, FL, on November 8, 1984. She was accompanied by Captain Frederick (Rick) Hauck (spacecraft commander), Captain David M. Walker (pilot), and fellow mission specialists, Dr. Joseph P. Allen, and Commander Dale H. Gardner. This was the second flight of the orbiter Discovery.
1984 The first attempt to rescue two crippled satellites scheduled on Discovery's mission. In the first space salvage mission in history the crew retrieved for return to earth the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI satellites. STS-51A completed 127 orbits of the Earth before landing at Kennedy Space Center, FL, on November 16, 1984.
1986 "Amanda" by Boston topped the charts. "Amanda" was the only #1 hit for Boston. After this became a hit, the previous 2 Boston albums re-entered the US chart.
1987 Thunderstorms over Texas produced locally heavy rains in the Hill Country, with 3.50 inches reported at Lakeway, and 3.72 inches reported at Anderson Mill. Thunderstorms over Louisiana produced hail an inch in diameter at Clay and at Provencial. Blustery northwest winds, ushering cold air into western Kansas and into northwest Texas, gusted to 46 mph at Hill City KS. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1991 The Carol Burnette Show premieres on CBS-TV.
1994 The Republican Revolution. For the first time in 40 years, the Republican Party wins control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections. Led by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who subsequently replaced Democrat Tom Foley of Washington as speaker of the House, the empowered GOP united under the "Contract with America," a 10-point legislative plan to reduce federal taxes, balance the budget, and dismantle social welfare programs established during six decades of mostly Democratic rule in Congress.
Gingrich's House of Representatives, home to the majority of the Republican freshmen, led the "Republican Revolution" by passing every bill incorporated in the Contract with America--with the exception of a term-limits constitutional amendment--within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress.
1994 Salvatore "Sonny" Bono is elected to the U.S. Congress. If you had made a friendly wager back in 1974 as to which recent or current pop-music figure might go on to serve in the United States Congress in 20 years' time, you might have picked someone with an apparent political agenda, like Joan Baez, or at least one who was associated with some kind of cause, like nature-lover John Denver. You almost certainly wouldn't have placed your bet on Sonny Bono, a singer of arguably limited talents who appeared content to stand, literally and figuratively, in the shadow of his far more popular wife, Cher. It was indeed Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, however, who had a future in elective politics—a future that included his election to the United States House of Representatives from California's 44th Congressional District on this day in 1994
Sonny Bono fell almost completely out of the public eye following the cancellation of The Sonny and Cher Show in 1977. While his ex-wife and erstwhile musical partner, Cher, launched a hugely successful second phase of her career with well-received acting roles in the 1980s, Sonny left the spotlight behind to focus on the restaurant business. Although he presented himself as a none-too-bright bumbler during his days on television, Bono had been an astute operator in shepherding his and Cher's early musical career and in his later business dealings. The owner of several successful restaurants, Bono got involved in politics after growing frustrated with the bureaucratic hurdles placed before one of his restaurant construction projects by local officials in Palm Springs, California, in the late 1980s. Though he himself had registered to vote for the first time only one year earlier, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs in 1988. Following a failed run in the California Republican Senatorial primary in 1992, Bono turned his attention to the 44th District's Congressional seat in 1994. A conservative Republican, Bono was swept into office as part of the Newt Gingrich-led Republican "revolution" that year, and he was re-elected in 1996.
During his time in office, Bono did not treat his fellow lawmakers to any singing performances, but the man behind the hits "I Got You Babe" (1965) and "The Beat Goes On" (1967) did trade on his public persona as a good-natured, non-threatening nice guy. As The Washington Post noted in its obituary following Bono's death in a skiing accident in 1996, "Bono brought to Congress a rare skill: He could make lawmakers—even the most pompous among them—laugh at themselves." Or as President Bill Clinton said, ""His joyful entertainment of millions earned him celebrity, but in Washington he earned respect by being a witty and wise participant in policymaking processes that often seem ponderous to the American people."
1997 Johnny Paycheck officially became a member of "The Grand Ole Opry"
2000 A statewide recount began in Florida, which emerged as critical in deciding the winner of the 2000 presidential election
2000 Joey Chestnut consumes a world record 50 meatballs in 10 minutes. Joey Chestnut won the Martorano's Masters Meatball Eating Championship in Las Vegas gobbling 50 meatballs in 10 minutes. The 6.25 pounds was a world record and earned him $1500. Chestnut's resume also includes hot dog, pizza, and chicken wing eating competitions. Burp!
