Post by farmgal on Nov 13, 2012 14:51:18 GMT -5
November 15 is the 320th day of this leap year, in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 46 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should be leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1492 Christopher Columbus noted in his journal the use of tobacco among Indians the first recorded reference to tobacco.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
1515 Thomas Wolsey (1471/75–1530), Lord Chancellor and King Henry VIII’s first minister, was invested as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wolsey
1532 Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Inca leader Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging a meeting on the city plaza the following day
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro
1533 Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro
1626 The original Mayflower "pilgrims" (Separatists), having lived in their American colony for six years, bought out their London investors for 1,800 pounds.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Pilgrims
Asser Levy Recreation Center, on Asser Levy Place in Manhattan, New York City, is named after Asser Levy, one of the city's most prominent early Jewish citizens
1660 1st kosher butcher (Asser Levy) licensed in NYC (New Amsterdam)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asser_Levy
1760 Frederick David Schaeffer, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Pennsylvania Ministerium pastor (d 27 Jan 1836).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=S&word=SCHAEFFER.FREDERICKDAVID
1791 The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University
1806 Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it is later named Pikes Peak).
1806 1st US college magazine, Yale Literary Cabinet, publishes 1st issue
1849 1st US poultry show opens in Boston
1859 The first modern revival of the Olympic Games takes place in Athens, Greece.
1867 On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City. The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or messenger.
The ticker was the brainchild of Edward Calahan, who configured a telegraph machine to print stock quotes on streams of paper tape (the same paper tape later used in ticker-tape parades). The ticker, which caught on quickly with investors, got its name from the sound its type wheel made.
Calahan worked for the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, which rented its tickers to brokerage houses and regional exchanges for a fee and then transmitted the latest gold and stock prices to all its machines at the same time. In 1869, Thomas Edison, a former telegraph operator, patented an improved, easier-to-use version of Calahan's ticker. Edison's ticker was his first lucrative invention and, through the manufacture and sale of stock tickers and other telegraphic devices, he made enough money to open his own lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he developed the light bulb and phonograph, among other transformative inventions.
The last mechanical stock ticker debuted in 1960 and was eventually replaced by computerized tickers with electronic displays. A ticker shows a stock's symbol, how many shares have traded that day and the price per share. It also tells how much the price has changed from the previous day's closing price and whether it's an up or down change. A common misconception is that there is one ticker used by everyone. In fact, private data companies run a variety of tickers; each provides information about a select mix of stocks.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape
1868 The Plano (Illinois) Stone Church was dedicated to serve as the world headquarters for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now “Community of Christ”) under the leadership of Joseph Smith III (1832–1914).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorganized_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_Day_Saints
1869 Free postal delivery formally inaugurated
1883 Thomas Edison received a patent for his two-element vacuum tube, the forerunner of the vacuum tube rectifier.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
1887 German scientist, Dr. Carl Gassner, was issued a U.S. patent (No. 373,064) for the first "dry" cell. The sealed zinc shell which contained all the chemicals was also the negative electrode. Later, he improved the shelf life of the battery by adding zinc chloride to the electrolyte to reduce corrosion of the zinc shell. Gassner's battery was much like the carbon-zinc, general-purpose batteries sold today. By 1896, the National Carbide Company (later Union Carbide and Eveready) produced the first consumer dry cell battery. Two years later, the company made the first D cell. Gassner first patented his invention in Germany (No. 37,758) on 8 Apr 1886, and also in Austria, Belgium, England, France and Hungary in the same year.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cell#Dry_cell
1896 The first long-distance transmission of hydroelectricity from the Niagara Falls Power Company flowed to Buffalo, N.Y., 26 miles away. Although some small-scale use of the water power of the Niagara Falls occurred earlier, this company made the first large-scale utilization for commercial purposes on 26 Aug 1895, when it began supplying power to an aluminium production plant. The power company originated 31 Mar 1886 (though incorporated under a different name). Ground was broken on 4 Oct 1890. By 24 Oct 1893, a contract had been made with the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co. for three 5,000 h.p. generators (two-phase 2,200 volts at 25 cycles/sec). The first 5,000 h.p. turboalternator unit was completed within 18 months.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses_Niagara_Power_Plant
1900 A record lake-effect snowstorm at Watertown, NY, produced 45 inches in 24 hours. The storm total was 49 inches. (14th-15th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1904 Ethel Barrymore, appearing in the play, "Sunday", first spoke her trademark line. Ethel Barrymore, appearing in the play, "Sunday", spoke the famous line, "That's all there is. There isn't any more," as the curtain fell. Ethel Barrymore was highly regarded as a charming and charismatic stage actress in New York City and a major Broadway performer. Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1901, in a play called Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. She was a great Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and a passionate Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Barrymore
1904 King Camp Gillette was issued a U.S. patent for his invention of a safety razor using disposable blades (No. 775,134). He began working an idea to invent something that everyone would use, and in 1895 produced a crude version of a disposable razor blade. It took another six years to refine his invention, then he filed an application for a U.S. patent on 3 Dec 1901. The blade was made from very thin sheet-steel which is placed in a holder to provide a rigid backing and support. By being very thin - 0.006" - just thick enough to take a suitable edge - the blades required little material and could be ground both very quickly and easily. Further, their low cost enabled the user to buy them in quantity and simply throw them away when dull. Two sides were finished with cutting edges thus doubling their life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Camp_Gillette
1913 The Northwestern Lutheran (now called Forward in Christ), the official publication of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, was established.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Evangelical_Lutheran_Synod
1920 League of Nations holds first meeting, in Geneva.On Jan 10, the Treaty of Versailles was officially ratified and the League of Nations came into existence. The League Council held its first meeting in Paris on January 16, but moved to Geneva where the Council began meeting in the Palais Wilson, formerly the Hotel National. The Assembly met November 15 in Geneva in the Salle de la Reformation where 41 states signed the charter. Woodrow Wilson had selected Geneva to be the headquarters because Switzerland was a neutral country, more likely to attract additional members.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
1926 NBC on-air debut with a radio network of 24 stations. As part of the reorganization of the broadcasting assets in the wake of the acquisitions, on September 13, 1926, the formation of the National Broadcasting Company was announced via newspaper advertisements, and on November 15, 1926 NBC's first broadcast was made. This first broadcast on November 15, 1926 marked the de facto formation by NBC of the Red Network from the WEAF network assets, using WEAF as the "key station"; this network in eventual popular image tended to broadcast the most popular entertainment programming.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadcasting_Company
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_detector_car
1937 1st congressional session in air-conditioned chambers
1939 In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial
1942 World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He219.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_219
Landing of U.S. Marines at Guadacanal1942 World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guadalcanal
1943 Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
1948 The first gas-turbine electric locomotive in the U.S. was track-tested in Erie, Pa. Preliminary road tests of the 4800 hp Alco-GE locomotive included hauling of 85 loaded freight cars at speeds as high as 65 mph. In a gas-turbine engine, air is drawn through a compressor into several combustion chambers. Fuel (bunker "C" oil) is injected and the mixture burns, raising the temperature of the compressed air. Resulting gases expand and move at great velocity against the turbine blades, turning the shaft which drives both the power plant compressor and a generator supplying electric power to eight traction motors driving the wheels. The gas-turbine engine was originally designed for aircraft, in which it gives forward thrust from the reaction of its exhaust stream.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine-electric_locomotive
1957 Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III officially established the Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the U.S. and Canada. At the same time, Archbishop Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, former Syrian Orthodox metropolitan of Jerusalem, was appointed primate of the new archdiocese, and soon after took up residence in Hackensack, New Jersey.
