United States History: November 11

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[glow=red,2,300]Veterans' Day [/glow]

November 11 is the 316th day of this leap year, in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year.

Veterans Day is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. A federal holiday, it is observed on November 11. It is also celebrated as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in other parts of the world, falling on November 11, the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)

The holiday is commonly printed as Veteran's Day or Veterans' Day in calendars and advertisements. While these spellings are grammatically acceptable, the United States government has declared that the attributive (no apostrophe) rather than the possessive case is the official spelling.

The U.S. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. In proclaiming the holiday, he said

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with lots of pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

The United States Congress passed a concurrent resolution seven years later on June 4, 1926, requesting that the President (Calvin Coolidge) issue another proclamation to observe November 11 with appropriate ceremonies. An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday; "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."

In 1953, an Emporia, Kansas shoe store owner named Alfred King had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who served in World War I. King had been actively involved with the American War Dads during World War II. He began a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. The Emporia Chamber of Commerce took up the cause after determining that 90% of Emporia merchants as well as the Board of Education supported closing their doors on November 11 to honor veterans. With the help of then-U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, also from Emporia, a bill for the holiday was pushed through Congress. President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on May 26, 1954.

Congress amended this act on June 1, 1954, replacing "Armistice" with Veterans, and it has been known as Veterans Day since.

Although originally scheduled for celebration on November 11 of every year, starting in 1971 in accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday of October. In 1978 it was moved back to its original celebration on November 11. Since this change, there has been a trend against being closed on the holiday. It began with businesses (excluding banks) and in recent years some schools and local governments have also chosen to remain open.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Day

Thanks to all veterans!

1215 The Fourth Lateran Council was convened by Pope Innocent III (ca. 1161–1216), meeting until 30 November.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Council_of_the_Lateran

1417 The Council of Constance, by making Martin V (ca. 1368–1431) pope, ended the long-lasting Western papal schism.

1620 Forty-one pilgrims land in Massachusetts, sign Mayflower Compact (just & equal laws). In making this compact, the Pilgrims drew upon two strong traditions. One was the notion of a social contract, which dated back to biblical times and which would receive fuller expression in the works of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke later in the century. The other was the belief in covenants. Puritans believed that covenants existed not only between God and man, but also between man and man. The Pilgrims had used covenants in establishing their congregations in the Old World. Text:

In the name of God,
Amen.
We whose names
are underwritten,
the loyal subjects
of our dread Sovereign
Lord King James,
by the Grace of God
of Great Britain,
France
and Ireland,
King,
Defender of the Faith,
etc.
Having undertaken,
for the Glory of God
and advancement of the Christian Faith
and Honour of our King and Country,
a Voyage to plant the First Colony
in the Northern Parts of Virginia,
do by these presents
solemnly
and mutually
in the presence of God
and one of another,
Covenant
and Combine
ourselves together
into a Civil Body Politic,
for our better
ordering
and preservation
and furtherance
of the ends aforesaid;
and by virtue hereof
to enact,
constitute
and frame
such just and equal Laws,
Ordinances,
Acts,
Constitutions
and Offices,
from time to time,
as shall be thought most meet
and convenient
for the general good
of the Colony,
unto which we promise
all due submission
and obedience.
In witness whereof
we have hereunder
subscribed our names
at Cape Cod,
the 11th of November,
in the year of the reign
of our Sovereign Lord King James,
of England,
France
and Ireland
the eighteenth,
and of Scotland the fifty-fourth.
Anno Domini 1620.

Mr. John Carver
William Bradford
Mr. Edward Winslow
Mr. William Brewster
Mr. Isaac Allerton
Capt. Myles Standish
John Alden
Mr. Samuel Fuller
Mr. Christopher Martin
Mr. William Mullins
Mr. William White
Mr. Richard Warren
John Howland
Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Edward Tilley
John Tilley
Francis Cooke
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Rigsdale
Edward Fuller

John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Crackstone
John Billington
Moses Fletcher
John Goodman
Degory Priest
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmund Margeson
Peter Browne
Richard Britteridge
George Soule
Richard Clarke
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Thomas English
Edward Doty
Edward Lester

[/quote]


1647 Massachusetts passes first US compulsory school attendance law.

1750 The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Hat_Club

1778 On this day in 1778, Patriot Colonel Ichabod Alden refuses to believe intelligence about an approaching hostile force. As a result, a combined force of Loyalists and Native Americans, attacking in the snow, killed more than 40 Patriots, including Alden, and took at least an additional 70 prisoners, in what is known today as the Cherry Valley Massacre. The attack took place east of Cooperstown, New York, in what is now Otsego County.