2003 The Harris Theater opens, commencing a renaissance in the Chicago performing arts community.
2004 War in Iraq: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
Births
1732 John Dickinson (d 1808) American lawyer and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. He was a militia officer during the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware and President of Pennsylvania. Among the wealthiest men in the British American colonies, he is known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; upon receiving news of his death, President Thomas Jefferson recognized him as being "among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain" whose "name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."[1] He is the namesake of Dickinson College.
1827 Gotthardt Dellman Bernheim, in Prussia, Lutheran pastor and educator in the Carolinas, (d 25 Oct 1916).
1836 Milton Bradley (d 1911), American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company.
1847 Hermann Daniel Uhlig, pioneer deaf missionary, (d. 15 Aug 1913).
1849 The first cornerstone was laid for Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis.
1881 Frank Gouldsmith Speck (d 1950) American cultural anthropologist and ethnographer of the Eastern Woodland Indians, who chose to study and preserve knowledge of their culture. As a boy, he lived with Fidelia Fielding, a Native American, and the last speaker of her tribal language, from whom he learned the Mohegan language and literature. With this rich background, at university he began study of anthropological linguistics, encouraged by anthropologist Franz Boas. Speck spent his career in extensive fieldwork. By staying with the Indian comunities he earned the trust of the tribes. He reconstructed scattered remnants of ritual and lore into an extensive record. He collected arts and crafts as artifacts of the material culture, and was a pioneer in ethnoscience and ethnomusicology.
1889 Oswald J. Smith, Canadian clergyman, author and composer of hymns, was born (d. 25 Jan 1986).
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/m/i/smith_oj.htm
1896 Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris (d 1977) Major League Baseball player, manager and executive. In 1975, the Veterans Committee elected Harris, as a manager, to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1897 Dorothy Day (d 1980) American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an Christian anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.
1900 Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (d 1949) American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her epic novel Gone with the Wind, her only major publication. This novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies (see list of best-selling books). The film adaptation of it, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and it received a record-breaking ten Academy Awards (a record since eclipsed by Ben Hur, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Titanic). Mitchell has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 1¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
1908 Martha Gellhorn (d 1998) American novelist, travel writer and journalist, considered to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century.[who?] She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career. Gellhorn was also the third wife of American novelist Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945. At the age of 89, ill and nearly completely blind, she committed suicide. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is named after her
1920 Esther Rolle (d 1998) American actress of stage and television. She was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Florida Evans on the CBS television sitcom Maude and its spin-off Good Times.
1921 Jerome A. Hines, Jerome Albert Link Heinz (d 2003) basso opera singer who was associated with the Metropolitan Opera for many years. His height (6ft 6 inches, or 2m), stage presence and stentorian voice made him ideal for such roles as Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Mephistopheles in Faust, Ramfis in Aida, the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos, the title role of Boris Godunov and King Mark in Tristan und Isolde. A born-again Christian and member of the Salvation Army, Hines composed an opera on the life of Jesus, I Am the Way. He sang the role of Jesus at the Met in 1968 and performed the work many times around the world.
1923 Jack St. Clair Kilby (d 2005) Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at Texas Instruments (TI). He is also the inventor of the handheld calculator and thermal printer.
1927 Clara Ann Fowler known by her professional name Patti Page, American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records. Her nickname is The Singin' Rage.
1929 Robert Cleckler "Bobby" Bowden Birmingham, Alabama, retired college football coach. He coached the Florida State Seminoles football team from the 1976 to 2009 seasons. During his time at Florida State, Bowden led FSU to an Associated Press and Coaches Poll National Title in 1993 and a BCS National Championship in 1999, as well as twelve Atlantic Coast Conference championships since FSU joined the conference in 1991. After a difficult 2009 season and amid questioning fans, Bowden announced his retirement from FSU on December 1, 2009, just weeks after his 80th birthday. His final coaching appearance was the 2010 Gator Bowl game on January 1, 2010, with a 33-21 victory over his former program, West Virginia.