1959 Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas.
1960 A U.S. patent was issued for an alkaline dry-cell to P.A. Marsal, Karl Kordesch and Lewis F. Urry who assigned it to the Union Carbide Corporation, the manufacturer of Eveready batteries (No. 2,960,558). Compared to the existing carbon-zinc dry-cells, it offered an appreciable increase in life-span and efficiency during heavy continuous drains. Its construction used an alkaline electrolyte, manganese dioxide as depolarizer, a zinc powder-gel anode, and certain additives such including mercury and electrolyte-creep inhibitors. The patent gave practical details for commercial production. The patent claimed that whereas four cells in series of the carbon-zinc type gave 4.5 volts to power a 1.25-amp bulb for 45-min to 1-hr, the new alkaline design gave good brilliance after 6 to 7 hours.
1967 The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.
1967 A surprise snow and ice coating paralyzed Boston during the evening rush hour. (David Ludlum)
1968 The US Air Force launches Operation Commando Hunt, a large-scale bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail.
1969 Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19
1969 Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".
1969 In Columbus, Ohio, Dave Thomas opens the first Wendy's restaurant.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy%27s
1971 Intel releases world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor
1979 A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
1985 A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
1984 Baby Fae died, an infant born a month before, who had lived for 20 days with a transplanted walnut-sized young-baboon heart. At birth, she had been diagnosed with an almost always fatal heart deformity. Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, a heart surgeon at Loma Linda University Medical Center, California, suggested the experimental xenotransplant to the mother. By 1977, three such animal-heart transplants into adults had provided less than four days of life at best. However, Bailey believed the infant's underdeveloped immune system would be less likely to reject alien tissue, and a new drug cyclosporine would help. The heart sustained the baby for 20 days before she died of complications, but the heart itself had not been rejected.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Fae
1987 Thunderstorms spawned twenty-two tornadoes in eastern Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. A tornado moving out of northeastern Texas killed one person and injured ninety-six others around Shreveport LA causing more than five million dollars damage. Tornadoes in Texas claimed ten lives, and injured 191 persons. A tornado caused more than nineteen million dollars damage around Palestine TX. Severe thunderstorms spawned eighteen tornadoes in Mississippi and seven in Georgia the next day, and thunderstorms in southeastern Texas produced wind gusts to 102 mph at Galveston, and wind gusts to 110 mph at Bay City, killing one person. There were a total of forty-nine tornadoes in the south central U.S. in two days. The tornadoes claimed eleven lives, injured 303 persons, and caused more than seventy million dollars damage. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1987 Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashes in a snowstorm at Denver, Colorado Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 occupants, while 54 survive the crash.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_1713
1988 Thunderstorms produced severe weather from Oklahoma and northeastern Texas to northern Indiana and southern Wisconsin from mid morning through the pre-dawn hours of the following day. Thunderstorms spawned forty-four tornadoes, including thirteen in Missouri, and there were more than two hundred reports of large hail or damaging winds. A tornado in central Arkansas hit Scott and Lonoke killing five people, injuring sixty others, and causing fifteen million dollars damage. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 A tornado hit Southside, AR, killing one person, injuring ten others, and causing more than two million dollars damage, and a tornado near Clarksville AR injured nine persons and caused more than two million dollars damage. A tornado moving through the southwest part of Topeka KS injured twenty-two persons and caused nearly four million dollars damage. A tornado near Jane MO killed one person and injured twelve others, and a tornado moving across the southwest part of O'Fallon MO injured ten persons. Severe thunderstorms also produced hail three and a half inches in diameter east of Denison TX, and wind gusts to 85 mph at Kirksville MO. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Thunderstorms developing along a powerful cold front began to produce severe weather in the Middle Mississippi Valley before sunrise, and by early the next morning thunderstorms had spawned seventeen tornadoes east of the Mississippi River, with a total of 350 reports of severe weather. There were one hundred reports of damaging winds in Georgia, and five tornadoes, and there were another four tornadoes in Alabama. Hardest hit was Huntsville AL where a violent tornado killed 21 persons, injured 463 others, and caused one hundred million dollars damage. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Thunderstorms in Kentucky produced hail three inches in diameter in Grayson County, and wind gusts to 110 mph at Flaherty. Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the eastern U.S. through the morning and afternoon hours. Severe thunderstorms spawned 23 tornadoes, and there were 164 reports of damaging winds. There were fourteen tornadoes in New Jersey, central and eastern New York, and eastern Pennsylvania, and 122 reports of damaging winds. A tornado at Coldenham NY killed nine school children and injured eighteen others, and thunderstorm winds gusted to 100 mph at Malvern PA. Thunderstorms spawned a total of thirty-nine tornadoes east of Great Plains in two days, and there 499 reports of large hail and damaging winds. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1990 Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-38
1992 The Chapel of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus, the first free-standing chapel on the campus of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) was dedicated.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Seminary
1999 The Evergreen Nylon Recycling facility began operation in Augusta, Georgia. This was a joint venture with Honeywell Intl Inc. which patented the selective pyrolysis process that depolymerized nylon 6 waste carpet into caprolactam, the raw material of nylon 6. In the absence of oxygen, controlled heating of carpet (or other nylon 6 waste material) breaks down each resin into its monomer components, each within its own temperature range enabling the separation of the resins. Compared to making virgin caprolactam, it was expected that recycled product would offer the same quality at less than half the cost, need only one-third the energy, save petroleum and keep waste carpet out of landfills. Production of caprolactam from recycled nylon 6 at the Evergreen Nylon Recycling plant in Augusta (Georgia, USA) will be suspended today for an indefinite period. Higher than expected production costs combined with current business and economic conditions for caprolactam in general, have led to Evergreen's decision to suspend operations in 2001.
www.textileworld.com/Articles/2001/February/Textile_News/Evergreen_Nylon_Recycling_Named_Recycler_Of_The_Year.html
www.carpetrecovery.org/pdf/annual_conference/2006_conference_pdfs/Evergreen_Nylon_Recycling_CARE_2006.pdf
2005 Severe thunderstorms produced over 30 tornadoes in 6 states, resulting in one fatality and at least 35 injuries (Associated Press). Some of the worst damage occurred in Henry county, Tennessee, where numerous homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed.