Alden was a New Englander from Duxbury, Massachusetts, who began his military career in the Plymouth militia before serving in the 25th Continental regiment during the siege of Boston that followed the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775. Alden was then sent to command the 7th Massachusetts Regiment in Cherry Valley, New York, where he was strategically out of his depth in a state deeply divided between Loyalists and Patriots and with a significant Native American military presence.

Alden ignored warnings that local natives were planning an attack and left the 200 to 300 men stationed to defend Cherry Valley ill-prepared for the eventual arrival of 600 Iroquois under the adept command of Chief Joseph Brant and 200 men, known as Butler’s Rangers, under the command of Loyalist Major Walter Butler. (The Rangers had been trained by Walter’s father, Colonel John Butler.)

Ironically, on November 11, 1775, exactly three years before this so-called massacre executed by aggrieved Iroquois, the Continental Congress had engaged the missionary Samuel Kirkland to spread the "Gospel amongst the Indians," and confirm "their affections to the United Colonies... thereby preserving their friendship and neutrality."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Valley_massacre

1790 Chrysanthemums are introduced into England from China.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum#History

1793 Missionary William Carey (1761–1834) arrived at Calcutta.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carey_(missionary)

1831 Nat Turner, the leader of a bloody slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, is hanged in Jerusalem, the county seat.

Turner, a slave and educated minister, believed that he was chosen by God to lead his people out of slavery. On August 21, 1831, he initiated his slave uprising by slaughtering Joseph Travis, his slave owner, and Travis' family. With seven followers, Turner set off across the countryside, hoping to rally hundreds of slaves to join his insurrection. Turner planned to capture the county armory at Jerusalem, Virginia, and then march 30 miles to Dismal Swamp, where his rebels would be able to elude their pursuers.

During the next two days and nights, Turner and 75 followers rampaged through Southampton County, killing about 60 whites. Local whites resisted the rebels, and then the state militia--consisting of some 3,000 men--crushed the rebellion. Only a few miles from Jerusalem, Turner and all his followers were dispersed, captured, or killed. In the aftermath of the rebellion, scores of African Americans were lynched, though many of them had not participated in the revolt. Turner himself was not captured until the end of October, and after confessing without regret to his role in the bloodshed, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. On November 11, he was hanged in Jerusalem.

Turner's rebellion was the largest slave revolt in U.S. history and led to a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of slaves.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner

1839 The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratline_%28tradition%29

1851 The first U.S. patent for a telescope design was issued to Alvan Clark of Cambridge, Mass. (No. 8,509). Clark was a portrait painter who was interested in astronomy as were so many others at that time. He had made several small lenses and mirrors as a hobby. The fact that he could detect the small residual errors in one of the the best lenses Europe could offer convinced him that he could do as well. After he gained a reputation in Europe the American orders started to come in. The Alvin Clark Company became one of the foremost producers of some of the largest lenses for telescopes in the 1800's.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvan_Clark

1852 Louisa May Alcott publishes her first story. On this day, the Saturday Evening Gazette publishes "The Rival Painters: A Story of Rome," by Louisa May Alcott, who will later write the beloved children's book Little Women (1868).

Alcott, the second of four daughters, was born in Pennsylvania but spent most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts. Her father, Bronson, was close friends with Transcendentalist thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose progressive attitudes toward education and social issues left a strong mark on Louisa. Her father started a school based on Transcendentalist teachings, but after six years it failed, and he was unable to support the family and, afterward, Louisa dedicated most of her life to supporting them. After the publication of her first story, she made a living off sentimental and melodramatic stories for more than two decades.

In 1862 she went to work as a nurse for Union troops in the Civil War until typhoid fever broke her health. She turned her experiences into Hospital Sketches (1863), which established her reputation as a serious literary writer.