1931 Morley Safer Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.
Deaths
1674 John Milton, philosopher, hymnist, poet and theologian (b. 9 Dec 1608).
1877 Rebekah Hope Taylor (nee Morley), hymn translator. She was a daughter of S. Morley, M.P., and married H. W. Taylor, a member of the Plymouth Brethren. She contributed to the Enlarged London Hymn Book (1873). Her Letters were published in 1878. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 586]
1880 Edwin Laurentine Drake (b 1819) American driller of the first productive oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, that launched the modern U.S. petroleum industry. A former railroad conductor, his success in hitting oil was based on his belief that drilling would be the best way to obtain petroleum from the earth. He organized Seneca Oil Co., leased land, and on August 27, 1859, struck oil at a depth of 69 feet. Drake used an old steam engine to power the drill. After his well began to produce oil, other prospectors drilled wells nearby. Other men, with better business sense, grew rich from the oil boom, yet Drake died in poverty, after years of crippling illnesses.
1887 John Henry "Doc" Holliday, American gambler gunslinger, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis. (b. 1851)
Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and advised a move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas.
By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice. Unfortunately, cards interested him more than teeth, and he earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout. Thereafter, the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at card tables and aggravating his tuberculosis with heavy drinking and late nights.
Holliday was famously friendly with Wyatt Earp, who believed that Holliday saved his life during a fight with cowboys. For his part, Holliday was a loyal friend to Earp, and stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bloody feud that followed.
In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, forcing him to seek treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He died in his bed at only 36 years old.
1920 Abraham Kuyper (b. 29 Oct 1837), Dutch Calvinist theologian and statesman
1928 Robert Battey (b 1828) Augusta, Georgia, a surgeon in the Nineteenth Georgia Volunteer Regiment during the War between the States. Dr. Battey’s field of study was in gynecology and was well known all over Europe because of the procedure known as "Battey's Operation". On August 27, 1872 he performed the first successful Oophorectomy in Rome, Georgia. The patient, Julie Omberg, had diseased ovaries and lived to be 80 years old. There was lynch mob waiting for Dr. Battey, if he failed the operation. In 1873, he became professor of obstetrics at the Atlanta Medical College where he stayed until 1875. Dr. Battey continued to practice medicine until his death on November 8, 1895.
1934 James Mark Baldwin (b 1861) Philosopher and theoretical psychologist who exerted influence on American psychology during its formative period in the 1890s. Concerned with the relation of Darwinian evolution to psychology, he favoured the study of individual differences, stressed the importance of theory for psychology, and was critical of narrow experimentalism.
1959 Frank Sherman Land, founder of DeMolay International (b. 1890)
1965 Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (b 1913) American journalist and television game show panelist known nationally for her coverage of the Sam Sheppard trial, her syndicated newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, and her role as panelist on the television game show What's My Line?.
1969 Vesto Melvin Slipher (b 1875) American astronomer whose systematic observations (1912-25) of the extraordinary radial velocities of spiral galaxies provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory. Died at Flagstaff, Ariz.
1974 Ivory Joe Hunter (b 1914) African American R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist, best known for his hit recording, "Since I Met You, Baby" (1956). Billed as The Baron of the Boogie, he was also known as The Happiest Man Alive.
1978 Norman Percevel Rockwell (b 1894) 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades.[1] Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter (although his Rosie was reproduced less than others of the day), Saying Grace (1951), and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his work for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA); producing covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations.
1983 Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (b 1881), rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator, the ideologue of Reconstructionist Judaism which he founded with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.
1994 Michael O'Donoghue (b 1940) 20th century American writer and performer. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, was a major contributor to National Lampoon magazine, and was the first head writer of the highly influential American television program Saturday Night Live.
2003 Lucy Douglas Cochrane (b 1920) American stage actress, author, columnist, horsewoman, fashion designer, and socialite who achieved a degree of fame as a fashion icon. She was frequently seen wearing elegant designs by famous designers like Mainbocher. Her unfussy, clean-cut style was seen as typically American.
2010 Jack Levine, American painter (b. 1915)
2010 Quintin Dailey, American basketball player (b. 1961)
2010 Alex Fagan, American law enforcement official (b. 1950)
2011 Bil Keane, American cartoonist (b. 1922)
Christian Feast Day:
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity (Roman Catholic Church)
Four Crowned Martyrs
Godfrey of Amiens
Willehad of Bremen
November 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the other Bodiless Powers: the Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Salaphiel, Jegudiel, and Barachiel
Righteous Martha, princess of Pskov (1300)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_8
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_08.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov08.html
www.christianhistorytimeline.com/lives_events/birthday/index.php
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.history.com/
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_8_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1108.htm