2005 Boeing formally launches the stretched Boeing 747-8 variant with orders from Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-8
2006 Strong winds cause severe damage at a skating rink in Montgomery, Alabama where more than 30 preschoolers were playing. Two children suffered injuries but there were no fatalities.
Births
1397 Pope Nicholas V (d 24 Mar 1455).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Nicholas_V
1873 Sara Josephine Baker (d 1945) American physician who was a pioneer in public health and child welfare in the United States. She was appointed assistant to the Commissioner for Public Health of New York City, later heading the city's Department of Health in 'Hell's Kitchen' for 25 years. Convinced of the value of well-baby care and the prevention of disease, in 1908 she founded the Bureau of Child Hygiene after visiting mothers on the lower east side, thus helping to decrease the death rate by 1200 from the previous year. Her work made the New York City infant mortality rate the lowest in the USA or Europe at the time. She set up free milk clinics, licensed midwives, and taught the use of silver nitrate to prevent blindness in newborns.
1881 Franklin Pierce Adams (d 1960, New York City, New York) American columnist (under the pen name F.P.A.) and wit, best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances as a regular panelist on radio's Information Please. He was a prolific writer of light verse, and a member of the Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s and 1930s/
1882 Felix Frankfurter (d 1965) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter
1887 Marianne Moore (d 1972) American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.
1887 Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (d 1986) American artist. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art from the 1920s. She received widespread recognition for her technical contributions, as well as for challenging the boundaries of modern American artistic style. She is chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes in which she synthesized abstraction and representation. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors. She often transformed her subject matter into powerful abstract images. New York Times critic, Jed Perl, in 2004 described her paintings as both "bold and hermetic, immediately appealing and unnervingly impassive."
1891 William Averell Harriman (d 1986) American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York. He was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1952, and again in 1956 when he was endorsed by President Truman but lost to Adlai Stevenson. Harriman served President Franklin D. Roosevelt as special envoy to Europe and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Britain. He served in various positions in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
1891 Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (d 1944), popularly known as the Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs), German Field Marshal of World War II.
1906 Curtis Emerson LeMay (d 1990) general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968.
1912 Jacob DeShazer born in Salem, Oregon, in a devout Christian home of modest circumstances. His father was a minister-farmer, who worked on the farm during the week and preached on Sunday. Jacob was two when his father died. Three years later his mother married H. P. Andrus, and a new home was established in Madras, a small village of some 300 people, in north central Oregon. Although raised in church, and familiar with all the Bible stories, he had no real commitment to the Lord as he grew up. Jacob became a navy bombardier during World War II, and was part of Gen. Jimmy Doolittle's surprise attack on Japan shortly after the war began. His plane crashed as it tried to reach China, he was captured, and imprisoned for the duration. A guard gave the Americans a New Testament to taunt them that this was the way their God was treating them. But the Word reached his heart, and Jacob DeShazer was converted to Christ while in prison. Upon his release at the end of the war, he studied for the ministry, married, and returned to Japan as a missionary. Many were converted, including the Japanese general who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1919 Joseph Albert Wapner former American judge and TV personality of the real-life courtroom-style show The People's Court, which ran in syndication from 1981 to 1993 for 2,484 episodes.
1925 Howard Henry Baker, Jr former Senate Majority Leader, Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, White House Chief of Staff, and a former United States Ambassador to Japan. Known in Washington, D.C. as the "Great Conciliator," Baker is often regarded as one of the most successful senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility. A story is sometimes told of a reporter telling a senior Democratic senator that privately, a plurality of his Democratic colleagues would vote for Baker for President of the United States. The senator is reported to have replied, "You're wrong. He'd win a majority."
1925 Edward Asner born Eddie Asner and commonly known as Ed Asner, is an American film, television, stage, and voice actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant. More recently, he provided the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's award-winning animated film, Up.
1932 Alvin Carl Plantinga American analytic philosopher, formerly the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics. Plantinga is a Christian and known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs. Notably, he has argued that some people can know that God exists as a basic belief, requiring no argument, similar to how people usually claim to know that other minds exist. He has also argued that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of evil and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, wholly good God. Plantinga is the author of a number of books, including God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). He has delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures three times, and was described by Time magazine in 1980 as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God."
1936 Herring "H. B." Bailey (d 2003) NASCAR driver. He raced his #36 Pontiac part-time as an independent driver in the Grand National/Winston Cup series from 1962 to 1993 making 85 races over his career.
1937 Yaphet Frederick Kotto American actor, known for numerous film roles, and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street.
1940 Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy on the NBC television series Law & Order. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, BAFTA- and Emmy Awards, having starred in over eighty film and television productions during his forty-five year career. Allmovie has characterised Waterston as having "cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances." In January 2010, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1947 William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III 30th Governor of New Mexico. Before being elected governor, Richardson served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary. Richardson has also served as a U.S. Congressman, chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. On December 3, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama designated Richardson for appointment to the cabinet-level position of Commerce Secretary. On January 4, 2009, Richardson announced his decision to withdraw his nomination because of an investigation into improper business dealings in New Mexico. In August 2009, federal prosecutors dropped the pending investigation against the governor, and there has been speculation in the media about Richardson's career, after his second and final term as New Mexico governor concludes.
1957 Kevin Tyrone Eubanks American jazz guitarist and composer who was the leader of the Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno from 1995 to 2010. He also led The Primetime Band on the short-lived The Jay Leno Show.