Looking for a bestseller, a publisher asked Alcott to write a book for girls. Although reluctant at first, Alcott finally agreed and poured her best talent into the work. The first volume of the serialized novel Little Women was an immediate success, and she began writing a chapter a day to finish the second. Her subsequent children's fiction, including Little Men (1871), An Old-fashioned Girl (1870), Eight Cousins (1875), and Jo's Boys (1886), while not as popular as Little Women, are still enjoyed today. She also wrote many short stories for adults. She became a strong supporter of women's issues and spent most of her life caring for her family financially, emotionally, and physically. Her father died in March 1888, and she followed him just two days later.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_May_Alcott

1856 English inventor, Henry Bessemer was issued US Patent No. 16,082 for his "Manufacture of Iron and Steel" process, having previously taken out British patent for his "decarbonization process, utilizing a blast of air" that revolutionised steel manufacturing (No. 66/1855, 10 Jan 1855). However, the U.S. patent was shortly challenged in a dispute over priority. The American William Kelly - though filing after Bessemer - was recognized as the first to actually use a blast of air into molten pig iron to make steel. Nevertheless, Bessemer benefitted from his patent on the tilting converter in which he processed the iron and then could pour out the molten steel.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bessemer

1865 Mary Edwards Walker, first Army female surgeon, awarded Medal of Honor. In September 1863, Walker received a civilian appointment as assistant surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland. Not long after she was appointed assistant surgeon to the 52d Ohio Infantry. During this assignment, she continually crossed through Confederate lines to treat civilians as well as military personnel, and it is generally accepted that she also served as a Union spy. She was taken prisoner by Confederate troops in 1864 and was imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia. After four months of captivity, she and several other Union medical personnel were exchanged for 17 Confederate doctors. President Johnson signed a bill on November 11, 1865 to present her with the Medal of Honor for meritorious service during the Civil War since existing law did not allow him to bestow a commission upon her.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker

1887 Anarchist Haymarket Riot Participants August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Spies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

1889 Washington is admitted as the 42nd U.S. state.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state)

1901 NABISCO was trademark registered. In 1898, the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company merged over 100 bakeries into the National Biscuit Company, later called Nabisco. Founders Adolphus Green and William Moore, orchestrated the merger and the company quickly rose to first place in the manufacturing and marketing of cookies and crackers in America.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabisco

1908 The Synod of Central Canada was organized at Toronto.
1911 Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.

1918 Armistice signed ending World War One. At 5 a.m., in Marshal Foch's railway car in the Forest of Compiegne, the Armistice between the Allied and Central Powers was signed, ending World War I effective at 11 a.m. At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle's imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.

On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia's ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the German army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium's ally, to declare war against Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the "Schlieffen Plan," which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France.

The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris. By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front—the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium—the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies' favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.

World War I was known as the "war to end all wars" because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict—the Treaty of Versailles of 1919—forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

In many places in Europe, a moment of silence in memory of the fallen soldiers is observed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day

1917 The United Lutheran Church in America was approved by the United Synod in the South at Salisbury, North Carolina. The merger occurred in 1918.

1919 The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_Massacre_(Washington)




1926 U.S. Route 66 is established.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66

1930 Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator

1921 President Harding dedicates Tomb of Unknown Soldier. Over 5,000 tickets had been distributed by the office of The Adjutant General for admission to the Memorial Amphitheater. The Marine Band opened the ceremony with the national anthem which was followed by the invocation, delivered by the Army Chief of Chaplains, Col. John T. Axton. At the conclusion of the period of silence the audience, accompanied by the band, sang "America." President Harding then delivered an address, paying tribute to the Unknown Soldier and pleading for an end to war. After a hymn sung by a quartet from the Metropolitan Opera Company, the President placed upon the casket of the Unknown Soldier the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. Hymns and scriptural readings followed, and to conclude the service the audience sang "Nearer My God to Thee."

1925 The discovery of cosmic rays was announced in Madison, Wisconsin by Robert A. Millikan who coined their name.

1925 Louis Armstrong records first of Hot Five & Hot Seven recordings. Louis Armstrong's Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings are considered the "Rosetta Stone" of jazz music, influencing every singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and even dancer from that point forward. Recorded between November 1925 and March 1929, these are the performances on which Armstrong firmly established jazz as the art of the improviser, wrote the ground rules of swing, taught the world to sing as it never had before, and made "scat" more than just slang for "go away."