Deaths
1794 John Witherspoon (b 1723) signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. As president of the College of New Jersey (1768–94; now Princeton University), he trained many leaders of the early nation and was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Witherspoon
1848 John Thorp (b 1784) American inventor of the ring spinning machine (1828), which by the 1860s had largely replaced Samuel Crompton's spinning mule in the world's textile mills because of its greater productivity and simplicity. The ring frame is a continuous spinner, which spins yarn and winds it onto bobbins in one motion, while the mule was a discontinuous spinner, first spinning a length of yarn and then winding that length onto bobbins separately. In ring spinning, a "c"-ring travels at a high speed around a grooved circular raceway mounted on a plate, which in turn travels up and down the spinning bobbin.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_manufacturing#Spinning-_yarn_manufacture
1907 Horatio R. Palmer (b. 26 April 1834), American Congregational clergyman and hymnist, wrote words to "Yield Not to Temptation" and music to "Master, the Tempest Is Raging," among others
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/p/a/l/palmer_hr.htm
1917 Andreas Wright, founder of the Norwegian Danish Augustana Synod in America and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America (b. 13 Sep 1835, Norway).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=W&word=WRIGHT.ANDREAS
1917 Oswald Chambers (b. 24 Jul 1874), Scottish Bible teacher and evangelical mystic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Chambers
1928 Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (b 1843) U.S. geologist and educator, born in Mattoon, Illinois, known for his "planetesimal hypothesis". With Forest Ray Moulton in 1904, he proposed that the solar system formed after gas flares were ripped from the sun by the gravitational field of a passing star. The flares then condensed into "planetesimals," arrayed in a spiral extending from the sun, gradually accumulated material and became the planets we know today. From 1876, he was Wisconsin Geological Survey's chief geologist, moving to head the glacier division of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881). He was president of the University of Wisconsin (1887-92), and then for 26 years he was head of its geology department of the University of Chicago. He founded The Journal of Geology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chrowder_Chamberlin
1945 Frank Michler Chapman (b 1864) American ornithologist famous for his extensive and detailed studies of the life histories, geographic distribution, and systematic relationships of North and South American birds. He joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1888, where he spent his life. By 1920, he was the first Chairman of the newly created Department of Birds. Chapman did pioneer work on Neotropical biogeography. Sensitive to the living environment of birds and other animals, he developed the “habitat group” as a means of display in the Museum, a feature now widely adopted by other museums through the world. A leading conservationist, Chapman was a prolific author who popularized bird study and raised awareness for conservation in the U.S.
1954 Lionel Barrymore (b 1878) American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931). He is well known for the role of the villainous Henry Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
1965 Allen Balcom Du Mont (b 1901) American engineer who perfected the first commercially practical cathode-ray tube, which was not only vitally important for much scientific and technical equipment but was the essential component of the modern television receiver. The early cathode ray tubes were imported from Germany at high cost, but they burned out after 25 or 30 hours. In the 1930's, he simplified and improved the production of cathode ray tubes lasting a thousand hours. A financially successful by-product of his television work was the cathode ray oscillograph. After WW II, Du Mont had become the industry's first millionaire, investing also in broadcasting stations. The Du Mont Broadcasting Co. he began in 1955 grew to become Metromedia, Inc.
1967 Elmer McCollum (b 1879) American biochemist who originated the letter system of naming vitamins. He discovered vitamins A, B and worked with others on vitamin D. He performed extensive research work in nutrition and growth. He was the first in the U.S. to establish a colony of white rats as laboratory animals to be the subject of his nutrition experiments. In the 1910's, he recognized that a healthy diet required certain fats, and he named the essential component "fat-soluble A," as distinct from another he named "water-soluble B." Although at first he thought each was a single compound, he later showed that they were in fact complexes. He researched how certain minerals were important as nutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, fluorine, manganese and zinc.«
1978 Margaret Mead (b 1901) American anthropologist whose great fame owed as much to the force of her personality and her outspokenness as it did to the quality of her scientific work. As an anthropologist, she was best-known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to various aspects of comparative child psychology, oceanic ethnology, cooperation and competition among primitive peoples, and cross-cultural communications. She was twenty-three years old when she first traveled to the South Pacific, to conduct research for her doctoral dissertation. The resulting book, Coming of Age in Samoa, was - and remains - a best-seller. She continued her research throughout her life in such locations as New Guinea, Samoa, Bali, and many other places. In 1983, five years after Mead had died, Derek Freeman published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged all of Mead's major findings. In 1988, he participated in the filming of Margaret Mead in Samoa, directed by Frank Heimans, which claims to document one of Mead's original informants, now an elderly woman, swearing that the information she and her friend provided Mead when they were teenagers was false
Holidays and observances[us]
America Recycles Day (United States)
Christian Feast Day:
Abibus of Edessa (died 322) Christian martyr at Edessa, Mesopotamia under Emperor Licinius in 322. He was burned at the stake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abibus_of_Edessa
Albert the Great, also Albert of Cologne (1193/1206 - 15 Nov 1280), German Dominican friar and a bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Doctor of the Church, one of only 35 persons with that honor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_the_Great
Blessed Hugh Faringdon Benedictine monk who ruled as the last Abbot of Reading Abbey in the English town of Reading. At the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII of England, he was accused of high treason and executed. He was declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church in 1895
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Faringdon
Didier of Cahors, c. 580 - November 15, traditionally 655), Bishop of Cahors, governed the diocese, which flourished under his care, from 630 to 655.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_of_Cahors
Leopold III, (1073 – 15 November, 1136) patron saint of Austria, of the city of Vienna, of Lower Austria, and, jointly with Saint Florian, of Upper Austria. A public holiday in Lower Austria and Vienna.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_III,_Margrave_of_Austria
Malo, Mid-6th century founder of Saint-Malo in Brittany, France. He is one of the seven founder saints of Brittany.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malo_(saint)
Mechell, 6th century founder and first abbot of the clas (a type of early Welsh/Celtic monastery) of Llanfechell, on Anglesey in north-west Wales.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechell
November 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Saint Herman of Alaska (1837)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Herman_of_Alaska
Saint Paisius Velichkovsky of Moldavia and Mt. Athos (1794)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisius_Velichkovsky
Holy Martyrs and Confessors Gurias, Samonas and Abibus, Edessa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edessa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abibus_of_Edessa
Other commemorations
"Kupyatich" Icon (1180) of the Most Holy Theotokos
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_02.htm
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.christianhistorytimeline.com/lives_events/birthday/index.php
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-stock-ticker-debuts
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_15
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_15_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1115.htm
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
There are 46 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should be leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1492 Christopher Columbus noted in his journal the use of tobacco among Indians the first recorded reference to tobacco.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
1515 Thomas Wolsey (1471/75–1530), Lord Chancellor and King Henry VIII’s first minister, was invested as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wolsey
1532 Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Inca leader Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging a meeting on the city plaza the following day
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro
1533 Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro
1626 The original Mayflower "pilgrims" (Separatists), having lived in their American colony for six years, bought out their London investors for 1,800 pounds.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Pilgrims
Asser Levy Recreation Center, on Asser Levy Place in Manhattan, New York City, is named after Asser Levy, one of the city's most prominent early Jewish citizens
1660 1st kosher butcher (Asser Levy) licensed in NYC (New Amsterdam)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asser_Levy
1760 Frederick David Schaeffer, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Pennsylvania Ministerium pastor (d 27 Jan 1836).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=S&word=SCHAEFFER.FREDERICKDAVID
1791 The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University
1806 Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it is later named Pikes Peak).
1806 1st US college magazine, Yale Literary Cabinet, publishes 1st issue
1849 1st US poultry show opens in Boston
1859 The first modern revival of the Olympic Games takes place in Athens, Greece.
1867 On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City. The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or messenger.
The ticker was the brainchild of Edward Calahan, who configured a telegraph machine to print stock quotes on streams of paper tape (the same paper tape later used in ticker-tape parades). The ticker, which caught on quickly with investors, got its name from the sound its type wheel made.
Calahan worked for the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, which rented its tickers to brokerage houses and regional exchanges for a fee and then transmitted the latest gold and stock prices to all its machines at the same time. In 1869, Thomas Edison, a former telegraph operator, patented an improved, easier-to-use version of Calahan's ticker. Edison's ticker was his first lucrative invention and, through the manufacture and sale of stock tickers and other telegraphic devices, he made enough money to open his own lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he developed the light bulb and phonograph, among other transformative inventions.
The last mechanical stock ticker debuted in 1960 and was eventually replaced by computerized tickers with electronic displays. A ticker shows a stock's symbol, how many shares have traded that day and the price per share. It also tells how much the price has changed from the previous day's closing price and whether it's an up or down change. A common misconception is that there is one ticker used by everyone. In fact, private data companies run a variety of tickers; each provides information about a select mix of stocks.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape
1868 The Plano (Illinois) Stone Church was dedicated to serve as the world headquarters for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now “Community of Christ”) under the leadership of Joseph Smith III (1832–1914).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorganized_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_Day_Saints
1869 Free postal delivery formally inaugurated
1883 Thomas Edison received a patent for his two-element vacuum tube, the forerunner of the vacuum tube rectifier.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
1887 German scientist, Dr. Carl Gassner, was issued a U.S. patent (No. 373,064) for the first "dry" cell. The sealed zinc shell which contained all the chemicals was also the negative electrode. Later, he improved the shelf life of the battery by adding zinc chloride to the electrolyte to reduce corrosion of the zinc shell. Gassner's battery was much like the carbon-zinc, general-purpose batteries sold today. By 1896, the National Carbide Company (later Union Carbide and Eveready) produced the first consumer dry cell battery. Two years later, the company made the first D cell. Gassner first patented his invention in Germany (No. 37,758) on 8 Apr 1886, and also in Austria, Belgium, England, France and Hungary in the same year.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cell#Dry_cell
1896 The first long-distance transmission of hydroelectricity from the Niagara Falls Power Company flowed to Buffalo, N.Y., 26 miles away. Although some small-scale use of the water power of the Niagara Falls occurred earlier, this company made the first large-scale utilization for commercial purposes on 26 Aug 1895, when it began supplying power to an aluminium production plant. The power company originated 31 Mar 1886 (though incorporated under a different name). Ground was broken on 4 Oct 1890. By 24 Oct 1893, a contract had been made with the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co. for three 5,000 h.p. generators (two-phase 2,200 volts at 25 cycles/sec). The first 5,000 h.p. turboalternator unit was completed within 18 months.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses_Niagara_Power_Plant
1900 A record lake-effect snowstorm at Watertown, NY, produced 45 inches in 24 hours. The storm total was 49 inches. (14th-15th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1904 Ethel Barrymore, appearing in the play, "Sunday", first spoke her trademark line. Ethel Barrymore, appearing in the play, "Sunday", spoke the famous line, "That's all there is. There isn't any more," as the curtain fell. Ethel Barrymore was highly regarded as a charming and charismatic stage actress in New York City and a major Broadway performer. Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1901, in a play called Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. She was a great Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and a passionate Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Barrymore
1904 King Camp Gillette was issued a U.S. patent for his invention of a safety razor using disposable blades (No. 775,134). He began working an idea to invent something that everyone would use, and in 1895 produced a crude version of a disposable razor blade. It took another six years to refine his invention, then he filed an application for a U.S. patent on 3 Dec 1901. The blade was made from very thin sheet-steel which is placed in a holder to provide a rigid backing and support. By being very thin - 0.006" - just thick enough to take a suitable edge - the blades required little material and could be ground both very quickly and easily. Further, their low cost enabled the user to buy them in quantity and simply throw them away when dull. Two sides were finished with cutting edges thus doubling their life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Camp_Gillette
1913 The Northwestern Lutheran (now called Forward in Christ), the official publication of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, was established.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Evangelical_Lutheran_Synod
1920 League of Nations holds first meeting, in Geneva.On Jan 10, the Treaty of Versailles was officially ratified and the League of Nations came into existence. The League Council held its first meeting in Paris on January 16, but moved to Geneva where the Council began meeting in the Palais Wilson, formerly the Hotel National. The Assembly met November 15 in Geneva in the Salle de la Reformation where 41 states signed the charter. Woodrow Wilson had selected Geneva to be the headquarters because Switzerland was a neutral country, more likely to attract additional members.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
1926 NBC on-air debut with a radio network of 24 stations. As part of the reorganization of the broadcasting assets in the wake of the acquisitions, on September 13, 1926, the formation of the National Broadcasting Company was announced via newspaper advertisements, and on November 15, 1926 NBC's first broadcast was made. This first broadcast on November 15, 1926 marked the de facto formation by NBC of the Red Network from the WEAF network assets, using WEAF as the "key station"; this network in eventual popular image tended to broadcast the most popular entertainment programming.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadcasting_Company
___
1928 The first commercial service of a rail detector car in the U.S. began service on the Wabash Railway in Montpelier, Ohio. On its first run, SRS 102 tested 155 miles of track in 14 days, finding an average of 14 defects a day. It employed an induction method: a heavy current was induced through the rail to be tested then search coils passed through the resulting magnetic field to find perturbations in this field caused by defects. Dr. Elmer Sperry began working on railroad non-destructive testing in 1923 to detect transverse fissures in railroad rails. His first car, SRS 101, was tested 13 Jun 1928, able to examine one rail at a time. By 1930, he increased his fleet to 10 cars. Sperry was also the inventor of the gyroscope.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_detector_car
1937 1st congressional session in air-conditioned chambers
1939 In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial
1942 World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He219.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_219
Landing of U.S. Marines at Guadacanal
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guadalcanal
1943 Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
1948 The first gas-turbine electric locomotive in the U.S. was track-tested in Erie, Pa. Preliminary road tests of the 4800 hp Alco-GE locomotive included hauling of 85 loaded freight cars at speeds as high as 65 mph. In a gas-turbine engine, air is drawn through a compressor into several combustion chambers. Fuel (bunker "C" oil) is injected and the mixture burns, raising the temperature of the compressed air. Resulting gases expand and move at great velocity against the turbine blades, turning the shaft which drives both the power plant compressor and a generator supplying electric power to eight traction motors driving the wheels. The gas-turbine engine was originally designed for aircraft, in which it gives forward thrust from the reaction of its exhaust stream.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine-electric_locomotive
1957 Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III officially established the Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the U.S. and Canada. At the same time, Archbishop Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, former Syrian Orthodox metropolitan of Jerusalem, was appointed primate of the new archdiocese, and soon after took up residence in Hackensack, New Jersey.