1926 The University of Wisconsin announced that women could get college credit for a dance course offered by the school.



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1929 Andy Kirk and his his Twelve Clouds of Joy recorded "Froggy Bottom." Kirk grew up in Denver, CO, where he came under the musical tutelage of Paul Whiteman's father, Wilberforce Whiteman. His first job, as bass saxophonist and tuba player, came with the George Morrison Orchestra in 1918. In 1925 he relocated to Dallas and joined Terence Holder's Dark Clouds of Joy, a band he eventually took over in 1929, changing the name to the Clouds of Joy. He moved the band to Kansas City and there they made their first recordings in 1929-1930.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Kirk_(musician)

1933 "Great Black Blizzard" first great dust storm in the Great Plains. Cities and towns from Texas to Canada were feeling the effects of the "black blizzard" that struck the mid-west. This massive dust storm created sand drifts as high as six feet in areas of the country, burying roads and vehicles. As the worst drought in American history continues to turn over-farmed soil into dust, more of these devastating storms can be expected.

A powerful wind strips the topsoil from desiccated farmlands in South Dakota, one of a series of disastrous windstorms that year. The drought-ridden land of the Southern Plains became known as the Dust Bowl; it was useless to farmers, and only exacerbated the economic problems of the Great Depression. Within two days, dust from the South Dakota storm had reached all the way to Albany, New York.

Dust storms plagued the West throughout the 1930s and eventually the devastated area covered nearly 100 million acres. Rising like ominous black clouds on the horizon, the dust storms destroyed crops, choked livestock to death, and damaged human health. During 1938, the worst year of the dust storms, it is estimated that 850 million tons of topsoil disappeared with the winds. The size and scope of the problem have led some historians to call the Dust Bowl the worst environmental disaster in American history.

The cause of the Dust Bowl is still unclear. Widespread drought-which killed crops and turned the topsoil into a light powder-was undoubtedly a factor. However, some have argued that the farmers played their part by replacing native grasses with wheat and less hardy crops.

Whatever the causes, the Roosevelt administration responded to the Dust Bowl with a billion- dollar program to aid and educate farmers in soil conservation techniques that have become standard practice. After the rains returned in 1941, the region bloomed once again. Severe droughts have occurred since, but none have been as devastating as the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

1935 A record 72,395 feet was reached by Lt. Col. Albert William Stevens and Capt. Orvil Anderson, by helium balloon in a sealed gondola, Explorer II. This set a substratosphere record that stood for 21 years. They left from Rapid City, S.D. and spent 8 hrs in the air taking still and motion pictures in black and white and colour. They measured electrical conductivity and took samples of the stratosphere air, with an interest in the ozone layer, and captured spores floating miles-high in the atmosphere. They also carried fruit flies to study the effect of the rare stratosphere. Stevens was a skilled aerial photographer who took the first photograph (1930) showing the Earth's curvature, and the first pictures (1932) showing the moon's shadow on the Earth during a total lunar eclipse.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_William_Stevens

1938 Irving Berlin's”God Bless America” was first performed. In the fall of 1938, as war was again threatening Europe, Berlin decided to write a "peace" song. He recalled his "God Bless America" from twenty years earlier and made some alterations to reflect the different state of the world. Singer Kate Smith introduced the revised "God Bless America" during her radio broadcast on Armistice Day, 1938. The song was an immediate sensation; the sheet music was in great demand. Berlin soon established the God Bless America Fund, dedicating the royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

1940 "Mandrake the Magician" debuted on WOR radio in New York City. Mandrake first appeared on radio as a 15-minute serial on station WOR on November 11, 1940. The main characters, Mandrake, Lothar, and Princess Narda solved mysteries and battled evil until the series ended on February 6, 1942. Raymond Edward Johnson played Mandrake. His voice was ideal for the magician who chanted "invovo legem magicarum." Johnson is best remembered for his later work as Raymond, the host of Inner Sanctum Mysteries.

1940 World War II: Battle of Taranto -- The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.

1940 The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.

1940 Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U.S. Midwest.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day_Blizzard
www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+day+all+hell+broke+loose&sprefix=The+Day+All%2Cstripbooks%2C0


1942 On this day in 1942, Congress approves lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37.

In September 1940, Congress, by wide margins in both houses, passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act, and the first peacetime draft was imposed in the history of the United States. The registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later. There were some 20 million eligible young men—50 percent were rejected the very first year, either for health reasons or because 20 percent of those who registered were illiterate.