1959 Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas.
1960 A U.S. patent was issued for an alkaline dry-cell to P.A. Marsal, Karl Kordesch and Lewis F. Urry who assigned it to the Union Carbide Corporation, the manufacturer of Eveready batteries (No. 2,960,558). Compared to the existing carbon-zinc dry-cells, it offered an appreciable increase in life-span and efficiency during heavy continuous drains. Its construction used an alkaline electrolyte, manganese dioxide as depolarizer, a zinc powder-gel anode, and certain additives such including mercury and electrolyte-creep inhibitors. The patent gave practical details for commercial production. The patent claimed that whereas four cells in series of the carbon-zinc type gave 4.5 volts to power a 1.25-amp bulb for 45-min to 1-hr, the new alkaline design gave good brilliance after 6 to 7 hours.
Aldrin, Lovell
1966 Gemini program: Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.1967 The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.
1967 A surprise snow and ice coating paralyzed Boston during the evening rush hour. (David Ludlum)
1968 The US Air Force launches Operation Commando Hunt, a large-scale bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail.
1969 Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19
1969 Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".
1969 In Columbus, Ohio, Dave Thomas opens the first Wendy's restaurant.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy%27s
1971 Intel releases world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor
1979 A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
1985 A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
1984 Baby Fae died, an infant born a month before, who had lived for 20 days with a transplanted walnut-sized young-baboon heart. At birth, she had been diagnosed with an almost always fatal heart deformity. Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, a heart surgeon at Loma Linda University Medical Center, California, suggested the experimental xenotransplant to the mother. By 1977, three such animal-heart transplants into adults had provided less than four days of life at best. However, Bailey believed the infant's underdeveloped immune system would be less likely to reject alien tissue, and a new drug cyclosporine would help. The heart sustained the baby for 20 days before she died of complications, but the heart itself had not been rejected.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Fae
1987 Thunderstorms spawned twenty-two tornadoes in eastern Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. A tornado moving out of northeastern Texas killed one person and injured ninety-six others around Shreveport LA causing more than five million dollars damage. Tornadoes in Texas claimed ten lives, and injured 191 persons. A tornado caused more than nineteen million dollars damage around Palestine TX. Severe thunderstorms spawned eighteen tornadoes in Mississippi and seven in Georgia the next day, and thunderstorms in southeastern Texas produced wind gusts to 102 mph at Galveston, and wind gusts to 110 mph at Bay City, killing one person. There were a total of forty-nine tornadoes in the south central U.S. in two days. The tornadoes claimed eleven lives, injured 303 persons, and caused more than seventy million dollars damage. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1987 Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashes in a snowstorm at Denver, Colorado Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 occupants, while 54 survive the crash.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_1713
1988 Thunderstorms produced severe weather from Oklahoma and northeastern Texas to northern Indiana and southern Wisconsin from mid morning through the pre-dawn hours of the following day. Thunderstorms spawned forty-four tornadoes, including thirteen in Missouri, and there were more than two hundred reports of large hail or damaging winds. A tornado in central Arkansas hit Scott and Lonoke killing five people, injuring sixty others, and causing fifteen million dollars damage. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 A tornado hit Southside, AR, killing one person, injuring ten others, and causing more than two million dollars damage, and a tornado near Clarksville AR injured nine persons and caused more than two million dollars damage. A tornado moving through the southwest part of Topeka KS injured twenty-two persons and caused nearly four million dollars damage. A tornado near Jane MO killed one person and injured twelve others, and a tornado moving across the southwest part of O'Fallon MO injured ten persons. Severe thunderstorms also produced hail three and a half inches in diameter east of Denison TX, and wind gusts to 85 mph at Kirksville MO. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Thunderstorms developing along a powerful cold front began to produce severe weather in the Middle Mississippi Valley before sunrise, and by early the next morning thunderstorms had spawned seventeen tornadoes east of the Mississippi River, with a total of 350 reports of severe weather. There were one hundred reports of damaging winds in Georgia, and five tornadoes, and there were another four tornadoes in Alabama. Hardest hit was Huntsville AL where a violent tornado killed 21 persons, injured 463 others, and caused one hundred million dollars damage. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Thunderstorms in Kentucky produced hail three inches in diameter in Grayson County, and wind gusts to 110 mph at Flaherty. Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the eastern U.S. through the morning and afternoon hours. Severe thunderstorms spawned 23 tornadoes, and there were 164 reports of damaging winds. There were fourteen tornadoes in New Jersey, central and eastern New York, and eastern Pennsylvania, and 122 reports of damaging winds. A tornado at Coldenham NY killed nine school children and injured eighteen others, and thunderstorm winds gusted to 100 mph at Malvern PA. Thunderstorms spawned a total of thirty-nine tornadoes east of Great Plains in two days, and there 499 reports of large hail and damaging winds. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1990 Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-38
1992 The Chapel of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus, the first free-standing chapel on the campus of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) was dedicated.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Seminary
1999 The Evergreen Nylon Recycling facility began operation in Augusta, Georgia. This was a joint venture with Honeywell Intl Inc. which patented the selective pyrolysis process that depolymerized nylon 6 waste carpet into caprolactam, the raw material of nylon 6. In the absence of oxygen, controlled heating of carpet (or other nylon 6 waste material) breaks down each resin into its monomer components, each within its own temperature range enabling the separation of the resins. Compared to making virgin caprolactam, it was expected that recycled product would offer the same quality at less than half the cost, need only one-third the energy, save petroleum and keep waste carpet out of landfills. Production of caprolactam from recycled nylon 6 at the Evergreen Nylon Recycling plant in Augusta (Georgia, USA) will be suspended today for an indefinite period. Higher than expected production costs combined with current business and economic conditions for caprolactam in general, have led to Evergreen's decision to suspend operations in 2001.
www.textileworld.com/Articles/2001/February/Textile_News/Evergreen_Nylon_Recycling_Named_Recycler_Of_The_Year.html
www.carpetrecovery.org/pdf/annual_conference/2006_conference_pdfs/Evergreen_Nylon_Recycling_CARE_2006.pdf
2005 Severe thunderstorms produced over 30 tornadoes in 6 states, resulting in one fatality and at least 35 injuries (Associated Press). Some of the worst damage occurred in Henry county, Tennessee, where numerous homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed.
2005 Boeing formally launches the stretched Boeing 747-8 variant with orders from Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-8
2006 Strong winds cause severe damage at a skating rink in Montgomery, Alabama where more than 30 preschoolers were playing. Two children suffered injuries but there were no fatalities.
Births
1397 Pope Nicholas V (d 24 Mar 1455).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Nicholas_V
1873 Sara Josephine Baker (d 1945) American physician who was a pioneer in public health and child welfare in the United States. She was appointed assistant to the Commissioner for Public Health of New York City, later heading the city's Department of Health in 'Hell's Kitchen' for 25 years. Convinced of the value of well-baby care and the prevention of disease, in 1908 she founded the Bureau of Child Hygiene after visiting mothers on the lower east side, thus helping to decrease the death rate by 1200 from the previous year. Her work made the New York City infant mortality rate the lowest in the USA or Europe at the time. She set up free milk clinics, licensed midwives, and taught the use of silver nitrate to prevent blindness in newborns.
1881 Franklin Pierce Adams (d 1960, New York City, New York) American columnist (under the pen name F.P.A.) and wit, best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances as a regular panelist on radio's Information Please. He was a prolific writer of light verse, and a member of the Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s and 1930s/
1882 Felix Frankfurter (d 1965) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter
1887 Marianne Moore (d 1972) American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.
1887 Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (d 1986) American artist. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art from the 1920s. She received widespread recognition for her technical contributions, as well as for challenging the boundaries of modern American artistic style. She is chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes in which she synthesized abstraction and representation. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors. She often transformed her subject matter into powerful abstract images. New York Times critic, Jed Perl, in 2004 described her paintings as both "bold and hermetic, immediately appealing and unnervingly impassive."
1891 William Averell Harriman (d 1986) American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York. He was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1952, and again in 1956 when he was endorsed by President Truman but lost to Adlai Stevenson. Harriman served President Franklin D. Roosevelt as special envoy to Europe and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Britain. He served in various positions in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
1891 Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (d 1944), popularly known as the Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs), German Field Marshal of World War II.
1906 Curtis Emerson LeMay (d 1990) general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968.
1912 Jacob DeShazer born in Salem, Oregon, in a devout Christian home of modest circumstances. His father was a minister-farmer, who worked on the farm during the week and preached on Sunday. Jacob was two when his father died. Three years later his mother married H. P. Andrus, and a new home was established in Madras, a small village of some 300 people, in north central Oregon. Although raised in church, and familiar with all the Bible stories, he had no real commitment to the Lord as he grew up. Jacob became a navy bombardier during World War II, and was part of Gen. Jimmy Doolittle's surprise attack on Japan shortly after the war began. His plane crashed as it tried to reach China, he was captured, and imprisoned for the duration. A guard gave the Americans a New Testament to taunt them that this was the way their God was treating them. But the Word reached his heart, and Jacob DeShazer was converted to Christ while in prison. Upon his release at the end of the war, he studied for the ministry, married, and returned to Japan as a missionary. Many were converted, including the Japanese general who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1919 Joseph Albert Wapner former American judge and TV personality of the real-life courtroom-style show The People's Court, which ran in syndication from 1981 to 1993 for 2,484 episodes.
1925 Howard Henry Baker, Jr former Senate Majority Leader, Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, White House Chief of Staff, and a former United States Ambassador to Japan. Known in Washington, D.C. as the "Great Conciliator," Baker is often regarded as one of the most successful senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility. A story is sometimes told of a reporter telling a senior Democratic senator that privately, a plurality of his Democratic colleagues would vote for Baker for President of the United States. The senator is reported to have replied, "You're wrong. He'd win a majority."
1925 Edward Asner born Eddie Asner and commonly known as Ed Asner, is an American film, television, stage, and voice actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant. More recently, he provided the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's award-winning animated film, Up.
1932 Alvin Carl Plantinga American analytic philosopher, formerly the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics. Plantinga is a Christian and known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs. Notably, he has argued that some people can know that God exists as a basic belief, requiring no argument, similar to how people usually claim to know that other minds exist. He has also argued that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of evil and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, wholly good God. Plantinga is the author of a number of books, including God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). He has delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures three times, and was described by Time magazine in 1980 as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God."
1936 Herring "H. B." Bailey (d 2003) NASCAR driver. He raced his #36 Pontiac part-time as an independent driver in the Grand National/Winston Cup series from 1962 to 1993 making 85 races over his career.
1937 Yaphet Frederick Kotto American actor, known for numerous film roles, and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street.
1940 Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy on the NBC television series Law & Order. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, BAFTA- and Emmy Awards, having starred in over eighty film and television productions during his forty-five year career. Allmovie has characterised Waterston as having "cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances." In January 2010, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1947 William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III 30th Governor of New Mexico. Before being elected governor, Richardson served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary. Richardson has also served as a U.S. Congressman, chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. On December 3, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama designated Richardson for appointment to the cabinet-level position of Commerce Secretary. On January 4, 2009, Richardson announced his decision to withdraw his nomination because of an investigation into improper business dealings in New Mexico. In August 2009, federal prosecutors dropped the pending investigation against the governor, and there has been speculation in the media about Richardson's career, after his second and final term as New Mexico governor concludes.
1957 Kevin Tyrone Eubanks American jazz guitarist and composer who was the leader of the Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno from 1995 to 2010. He also led The Primetime Band on the short-lived The Jay Leno Show.