But by November 1942, with the United States now a participant in the war, and not merely a neutral bystander, the draft ages had to be expanded; men 18 to 37 were now eligible. Blacks were passed over for the draft because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. But this changed in 1943, when a "quota" was imposed, meant to limit the numbers of blacks drafted to reflect their numbers in the overall population, roughly 10.6 percent of the whole. Initially, blacks were restricted to "labor units," but this too ended as the war progressed, when they were finally used in combat.

By war's end, approximately 34 million men had registered; 10 million had been inducted into the military.


1942 World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.

1944 Frank Sinatra began a long and successful career with Columbia Records.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra

1944 NY Rangers set NHL record of 25 games without a win (0-21-4)

1946 NY Knicks' first game at Madison Sq Garden loses 78-68 to Chicago Stags

1950 "All My Love" by Patti Page topped the charts. Page's first hit, "Confess," came in 1947 and made her the first pop artist to overdub harmony vocals onto her own lead. Page gained her first million-seller in 1950 for "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming," which cashed in on the novelty effect of overdubbing (the added touch came with listing it as "the Patti Page Quartet"). Also in 1950, "All My Love" became her first number one hit and spent several weeks at the top. That same year produced the biggest hit of her career, "The Tennessee Waltz."

1960 A coup attempt by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam against President Ngo Dinh Diem was crushed after Diem falsely promised reform, allowing loyalists to rescue him.

1963 Brian Epstein & Ed Sullivan sign a 3 show contract for the Beatles

1963 Gordie Howe ties Rocket Richard's lifetime 544 goal record

1966 The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren voted to merge into one denomination in the U.S., afterward to be called the United Methodist Church. (The "declaration of union" took place officially on April 23, 1968.)

1966 Gemini 12 blasts off from Cape Kennedy, FL. Gemini 12 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida, with astronauts James Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. aboard. Gemini 12 was designed to perform rendezvous and docking with the Agena target vehicle, to conduct three ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA) operations, to conduct a tethered stationkeeping exercise, to perform docked maneuvers using the Agena propulsion system to change orbit, and demonstrate an automatic reentry.

1967 Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.

1968 Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.

1969 Beatles with Billy Preston release "Get Back" in the UK. A live version on the Apple rooftop ended the movie Let It Be. This is what The Beatles were playing on the Apple rooftop when the police shut them down. The album version is a studio take with the end of the rooftop concert spliced on, complete with comments to make it sound live. "Get Back" was going to be the title of the album. The concept was The Beatles "getting back" to their roots and playing new songs for a live audience without any studio tricks. This song came closest to capturing that spirit, but the album became something completely different when they decided to scrap the idea of a live album.

1972 The U.S. turned over its military base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese, symbolizing the end of direct American military participation in the Vietnam War

1972 "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash topped the charts

1975 Australian PM removed by crown (first elected PM removed in 200 years)

1978 "MacArthur Park" by Donna Summer topped the charts. Since 1975, Summer has racked up fourteen top ten hits, four number one singles, three platinum albums, five Grammy awards and twelve other Grammy nominations. She is the first female artist to have three number one solo singles in one year ("MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls") and she is the only artist to have three number one double albums in a row (Live And More, Bad Girls, and On The Radio).


1978 On this day in 1978, a stuntman on the Georgia set of "The Dukes of Hazzard" launches the show's iconic automobile, a 1969 Dodge Charger named the General Lee, off a makeshift dirt ramp and over a police car. That jump, 16 feet high and 82 feet long (its landing totaled the car), made TV history. Although more than 300 different General Lees appeared in the series, which ran on CBS from 1979 until 1985, this first one was the only one to play a part in every episode: That jump over the squad car ran every week at the end of the show's opening credits.

The General Lee was a neon-orange Charger with "01" painted on the doors, a Confederate flag on the roof, and a horn that played the first 12 notes of the song "Dixie." It belonged to the Dukes of Hazzard themselves, the cousins Bo (played by actor John Schneider) and Luke Duke (actor Tom Wopat), who used it to get out of dangerous scrapes and away from the corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg. Scenes featuring the General Lee are some of the show's most memorable: Luke Duke sliding sideways across the car's hood; the boys hopping feet-first through the windows (the Charger's doors were welded shut, so the windows were the only way to get in and out); the General flying over ditches, half-open drawbridges and police cruisers.

Because practically every one of the General Lee's stunts ended up wrecking the car, the show's prop masters bought every 1969 Dodge Charger they could find (and there were plenty: the Chrysler Corporation sold about 85,000 in all). Then they outfitted each one for action, adding a roll cage to the inside, a protective push bar to the nose and heavy-duty shock absorbers and springs to the suspension. The prop masters also tampered with the brakes to make it easier to do the 180-degree "Bootleggers' Turn" that so often helped the Duke boys evade Boss Hogg. Cars used for jumps also got trunks full of concrete or lead ballast to keep them from flipping over in midair.

While "The Dukes of Hazzard" was on the air, the General Lee got about 35,000 fan letters each month. Fans bought millions of remote-controlled and toy versions of the car, and some even modified their real cars to look like the Dukes' Charger. Indianapolis DJ Travis Bell restored the original General Lee in 2006.


1980 Islander's Mike Bossy scores 4 goals against North Stars

1981 The first rookie baseball player to win the coveted Cy Young Award was honored. Fernando Valenzuela becomes the first rookie ever to win a Cy Young Award, edging the Reds Tom Seaver 70-67 for National League honors. He was the first rookie since Herb Score in 1955 to lead his league in strikeouts with 180.

1982 5th space shuttle mission-Columbia 5-launched first commercial flight. STS-5 was the first Shuttle operational mission deployed two commercial com-munications satellites, ANIK C-3 for TELESAT Canada and SitS- C for Satellite Business Systems. Each was equipped with Payload Assist Module-D (PAM-D) solid rocket motor, which fired about 45 minutes after deployment, placing each satellite into highly elliptical orbit. One Get Away Special and three Shuttle Student Involvement Program (SSIP) experiments were conducted during the mission. The first scheduled space walk in Shuttle program was canceled due to malfunction of space suit.

1983 President Reagan became first US President to address Japan's legislature

1987 Van Gogh's "Irises" sells for record $53.6 M at auction

1987 - A deepening low pressure system brought heavy snow to the east central U.S. The Veteran's Day storm produced up to 17 inches of snow in the Washington D.C. area snarling traffic and closing schools and airports. Afternoon thunderstorms produced five inches of snow in three hours. Gale force winds lashed the Middle and Northern Atlantic Coast. Norfolk VA reported their earliest measurable snow in 99 years of records. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)

1988 Oldest known insect fossils (390 million years) reported in Science

1992 The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England#Women.27s_ministry

1993 A bronze statue honoring more than 11,000 American women who served in the Vietnam War was dedicated in Washington, DC



Births

1744 Abigail Adams, First Lady of the United States (d. 1818)

1836 Thomas Bailey Aldrich (d 1907) American poet, novelist, traveler and editor.

1864 George Washington Crile (d 1943) American surgeon who was one of the first to study the significance of surgical shock. His interest began when a close friend was injured in a streetcar accident and died in profound shock after the amputation of both legs. Crile conducted research experiments on animals and noted the relationship between shock, blood pressure, and the onset of death. He saw that striving to prevent shock was of great importance. He recognized the importance of monitoring blood pressure in surgical patients and helped popularize the use of the sphygmomanometer. In 1906 he performed the first successful human to human blood transfusion at St. Alexis Hospital in Cleveland. He was the principal founder of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

1872 David Ignatius Walsh (d 1947) United States politician from Massachusetts. As a member of the Democratic Party, he served in the state legislature and then as Lieutenant Governor (1913–1914) and then as the 46th Governor (1914–1916). His first term in the U.S. Senate (1919–1925) was followed by a brief hiatus from government, after which he was elected to the U.S. Senate four times, serving from 1926-1947. On foreign affairs, he was an consistent isolationist, from his early opposition to U.S. domination of the Philippines to opposing Lend-Lease until the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1875 Vesto Melvin Slipher (d 1969) American astronomer whose systematic observations (1912-25) of the extraordinary radial velocities of spiral galaxies provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory. Slipher spectroscopically measured the displacement of their spectral lines by the Doppler effect by which the wavelength of light from an object moving away from an observer will shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Earlier, Slipher had determined the rotation periods of some of the planets by spectroscopic means. With Lowell (1912), he found Uranus had a rotation period of 10.8 hours. He also produced comparable data for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn and showed that Venus's period was much longer than expected.


1885 George Smith Patton, one of the great American generals of World War II, is born in San Gabriel, California.

Patton came from a family with a long history of military service. After studying at West Point, he served as a tank officer in World War I, and his experience in that conflict, along with his extensive military study, led him to become an advocate of the crucial importance of the tank in future warfare. After the American entrance into World War II, Patton was placed in command of an important U.S. tank division and played a key role in the Allied invasion of French North Africa in 1942. In 1943, Patton led the U.S. Seventh Army in its assault on Sicily and won fame for out-commanding Montgomery during the so-called Race to Messina.

Although Patton was one of the ablest American commanders in World War II, he was also one of the most controversial. He presented himself as a modern-day cavalryman, designed his own uniform, and was known to make eccentric claims that he was a direct descendant of great military leaders of the past through reincarnation. During the Sicilian campaign, Patton generated considerable controversy when he accused a hospitalized U.S. soldier suffering from battle fatigue of cowardice and then personally struck him across the face. The famously profane general was forced to issue a public apology and was reprimanded by General Dwight Eisenhower.

However, when it was time for the invasion of Western Europe, Eisenhower could find no general as formidable as Patton, and the general was again granted an important military post. In 1944, Patton commanded the U.S. Third Army in the invasion of France, and in December of that year his expertise in military movement and tank warfare helped crush the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes.

During one of his many successful campaigns, General Patton was said to have declared, "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance." On December 21, 1945, he died in a hospital in Germany from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Mannheim.

1897 Gordon Willard Allport (d 1967) humanistic psychologist and educator who developed trait theory in an original theory of personality. Allport thought the uniqueness of each personality was one of the most important things to understand. Part of this uniqueness is due to the many, many parts of our personality. He and many other psychologists considered reflexes, habits, drives or needs, beliefs, our particular view of our environment, goals or intentions, values, attitudes, and traits as being the kind of factors that determine what we do. Thus, "personality" becomes very complex. Unlike Freud, he did not see us as slavishly controlled by innate or external factors because humans have the ability to make conscious choices about how to behave.

1899 Pat O’Brien (d 1983) American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.

1901 Francis Van Wyck Mason (d 1978, Bermuda) American historian and novelist. He had a long and prolific career as a writer spanning 50 years and including 65 published novels.

1901 Sam Spiegel, Austrian-born American film producer (d. 1985)

1904 Alger Hiss (d 1996) was an American lawyer, civil servant, businessman, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and UN official. Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950.

1907 Joseph Gilbert Hamilton (d 1957) American medical physicist who pioneered in the medical uses and health effects of radioactive isotopes. On 23 Mar 1936, he injected intraveneously a sodium radioisotope into a leukemia patient. His New York Times obituary stated that he was "believed to be the first ever to inject a radioisotope intravenously in a human being." He became an M.D. in 1936. He identified the usefulness of radioiodine to study and treat thryroid disease. During WW II, he was involved with the Manhattan Project studying the biological effects of the ingestion of plutonium and other fission products. From 1948, Hamilton was Director of the Crocker Laboratory, which had a 60-inch cyclotron for nuclear research

1914 Howard Melvin Fast (d 2003) American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.

1914 James Gilbert Baker (November 11, 1914 – June 29, 2005) was an American astronomer and optician.

1914 Henry Menasco Wade (d 2001), Texas lawyer who participated in two of the most notable U.S. court cases of the 20th century, the prosecution of Jack Ruby for killing Lee Harvey Oswald and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade. In addition, Wade was District Attorney when Randall Dale Adams, the subject of the documentary film The Thin Blue Line, was convicted in the murder of Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. After his tenure as D.A., Wade's office was found to have placed a number of later proven innocent defendants in jail, with evidence being intentionally overlooked and withheld from the defense and jury.

1915 Edward William Proxmire (d 2005) member of the Democratic Party, who served in the United States Senate for the state of Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989.

1921 Terrel Howard Bell (d 1996) was the Secretary of Education in the Cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.

1922 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., (d 2007) American writer, wrote such works as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

1925 Jonathan Harshman Winters III American comedian and actor.

1930 Walter Louis Garland (d 2004), better known as Hank Garland, was a Nashville studio musician who performed with Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison and many others

1930 Hugh Everett III (d 1982) American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, which he called his "relative state" formulation. Discouraged by the scorn other physicists heaped on MWI, Everett left physics after completing his Ph.D. Afterwards, he developed the use of generalized Lagrange multipliers in operations research and applied this commercially as a defense analyst and a consultant.

1936 Jack Keller (d 2005) American pop songwriter who wrote (or co-wrote) with partners such as Noel Sherman, Howard Greenfield and Gerry Goffin) many top ten hits of the 1960s and 1970s such as Venus in Blue Jeans, Run To Him, Everybody Somebody's Fool and My Heart Has a Mind of its Own. He is also credited with writing the television theme songs for Bewitched, Gidget and Hazel.

1940 Barbara Levy Boxer junior United States Senator from California and a member of the Democratic Party.

1946 Alvah Robert "Al" Holbert (d 1988) American automobile racing driver who was a five-time champion of the IMSA Camel GT series

1951 Laurence Kim Peek (d 2009) American savant. Known as a "megasavant", he had a photographic or eidetic memory, but also social difficulties, possibly resulting from a developmental disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character of Raymond Babbitt, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the movie Rain Man. Unlike Babbitt, Peek was not autistic, and likely had FG syndrome.



Deaths

1793 James Madison Porter (d 1862), Pennsylvanian, was the 18th United States Secretary of War and a founder of Lafayette College.

1793 Lucretia Coffin Mott (d 1880) American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights. She is credited as the first American "feminist" in the early 19th century but was, more accurately, the initiator of women's political rights.

1855 Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, at Copenhagen, Danish Lutheran theologian and philosopher, (b. 5 May 1813).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Aabye_Kierkegaard

1887 Haymarket defendants:
George Engel (b. 1836)
Adolph Fischer (b. 1858)
Albert Parsons (b. 1848)
August Spies (b. 1855)


1917 Liliʻuokalani (b 1838), born Lydia Kamakaʻeha Kaola Maliʻi Liliʻuokalani, last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. She was also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī, with the chosen royal name of Liliʻuokalani, and her married name was Kaolupoloni K. Dominis.

1938 Mary "Typhoid Mary" Mallon (b 1869), famous typhoid carrier in the New York City area in the early 20th century. Fifty-one original cases of typhoid and three deaths were directly attributed to her (countless more were indirectly attributed), although she herself was immune to the typhoid bacillus (Salmonella typhi). The outbreak of Typhus in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in 1904 puzzled the scientists of the time because they thought they had wiped out the deadly disease. Mallon's case showed that a person could be a carrier without showing any outward signs of being sick, and it led to most of the Health Code laws on the books today. She died not from typhoid but from the effects of a paralytic stroke dating back to 25 Dec 1932.

1945 Jerome David Kern (b 1885) American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight", "Long Ago (and Far Away)" and "Who?". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and E. Y. Harburg.

1976 Alexander Stirling Calder (b 1898), born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, a U.S. sculptor and painter best known as the originator of mobiles. He is best known as the originator of the mobile, a kinetic sculpture constructed with delicately balanced or suspended components. The sculpture will respond to air currents, or sometimes powered with a motor. He began to make mobiles when he spent time abroad, living in Paris (1931-33). By contrast, Calder's stationary sculptures are called stabiles. He also produced numerous wire figures, notably for a vast miniature circus.

1984 The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. (b 1899), born as Michael King, Baptist minister, an advocate for social justice, an early civil rights leader, and the father of Martin Luther King, Jr. King, Sr. led the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia and became a leader of the civil rights movement, as the head of the NAACP chapter in Atlanta and of the Civic and Political League. He encouraged his son to become active in the movement.

1993 Erskine Ramsay Hawkins (b 1914) American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" (1939) with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson. The song became a popular hit during World War II, rising to #7 nationally (version by the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra) and to #1 nationally (version by the Glenn Miller Orchestra).



Christian Feast Day
Bartholomew of Grottaferrata (Roman Catholic Church)
Martin of Tours (Roman Catholic Church)
Menas
Søren Kierkegaard (Lutheran Church)
Theodore the Studite


November 11 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Saints
Martyrs Victor and Corona
Martyr Stephanida
Vincent of Saragossa (ca. 304)
Saint Menas of Egypt (309)
Theodore the Studite (826)


Other commemorations

Repose of Blessed Maximus of Moscow, Fool-for-Christ (1434)


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www.todayinsci.com/11/11_11.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov11.html
www.history.com/this-day-in-history
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_11
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1111.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_11_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)