Deaths
1794 John Witherspoon (b 1723) signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. As president of the College of New Jersey (1768–94; now Princeton University), he trained many leaders of the early nation and was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Witherspoon
1848 John Thorp (b 1784) American inventor of the ring spinning machine (1828), which by the 1860s had largely replaced Samuel Crompton's spinning mule in the world's textile mills because of its greater productivity and simplicity. The ring frame is a continuous spinner, which spins yarn and winds it onto bobbins in one motion, while the mule was a discontinuous spinner, first spinning a length of yarn and then winding that length onto bobbins separately. In ring spinning, a "c"-ring travels at a high speed around a grooved circular raceway mounted on a plate, which in turn travels up and down the spinning bobbin.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_manufacturing#Spinning-_yarn_manufacture
1907 Horatio R. Palmer (b. 26 April 1834), American Congregational clergyman and hymnist, wrote words to "Yield Not to Temptation" and music to "Master, the Tempest Is Raging," among others
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/p/a/l/palmer_hr.htm
1917 Andreas Wright, founder of the Norwegian Danish Augustana Synod in America and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America (b. 13 Sep 1835, Norway).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=W&word=WRIGHT.ANDREAS
1917 Oswald Chambers (b. 24 Jul 1874), Scottish Bible teacher and evangelical mystic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Chambers
1928 Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (b 1843) U.S. geologist and educator, born in Mattoon, Illinois, known for his "planetesimal hypothesis". With Forest Ray Moulton in 1904, he proposed that the solar system formed after gas flares were ripped from the sun by the gravitational field of a passing star. The flares then condensed into "planetesimals," arrayed in a spiral extending from the sun, gradually accumulated material and became the planets we know today. From 1876, he was Wisconsin Geological Survey's chief geologist, moving to head the glacier division of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881). He was president of the University of Wisconsin (1887-92), and then for 26 years he was head of its geology department of the University of Chicago. He founded The Journal of Geology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chrowder_Chamberlin
1945 Frank Michler Chapman (b 1864) American ornithologist famous for his extensive and detailed studies of the life histories, geographic distribution, and systematic relationships of North and South American birds. He joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1888, where he spent his life. By 1920, he was the first Chairman of the newly created Department of Birds. Chapman did pioneer work on Neotropical biogeography. Sensitive to the living environment of birds and other animals, he developed the “habitat group” as a means of display in the Museum, a feature now widely adopted by other museums through the world. A leading conservationist, Chapman was a prolific author who popularized bird study and raised awareness for conservation in the U.S.
1954 Lionel Barrymore (b 1878) American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931). He is well known for the role of the villainous Henry Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
1965 Allen Balcom Du Mont (b 1901) American engineer who perfected the first commercially practical cathode-ray tube, which was not only vitally important for much scientific and technical equipment but was the essential component of the modern television receiver. The early cathode ray tubes were imported from Germany at high cost, but they burned out after 25 or 30 hours. In the 1930's, he simplified and improved the production of cathode ray tubes lasting a thousand hours. A financially successful by-product of his television work was the cathode ray oscillograph. After WW II, Du Mont had become the industry's first millionaire, investing also in broadcasting stations. The Du Mont Broadcasting Co. he began in 1955 grew to become Metromedia, Inc.
1967 Elmer McCollum (b 1879) American biochemist who originated the letter system of naming vitamins. He discovered vitamins A, B and worked with others on vitamin D. He performed extensive research work in nutrition and growth. He was the first in the U.S. to establish a colony of white rats as laboratory animals to be the subject of his nutrition experiments. In the 1910's, he recognized that a healthy diet required certain fats, and he named the essential component "fat-soluble A," as distinct from another he named "water-soluble B." Although at first he thought each was a single compound, he later showed that they were in fact complexes. He researched how certain minerals were important as nutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, fluorine, manganese and zinc.«
1978 Margaret Mead (b 1901) American anthropologist whose great fame owed as much to the force of her personality and her outspokenness as it did to the quality of her scientific work. As an anthropologist, she was best-known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to various aspects of comparative child psychology, oceanic ethnology, cooperation and competition among primitive peoples, and cross-cultural communications. She was twenty-three years old when she first traveled to the South Pacific, to conduct research for her doctoral dissertation. The resulting book, Coming of Age in Samoa, was - and remains - a best-seller. She continued her research throughout her life in such locations as New Guinea, Samoa, Bali, and many other places. In 1983, five years after Mead had died, Derek Freeman published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged all of Mead's major findings. In 1988, he participated in the filming of Margaret Mead in Samoa, directed by Frank Heimans, which claims to document one of Mead's original informants, now an elderly woman, swearing that the information she and her friend provided Mead when they were teenagers was false
Holidays and observances[us]
America Recycles Day (United States)
Christian Feast Day:
Abibus of Edessa (died 322) Christian martyr at Edessa, Mesopotamia under Emperor Licinius in 322. He was burned at the stake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abibus_of_Edessa
Albert the Great, also Albert of Cologne (1193/1206 - 15 Nov 1280), German Dominican friar and a bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Doctor of the Church, one of only 35 persons with that honor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_the_Great
Blessed Hugh Faringdon Benedictine monk who ruled as the last Abbot of Reading Abbey in the English town of Reading. At the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII of England, he was accused of high treason and executed. He was declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church in 1895
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Faringdon
Didier of Cahors, c. 580 - November 15, traditionally 655), Bishop of Cahors, governed the diocese, which flourished under his care, from 630 to 655.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_of_Cahors
Leopold III, (1073 – 15 November, 1136) patron saint of Austria, of the city of Vienna, of Lower Austria, and, jointly with Saint Florian, of Upper Austria. A public holiday in Lower Austria and Vienna.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_III,_Margrave_of_Austria
Malo, Mid-6th century founder of Saint-Malo in Brittany, France. He is one of the seven founder saints of Brittany.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malo_(saint)
Mechell, 6th century founder and first abbot of the clas (a type of early Welsh/Celtic monastery) of Llanfechell, on Anglesey in north-west Wales.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechell
November 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Saint Herman of Alaska (1837)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Herman_of_Alaska
Saint Paisius Velichkovsky of Moldavia and Mt. Athos (1794)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisius_Velichkovsky
Holy Martyrs and Confessors Gurias, Samonas and Abibus, Edessa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edessa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abibus_of_Edessa
Other commemorations
"Kupyatich" Icon (1180) of the Most Holy Theotokos
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_02.htm
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.christianhistorytimeline.com/lives_events/birthday/index.php
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-stock-ticker-debuts
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_15
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_15_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1115.htm
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm