Post by farmgal on Nov 15, 2012 23:20:01 GMT -5
November 17 is the 322nd day of this leap year, in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 44 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/
1558 On the death of Roman Catholic monarch Mary Tudor, the Church of England was re-established.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England#History
1558 Elizabeth I ascends English throne upon death of Queen Mary Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in six languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England
1603 English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Walter_Raleigh
1734 John Zenger, arrested for libel against NY colonial governor; later acquitted. Supported by members of the popular party, Zenger's New-York Weekly JOURNAL continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections." On Sunday, November 17, 1734 Zenger was arrested and charged with seditious libel. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial defended by illustrious Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. After the arguments for both sides were finished, the jury was retired, only to return shortly with a verdict of not guilty.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zenger
1777 Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
1797 The first patent in the U.S. for a clock was issued to Eli Terry of East Windsor, Conn. for an equation clock. The clock had two minute hands, one of which showed the mean or true time, while the other "together with the striking part and hour hand showed the apparent time, as divided by the sun according to the table of variation of the sun and clock for each day of the year." He began making clocks in 1793, in Plymouth, Conn. Terry introduced wooden geared clocks using the ideas of Eli Whitney's new armory practice to produce interchangeable gears (1802) and mass production of very inexpensive household clocks. Terry developed ways to produce wooden clock works by machine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Terry
1800 The U.S. Congress met for the first time in the new capital at Washington, D.C. President John Adams then became the first occupant of the Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House
1820 US Navy Captain Nathaniel B Palmer discovers Antarctica While on a whaling voyage (1820-21) in the South Shetlands, Palmer commanded the Hero on an exploring trip to the south and came back with a report that he had sighted land. Aggressively searching for new seal rookeries south of Cape Horn, on November 17, 1820, young "Captain Nat" and his men became the first Americans to discover the Antarctic Peninsula. Palmer also discovered the South Orkney Islands.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_B._Palmer
1827 The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, is founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Phi
1851 The U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent carrier stamp. The stamps were used to defray delivery to a post office on letters going to another post office, and for collection and delivery in the same city (local letters handled only by the carrier deptyartment) A less common usage was for a collection fee from the addressee at the post office ("drop letters").It was the first postage stamp to depict an American eagle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Post_Office#History
The ruins of Fort Buchanan in 1914.
1856 American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Buchanan,_Arizona
1863 American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville begins – Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Knoxville
1869 The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Seas.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal
1869 Southwest winds of hurricane force swept the Berkshire and Green Mountains of New England causing extensive forest and structural damage. (David Ludlum)
1871 The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association
1875 The Theosophical Society of America was founded in New York City by Russian spiritualist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Theosophy regards reality as one basic, eternal principle beyond human understanding yet attainable with help from secret divine wisdom transmitted by “masters” or “mahatmas.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society_in_America
1891 Emile Berliner was issued a patent for a combined telegraph and telephone After some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, one of the first types of microphone. Berliner worked for Bell Telephone in Boston from 1877 to 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Berliner
1893 The Augsburg Home for the Aged, Baltimore, Maryland, was dedicated.
www.augsburg.org/health-center/
1903 The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party
1919 King George V of the United Kingdom proclaims Armistice Day (later Remembrance Day). The idea is first suggested by Edward George Honey.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day
1922 Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI goes into exile in Italy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_VI
1927 A tornado cut a seventeen mile path across Alexandria and southeastern Washington, DC, injuring 31 persons. The tornado struck the Naval Air Station where a wind gust of 93 mph was recorded. A waterspout was seen over the Potomac River ninety minutes later. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1938 Orchestra leader Kay Kyser lectures on Swing Music Orchestra leader Kay Kyser, speaking to an audience at the College of the City of New York (CCNY) told of the inner workings and artistic features of swing music. It marked the first of a series of lectures on swing music presented by Kyser, who went on to present "The Kollege of Musical Knowledge" on radio. The band was playing Chicago's Blackhawk Restaurant in 1937 when Kyser came up with "Kay's Klass," a freewheeling combination of community sing, amateur night and audience quiz. The show was re-christened Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge and WGN/Chicago gave it a trial run on the air. In 1938, the show moved to New York and became an instant hit on NBC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Kyser
[/img][/center]
1939 Nine Czech students are executed as a response to anti-Nazi demonstrations prompted by the death of Jan Opletal. In addition, all Czech universities are shut down and over 1200 Czech students sent to concentration camps. Since this event, International Students' Day is celebrated in many countries, especially in the Czech Republic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Opletal
1940 Green Bay Packers become first NFL team to travel by plane
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers
1947 The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild
A replica of the first working transistor.
1947 American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
1950 Roberta Peters made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. On November 17, 1950, Peters received a phone call from Rudolf Bing at 3:00 am, asking her if she could sing that night. Nadine Conner, cast as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni, had a mild case of food poisoning and could not perform. Ms. Peters, 20 years old and hired only a few weeks earlier on the basis of a single audition, had never sung with a full orchestra, never performed in a full opera production, never even performed on stage, professionally or otherwise, except for her audition. She was not an official understudy, but she knew the role and accepted.
ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=I.4574089444460458&pid=1.7&w=122&h=154&c=7&rs=1
1962 President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles_International_Airport
1953 The temperature at Minneapolis, MN, reached 71 degrees, their warmest reading of record for so late in the autumn. (The Weather Channel)
1954 Golfer Arnold Palmer signed a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods and became a pro. Palmer won the U. S. Amateur Championship in 1954, shortly after graduating from Wake Forest, and he became a professional the following year, announcing, "I want to win more tournaments than anyone, ever." He won his first major tournament, the Masters, in 1958. But he really established his reputation in 1960, when he demonstrated an amazing ability to charge from behind to win tournaments. At the Masters, he needed birdies on the last two holes to win. He got them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Palmer
1956 Fullback Jim Brown, Syracuse, scores 43 pts (NCAA rec) vs Colgate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Brown#College_sports_career
1958 "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio topped the charts. Their first album, THE KINGSTON TRIO, included "Tom Dooley" and it was played so much by DJs that Capitol released it as a single that eventually sold nearly 3 million records. The song as written by Guard was taken from a 19th century mountain ballad about Tom Dula, who was hanged for murdering his sweetheart. Several albums ensued for the trio, all doing well commercially but, while it had 10 singles charted by 1963, only "Reverend Mr. Black" got into the Top 10. However, the Kingston Trio is remembered for other tuneslike "M.T.A.," "The Tijuana Jail," "A Worried Man" and "Greenback Dollar.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Trio
1959 De Beers firm of South Africa announces synthetic diamond. In 1955, General Electric Company announced the development of an industrial process for the manufacture of synthetic diamond. This was followed by a similar announcement in 1959 by De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. Since diamonds were discovered over 2,000 years ago, only about 380 tons of natural (industrial and gemstones, combined) diamond have been recovered.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond
1962 "Big Girls Don't Cry" by the Four Seasons topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Girls_Don%27t_Cry_(The_Four_Seasons_song)
1967 Surveyor 6 made a six-second flight from its landing site on the moon, first lift-off on lunar surface.
1967 Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports that he had been given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells the nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#Vietnam_War
Nixon's toast to SALT I
1969 Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SALT_I#SALT_I
1970 A U.S. patent was issued for the computer mouse - an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System" (No. 3541541). The inventor was Doug Engelbart. In the lab, he and his colleagues had called it a "mouse," after its tail-like cable. The first mouse was a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top. Engelbart had designed this as a tool to select text, move it around, and otherwise manipulate it. It was a key element of his larger project - the NLS (oN Line System), a computer he and some colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute had built. The NLS also allowed two or more users to work on the same document from different workstations.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse
1970 Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley
1973 President Nixon states "... Well, I'm not a crook." In the weeks following the "Saturday Night Massacre" and impeachment bills introduced in Congress, Nixon defended his actions in a famous press conference on November 17, 1973, in which he said, "...in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life that [sic] I've welcomed this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook!"
1977 Miss World Contest - Miss UK wears $9,500 platinum bikini
1979 "Still" by the Commodores topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodores
1984 Islanders score 20 assists against Rangers
1987 - A storm in the Rockies produced 21 inches of snow at the Monarch ski resort in Colorado, with 14 inches reported at Steamboat Springs CO. Early morning thunderstorms in the southeastern U.S. drenched Mary Esther FL with 4.43 inches of rain. Gale force winds over the Great Lakes Region gusted to 49 mph at Johnstown PA. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 - Another in a series of storms brought heavy snow to the mountains of the western U.S. Totals ranged up to 17 inches at Bob Scott Summit in Nevada. Winds around Reno NV gusted to 80 mph. The Alta and Sundance ski resorts in Utah received 14 inches of snow. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins: In Czechoslovakia, a student demonstration in Prague is quelled by riot police. This sparks an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeds on December 29).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
www.amazon.com/Velvet-Revolution-Czechoslovakia-1988-1991/dp/0813312043/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353089681&sr=1-4&keywords=Velvet+Revolution
1989 Freezing temperatures overspread the southeastern U.S. in the wake of the severe weather outbreak of the previous two days. Eight cities reported record low temperatures for the date, including Gilbert AR with a reading of 8 degrees. A fast moving storm blanketed the Great Lakes Region and Upper Ohio Valley with snow during the night. Totals ranged up to 12 inches at Pellston MI and Little Valley NY. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1990 "Love Takes Time" by Mariah Carey topped the charts. Mariah wrote "Love Takes Time" with songwriter Ben Marguiles. It was intended for her second album, Emotions, but her label liked it so much they stopped presses of her first album, Mariah Carey, so it could be included. This was Mariah's second single. It followed up "Vision Of Love."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariah_Carey
1993 US Congress votes for NAFTA. The framework agreement proposed to eliminate restrictions on the flow of goods, services, and investment in North America. The House of Representatives approved NAFTA, by a vote of 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993, and the Senate voted 60 to 38 for approval on November 20. It was signed into law by President Clinton on December 8, 1993, and took effect on January 1, 1994.
1997 In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut, known as Luxor massacre (The police then kill the assailants).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre
2004 Kmart Corp. announces that it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Roebuck#Merger_with_Kmart
Births
1753 Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, in Trappe, Pennsylvania, first president of Franklin College (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and also a botanist (d. 23 May 1815).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthilf_Heinrich_Ernst_Muhlenberg
1835 William Arnold Anthony (d 1908) American physicist and pioneer in the teaching of electrical engineering in the United States. While teaching in the Physics Department at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., he initiated and developed one of the first courses in electrical engineering in the U.S. (1883). During 1872-75, Anthony, with the aid of student George Moler, built the first American Gramme dynamo for direct current, used to power arc lamps that lighted the Cornell campus, the first American electrical outdoor-lighting system. Anthony also built a mammoth tangent galvanometer, a device which utilized the earth's magnetic field for the measurement of current. He designed the dynamo for first underground electricity distributing system. Anthony contributed to development of gas-filled electric lamps.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arnold_Anthony
1849 Otto Daniel August Hoyer, professor and director [president] of Dr. Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota), director of Michigan Lutheran Seminary (Saginaw) and professor and inspector at Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin), was born in Hamburg, Germany (d. 8 Nov 1905).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=H&word=HOYER.OTTODANIELAUGUST
1865 William Merriam Burton (d 1954) American chemist who devised the first thermal cracking process that more than doubled the proportion of gasoline yield from crude oil by using high heat and high pressure. The crude petroleum mixture of various hydrocarbons can be separated into several groups of constituents by physical means, commonly distillation. His thermal cracking process (patented 7 Jan 1913, No. 1,049,667) chemically reformed longer molecules of less volatile components into smaller molecules thus doubling the yield of gasoline needed to fuel the motor industry. During its first 15 years in use the process saved more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil. In 1937 the invention of catalytic cracking superceded the Burton process, but it remains in wide use.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Merriam_Burton
1878 Hans Zinsser (d 1940) American bacteriologist and immunologists who was an international authority on typhus, a deadly disease. In 1936, he isolated the typhus germ. By 1939 he had perfection of a method to produce enough anti-typhus vaccine to protect a country nation. He travelled abroad to study disease outbreaks: an typhus epidemic in Serbia (1915), cholera in the Soviet Union (1923), a prison typhus epidemic in Mexico (1931) and lectured in China (1938). He published over 160 scientific papers. The cause of typhus, Rickettsia organisms are carried by a louse or a rat flea and transmitted to humans by a bite from the parasites, especially in areas of poor sanitation and overcrowding. He wrote his autobiography in the third person, As I Remember Him, while dying of leukemia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zinsser
1878 Grace Abbott (d 1939) American social worker who specifically worked in advancing child welfare. Her elder sister was social worker Edith Abbott.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Abbott
1902 Eugene Paul Wigner (d 1995) Hungarian-born American physicist who was the joint winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics (with Maria Goeppert Mayer and Johannes Hans Jensen) for his insight into quantum mechanics, for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. He made many contributions to nuclear physics and played a prominent role in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear energy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Paul_Wigner
1904 Isamu Noguchi (d 1988) Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Noguchi
1909 Geoffrey (Howard) Bourne (d 1988) Australian-born American anatomist. His studies of the mammalian adrenal gland made him a pioneer in the chemistry of cells and tissues (histochemistry). Professor and Chairman of the Anatomy Department of the Emory University Medical School, Atlanta, Ga.; later became Director (1962-78) of the Yerkes Primate Research Center there. Bourne was a most articulate spokesman for nonhuman primate research. He fought vigorously to proceed with research involving all primates, especially the dwarf chimpanzee. His numerous books covered many facets of biology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bourne_(anatomist)
1919 Hershy Kay (d 1981) American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine's New York City Ballet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershy_Kay
1922 Stanley Cohen American biochemist who, with Rita, shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his researches on epidermal growth factor (EGF), a substance produced in the body that influences the development of skin tissues. With the nerve growth factor (NGF) studied by Levi-Montalcini, these were the first of many growth-regulating signal substances to be discovered and characterized. The discovery of NGF and EGF opened new fields of widespread importance to basic science and increased understanding of many disease states such as developmental malformations, degenerative changes in senile dementia, delayed wound healing and tumour diseases.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cohen_(biochemist)
1925 Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. (d 1985), known professionally as Rock Hudson, American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with his most famous co-star, Doris Day. Hudson was voted "Star of the Year", "Favorite Leading Man", and similar titles by numerous movie magazines. The 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall actor was unquestionably one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS-related illness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hudson
1930 Robert Bruce "Bob" Mathias (d 2006) American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, actor and United States Congressman representing the state of California.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Mathias
1938 Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr., CC, O.Ont Canadian singer and songwriter who has achieved international success in folk and country music.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Meredith_Lightfoot,_Jr.
1942 Martin Charles Scorsese American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. He is the founder of the World Cinema Foundation and a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won awards from the Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Directors Guild of America. Scorsese is president of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Scorsese
1944 Daniel Michael "Danny" DeVito, Jr, American actor, comedian, director, and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC TV series Taxi (1978–1983), for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_DeVito
1944 George Thomas "Tom" Seaver nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The Franchise", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched from 1967-1986 for four different teams in his career, but is noted primarily for his time with the New York Mets. During a 20-year career, Seaver compiled 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts, and a 2.86 earned run average. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the highest percentage ever recorded (98.8%), and has the only plaque at Cooperstown wearing a New York Mets hat. As of 2010, Seaver is also the only Met player to have his jersey number retired by the team.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Seaver
1945 Elvin Ernest Hayes Rayville, Louisiana, retired American basketball player. He is a member of the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. (San Diego, Houston, Baltimore)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvin_Hayes
Deaths
1808 David Zeisberger (b 1721) Moravian clergyman and missionary among the Native Americans in the Thirteen Colonies. He established communities of Munsee (Lenape) converts in the valley of the Muskingum River in Ohio; and for a time, near modern-day Amherstburg, Ontario.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zeisberger
1865 James McCune Smith (b 1813) American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author. He is the first African-American to earn a medical degree and to run a pharmacy in the United States. Smith wrote forcefully in refutation of the common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine, and society in general. His friends and colleagues in this movement were often famous and consisted of many noted abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McCune_Smith
1897 George Hendric Houghton (b 1820) American Protestant Episcopal clergyman. In 1848 he organized, and until his death was rector of, the Church of the Transfiguration, better known as the "Little Church around the Corner", in New York City.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hendric_Houghton
1910 Ralph Johnstone, pioneer pilot, 1st 'American' pilot killed in the crash of an airplane, Denver, Colorado (b. 1886)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Johnstone
1926 Carl Ethan Akeley (b 1864) American naturalist and explorerwho developed the taxidermic method for mounting museum displays to show animals in their natural surroundings. His method of applying skin on a finely molded replica of the body of the animal gave results of unprecedented realism and elevated taxidermy from a craft to an art. He mounted the skeleton of the famous African elephant Jumbo. He invented the Akeley cement gun (1911) to use while mounting animals and the Akeley camera which was used to capture the first movies of gorillas. In the 1920's Akeley made a large specimen collection, part of the American Museum's famous African mammal hall. He died in the Virunga mountains while working towards the mountain gorilla diorama.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Ethan_Akeley
1929 Herman Hollerith (b 1860) American inventor of a tabulating machine that was an important precursor of the electronic computer. For the 1890 U.S. census, he invented several punched-card machines to automate the sorting of data. The machine which read the cards used a pin going through a hole in the card to make an electrical connection with mercury placed beneath. The resulting electrical current activated a mechanical counter. It saved the United States 5 million dollars for the 1890 census by completing the analysis of the data in a fraction of the time it would have taken without it and with a smaller amount of manpower than would have been necessary otherwise. In 1896, he formed the Tabulating Machine Company, a precursor of IBM.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Hollerith
1940 Raymond Pearl (b 1879) American zoologist, one of the founders of biometry, the application of statistics to biology and medicine. Pearl was chief statistician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1919-35). He pioneered studies in longevity, changes in world population, and genetics. He reported in the May 1938 Scientific American that "the smoking of tobacco was associated definitely with an impairment of life duration and the amount or degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased." In 1926, he first reported health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption (as opposed to both abstinence and heavy drinking) in a modern medical light.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Pearl
1955 James P. Johnson (James Price Johnson, also known as Jimmy Johnson), (b 1894) American pianist and composer. A pioneer of the stride style of jazz piano, he was a model for Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum and Fats Waller. Johnson composed many hit tunes including "Charleston" and "Carolina Shout" and remained the acknowledged king of New York jazz pianists until he was dethroned c. 1933 by the recently arrived Art Tatum. His influence and success is often overlooked.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_(song)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P._Johnson
1962 Arthur Vining Davis (b 1867) American industrialist and philanthropist.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Vining_Davis
1975 Detlev (Wulf) Bronk (b 1897) American scientist credited with formulating the modern theory of the science of biophysics. He pioneered use of electro-microscopy to monitor human nerve network and was a leader in the study of human physiology in aeronautics. During WW II, he coordinated a group physiologists, located on air bases at home and abroad, who developed the Army Air Force altitude training and night vision training programs for pilots. Meanwhile, he studied the effects of low oxygen pressure on human performance. After the war, he became president of Rockefeller Institute/University (1953-68) and was prominent in scientific and governmental organizations including the National Science Foundation and the Presidential Science Advisory Committee.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detlev_Wulf_Bronk
1988 Sheilah Graham Westbrook (b 1904) English-born American nationally syndicated gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age," who with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper wielded power to make or break careers prompting her to describe herself as "the Last of the unholy trio."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheilah_Graham_Westbrook
1990 Robert Hofstadter (b 1915) American scientist, a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1961 for his investigations in which he measured the sizes of the neutron and proton in the nuclei of atoms. He revealed the hitherto unknown structure of these particles and helped create an identifying order for subatomic particles. He also correctly predicted the existence of hte omega-meson and rho-meson. He also studied controlled nuclear fission. Hofstadter was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. He also made substantial contributions to gamma ray spectroscopy, leading to the use of radioactive tracers to locate tumors and other disorders. (He shared the prize with Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer of Germany.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hofstadter
1961 Charles H. Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harrison_Mason
1998 Esther Rolle (b 1920) American actress of stage and television. She was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Florida Evans on the CBS television sitcom Maude and its spin-off Good Times.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Rolle
2003 Donald Eugene Gibson (b 1928) American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Stop_Loving_You
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gibson
2006 Glenn Edward "Bo" Schembechler, Jr. (b 1929) American football player, coach, and athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Miami University from 1963 to 1968 and at the University of Michigan from 1969 to 1989, compiling a career record of 234–65–8. Only Joe Paterno and Tom Osborne have recorded 200 victories in fewer games as a coach in major college football. In his 21 seasons as the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, Schembechler's teams amassed a record of 194–48–5 and won or shared 13 Big Ten Conference titles. Though his Michigan teams never won a national championship, in all but one season they finished ranked, and 16 times they placed in the final top ten of both major polls.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Schembechler
2008 George Stephen Morrison (b 1919) rear admiral and naval aviator in the United States Navy. Morrison was commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964. He was the father of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephen_Morrison
Christian Feast Day
Acisclus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acisclus
Elisabeth of Hungary
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Hungary
Gennadius of Constantinople (Greek Orthodox Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_of_Constantinople
Gregory of Tours (Roman Catholic Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Tours
Gregory Thaumaturgusa well-loved bishop in Pontus and the author of the first Christian biography (on Origen), (b. ca. 213).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Thaumaturgus
Hilda of Whitby
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_of_Whitby
Hugh of Lincoln
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Lincoln
[/size]
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_17.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov17.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_17
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1117.htm
There are 44 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/
1558 On the death of Roman Catholic monarch Mary Tudor, the Church of England was re-established.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England#History
1558 Elizabeth I ascends English throne upon death of Queen Mary Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in six languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England
1603 English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Walter_Raleigh
1734 John Zenger, arrested for libel against NY colonial governor; later acquitted. Supported by members of the popular party, Zenger's New-York Weekly JOURNAL continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections." On Sunday, November 17, 1734 Zenger was arrested and charged with seditious libel. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial defended by illustrious Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. After the arguments for both sides were finished, the jury was retired, only to return shortly with a verdict of not guilty.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zenger
1777 Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
1797 The first patent in the U.S. for a clock was issued to Eli Terry of East Windsor, Conn. for an equation clock. The clock had two minute hands, one of which showed the mean or true time, while the other "together with the striking part and hour hand showed the apparent time, as divided by the sun according to the table of variation of the sun and clock for each day of the year." He began making clocks in 1793, in Plymouth, Conn. Terry introduced wooden geared clocks using the ideas of Eli Whitney's new armory practice to produce interchangeable gears (1802) and mass production of very inexpensive household clocks. Terry developed ways to produce wooden clock works by machine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Terry
1800 The U.S. Congress met for the first time in the new capital at Washington, D.C. President John Adams then became the first occupant of the Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House
1820 US Navy Captain Nathaniel B Palmer discovers Antarctica While on a whaling voyage (1820-21) in the South Shetlands, Palmer commanded the Hero on an exploring trip to the south and came back with a report that he had sighted land. Aggressively searching for new seal rookeries south of Cape Horn, on November 17, 1820, young "Captain Nat" and his men became the first Americans to discover the Antarctic Peninsula. Palmer also discovered the South Orkney Islands.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_B._Palmer
1827 The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, is founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Phi
1851 The U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent carrier stamp. The stamps were used to defray delivery to a post office on letters going to another post office, and for collection and delivery in the same city (local letters handled only by the carrier deptyartment) A less common usage was for a collection fee from the addressee at the post office ("drop letters").It was the first postage stamp to depict an American eagle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Post_Office#History
The ruins of Fort Buchanan in 1914.
1856 American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Buchanan,_Arizona
1863 American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville begins – Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Knoxville
1869 The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Seas.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal
1869 Southwest winds of hurricane force swept the Berkshire and Green Mountains of New England causing extensive forest and structural damage. (David Ludlum)
1871 The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association
1875 The Theosophical Society of America was founded in New York City by Russian spiritualist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Theosophy regards reality as one basic, eternal principle beyond human understanding yet attainable with help from secret divine wisdom transmitted by “masters” or “mahatmas.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society_in_America
1891 Emile Berliner was issued a patent for a combined telegraph and telephone After some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, one of the first types of microphone. Berliner worked for Bell Telephone in Boston from 1877 to 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Berliner
1893 The Augsburg Home for the Aged, Baltimore, Maryland, was dedicated.
www.augsburg.org/health-center/
1903 The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party
1919 King George V of the United Kingdom proclaims Armistice Day (later Remembrance Day). The idea is first suggested by Edward George Honey.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day
1922 Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI goes into exile in Italy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_VI
1927 A tornado cut a seventeen mile path across Alexandria and southeastern Washington, DC, injuring 31 persons. The tornado struck the Naval Air Station where a wind gust of 93 mph was recorded. A waterspout was seen over the Potomac River ninety minutes later. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1938 Orchestra leader Kay Kyser lectures on Swing Music Orchestra leader Kay Kyser, speaking to an audience at the College of the City of New York (CCNY) told of the inner workings and artistic features of swing music. It marked the first of a series of lectures on swing music presented by Kyser, who went on to present "The Kollege of Musical Knowledge" on radio. The band was playing Chicago's Blackhawk Restaurant in 1937 when Kyser came up with "Kay's Klass," a freewheeling combination of community sing, amateur night and audience quiz. The show was re-christened Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge and WGN/Chicago gave it a trial run on the air. In 1938, the show moved to New York and became an instant hit on NBC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Kyser
[/img][/center]
1939 Nine Czech students are executed as a response to anti-Nazi demonstrations prompted by the death of Jan Opletal. In addition, all Czech universities are shut down and over 1200 Czech students sent to concentration camps. Since this event, International Students' Day is celebrated in many countries, especially in the Czech Republic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Opletal
1940 Green Bay Packers become first NFL team to travel by plane
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers
1947 The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild
A replica of the first working transistor.
1947 American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
1950 Roberta Peters made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. On November 17, 1950, Peters received a phone call from Rudolf Bing at 3:00 am, asking her if she could sing that night. Nadine Conner, cast as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni, had a mild case of food poisoning and could not perform. Ms. Peters, 20 years old and hired only a few weeks earlier on the basis of a single audition, had never sung with a full orchestra, never performed in a full opera production, never even performed on stage, professionally or otherwise, except for her audition. She was not an official understudy, but she knew the role and accepted.
ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=I.4574089444460458&pid=1.7&w=122&h=154&c=7&rs=1
1962 President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles_International_Airport
1953 The temperature at Minneapolis, MN, reached 71 degrees, their warmest reading of record for so late in the autumn. (The Weather Channel)
1954 Golfer Arnold Palmer signed a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods and became a pro. Palmer won the U. S. Amateur Championship in 1954, shortly after graduating from Wake Forest, and he became a professional the following year, announcing, "I want to win more tournaments than anyone, ever." He won his first major tournament, the Masters, in 1958. But he really established his reputation in 1960, when he demonstrated an amazing ability to charge from behind to win tournaments. At the Masters, he needed birdies on the last two holes to win. He got them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Palmer
1956 Fullback Jim Brown, Syracuse, scores 43 pts (NCAA rec) vs Colgate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Brown#College_sports_career
1958 "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio topped the charts. Their first album, THE KINGSTON TRIO, included "Tom Dooley" and it was played so much by DJs that Capitol released it as a single that eventually sold nearly 3 million records. The song as written by Guard was taken from a 19th century mountain ballad about Tom Dula, who was hanged for murdering his sweetheart. Several albums ensued for the trio, all doing well commercially but, while it had 10 singles charted by 1963, only "Reverend Mr. Black" got into the Top 10. However, the Kingston Trio is remembered for other tuneslike "M.T.A.," "The Tijuana Jail," "A Worried Man" and "Greenback Dollar.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Trio
1959 De Beers firm of South Africa announces synthetic diamond. In 1955, General Electric Company announced the development of an industrial process for the manufacture of synthetic diamond. This was followed by a similar announcement in 1959 by De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. Since diamonds were discovered over 2,000 years ago, only about 380 tons of natural (industrial and gemstones, combined) diamond have been recovered.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond
1962 "Big Girls Don't Cry" by the Four Seasons topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Girls_Don%27t_Cry_(The_Four_Seasons_song)
1967 Surveyor 6 made a six-second flight from its landing site on the moon, first lift-off on lunar surface.
1967 Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports that he had been given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells the nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#Vietnam_War
Nixon's toast to SALT I
1969 Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SALT_I#SALT_I
1970 A U.S. patent was issued for the computer mouse - an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System" (No. 3541541). The inventor was Doug Engelbart. In the lab, he and his colleagues had called it a "mouse," after its tail-like cable. The first mouse was a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top. Engelbart had designed this as a tool to select text, move it around, and otherwise manipulate it. It was a key element of his larger project - the NLS (oN Line System), a computer he and some colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute had built. The NLS also allowed two or more users to work on the same document from different workstations.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse
1970 Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley
1973 President Nixon states "... Well, I'm not a crook." In the weeks following the "Saturday Night Massacre" and impeachment bills introduced in Congress, Nixon defended his actions in a famous press conference on November 17, 1973, in which he said, "...in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life that [sic] I've welcomed this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook!"
1977 Miss World Contest - Miss UK wears $9,500 platinum bikini
1979 "Still" by the Commodores topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodores
1984 Islanders score 20 assists against Rangers
1987 - A storm in the Rockies produced 21 inches of snow at the Monarch ski resort in Colorado, with 14 inches reported at Steamboat Springs CO. Early morning thunderstorms in the southeastern U.S. drenched Mary Esther FL with 4.43 inches of rain. Gale force winds over the Great Lakes Region gusted to 49 mph at Johnstown PA. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 - Another in a series of storms brought heavy snow to the mountains of the western U.S. Totals ranged up to 17 inches at Bob Scott Summit in Nevada. Winds around Reno NV gusted to 80 mph. The Alta and Sundance ski resorts in Utah received 14 inches of snow. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins: In Czechoslovakia, a student demonstration in Prague is quelled by riot police. This sparks an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeds on December 29).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
www.amazon.com/Velvet-Revolution-Czechoslovakia-1988-1991/dp/0813312043/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353089681&sr=1-4&keywords=Velvet+Revolution
1989 Freezing temperatures overspread the southeastern U.S. in the wake of the severe weather outbreak of the previous two days. Eight cities reported record low temperatures for the date, including Gilbert AR with a reading of 8 degrees. A fast moving storm blanketed the Great Lakes Region and Upper Ohio Valley with snow during the night. Totals ranged up to 12 inches at Pellston MI and Little Valley NY. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1990 "Love Takes Time" by Mariah Carey topped the charts. Mariah wrote "Love Takes Time" with songwriter Ben Marguiles. It was intended for her second album, Emotions, but her label liked it so much they stopped presses of her first album, Mariah Carey, so it could be included. This was Mariah's second single. It followed up "Vision Of Love."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariah_Carey
1993 US Congress votes for NAFTA. The framework agreement proposed to eliminate restrictions on the flow of goods, services, and investment in North America. The House of Representatives approved NAFTA, by a vote of 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993, and the Senate voted 60 to 38 for approval on November 20. It was signed into law by President Clinton on December 8, 1993, and took effect on January 1, 1994.
1997 In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut, known as Luxor massacre (The police then kill the assailants).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre
2004 Kmart Corp. announces that it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Roebuck#Merger_with_Kmart
Births
1753 Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, in Trappe, Pennsylvania, first president of Franklin College (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and also a botanist (d. 23 May 1815).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthilf_Heinrich_Ernst_Muhlenberg
1835 William Arnold Anthony (d 1908) American physicist and pioneer in the teaching of electrical engineering in the United States. While teaching in the Physics Department at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., he initiated and developed one of the first courses in electrical engineering in the U.S. (1883). During 1872-75, Anthony, with the aid of student George Moler, built the first American Gramme dynamo for direct current, used to power arc lamps that lighted the Cornell campus, the first American electrical outdoor-lighting system. Anthony also built a mammoth tangent galvanometer, a device which utilized the earth's magnetic field for the measurement of current. He designed the dynamo for first underground electricity distributing system. Anthony contributed to development of gas-filled electric lamps.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arnold_Anthony
1849 Otto Daniel August Hoyer, professor and director [president] of Dr. Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota), director of Michigan Lutheran Seminary (Saginaw) and professor and inspector at Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin), was born in Hamburg, Germany (d. 8 Nov 1905).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=H&word=HOYER.OTTODANIELAUGUST
1865 William Merriam Burton (d 1954) American chemist who devised the first thermal cracking process that more than doubled the proportion of gasoline yield from crude oil by using high heat and high pressure. The crude petroleum mixture of various hydrocarbons can be separated into several groups of constituents by physical means, commonly distillation. His thermal cracking process (patented 7 Jan 1913, No. 1,049,667) chemically reformed longer molecules of less volatile components into smaller molecules thus doubling the yield of gasoline needed to fuel the motor industry. During its first 15 years in use the process saved more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil. In 1937 the invention of catalytic cracking superceded the Burton process, but it remains in wide use.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Merriam_Burton
1878 Hans Zinsser (d 1940) American bacteriologist and immunologists who was an international authority on typhus, a deadly disease. In 1936, he isolated the typhus germ. By 1939 he had perfection of a method to produce enough anti-typhus vaccine to protect a country nation. He travelled abroad to study disease outbreaks: an typhus epidemic in Serbia (1915), cholera in the Soviet Union (1923), a prison typhus epidemic in Mexico (1931) and lectured in China (1938). He published over 160 scientific papers. The cause of typhus, Rickettsia organisms are carried by a louse or a rat flea and transmitted to humans by a bite from the parasites, especially in areas of poor sanitation and overcrowding. He wrote his autobiography in the third person, As I Remember Him, while dying of leukemia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zinsser
1878 Grace Abbott (d 1939) American social worker who specifically worked in advancing child welfare. Her elder sister was social worker Edith Abbott.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Abbott
1902 Eugene Paul Wigner (d 1995) Hungarian-born American physicist who was the joint winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics (with Maria Goeppert Mayer and Johannes Hans Jensen) for his insight into quantum mechanics, for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. He made many contributions to nuclear physics and played a prominent role in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear energy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Paul_Wigner
1904 Isamu Noguchi (d 1988) Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Noguchi
1909 Geoffrey (Howard) Bourne (d 1988) Australian-born American anatomist. His studies of the mammalian adrenal gland made him a pioneer in the chemistry of cells and tissues (histochemistry). Professor and Chairman of the Anatomy Department of the Emory University Medical School, Atlanta, Ga.; later became Director (1962-78) of the Yerkes Primate Research Center there. Bourne was a most articulate spokesman for nonhuman primate research. He fought vigorously to proceed with research involving all primates, especially the dwarf chimpanzee. His numerous books covered many facets of biology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bourne_(anatomist)
1919 Hershy Kay (d 1981) American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine's New York City Ballet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershy_Kay
1922 Stanley Cohen American biochemist who, with Rita, shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his researches on epidermal growth factor (EGF), a substance produced in the body that influences the development of skin tissues. With the nerve growth factor (NGF) studied by Levi-Montalcini, these were the first of many growth-regulating signal substances to be discovered and characterized. The discovery of NGF and EGF opened new fields of widespread importance to basic science and increased understanding of many disease states such as developmental malformations, degenerative changes in senile dementia, delayed wound healing and tumour diseases.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cohen_(biochemist)
1925 Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. (d 1985), known professionally as Rock Hudson, American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with his most famous co-star, Doris Day. Hudson was voted "Star of the Year", "Favorite Leading Man", and similar titles by numerous movie magazines. The 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall actor was unquestionably one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS-related illness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hudson
1930 Robert Bruce "Bob" Mathias (d 2006) American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, actor and United States Congressman representing the state of California.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Mathias
1938 Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr., CC, O.Ont Canadian singer and songwriter who has achieved international success in folk and country music.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Meredith_Lightfoot,_Jr.
1942 Martin Charles Scorsese American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. He is the founder of the World Cinema Foundation and a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won awards from the Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Directors Guild of America. Scorsese is president of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Scorsese
1944 Daniel Michael "Danny" DeVito, Jr, American actor, comedian, director, and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC TV series Taxi (1978–1983), for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_DeVito
1944 George Thomas "Tom" Seaver nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The Franchise", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched from 1967-1986 for four different teams in his career, but is noted primarily for his time with the New York Mets. During a 20-year career, Seaver compiled 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts, and a 2.86 earned run average. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the highest percentage ever recorded (98.8%), and has the only plaque at Cooperstown wearing a New York Mets hat. As of 2010, Seaver is also the only Met player to have his jersey number retired by the team.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Seaver
1945 Elvin Ernest Hayes Rayville, Louisiana, retired American basketball player. He is a member of the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. (San Diego, Houston, Baltimore)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvin_Hayes
Deaths
1808 David Zeisberger (b 1721) Moravian clergyman and missionary among the Native Americans in the Thirteen Colonies. He established communities of Munsee (Lenape) converts in the valley of the Muskingum River in Ohio; and for a time, near modern-day Amherstburg, Ontario.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zeisberger
1865 James McCune Smith (b 1813) American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author. He is the first African-American to earn a medical degree and to run a pharmacy in the United States. Smith wrote forcefully in refutation of the common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine, and society in general. His friends and colleagues in this movement were often famous and consisted of many noted abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McCune_Smith
1897 George Hendric Houghton (b 1820) American Protestant Episcopal clergyman. In 1848 he organized, and until his death was rector of, the Church of the Transfiguration, better known as the "Little Church around the Corner", in New York City.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hendric_Houghton
1910 Ralph Johnstone, pioneer pilot, 1st 'American' pilot killed in the crash of an airplane, Denver, Colorado (b. 1886)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Johnstone
1926 Carl Ethan Akeley (b 1864) American naturalist and explorerwho developed the taxidermic method for mounting museum displays to show animals in their natural surroundings. His method of applying skin on a finely molded replica of the body of the animal gave results of unprecedented realism and elevated taxidermy from a craft to an art. He mounted the skeleton of the famous African elephant Jumbo. He invented the Akeley cement gun (1911) to use while mounting animals and the Akeley camera which was used to capture the first movies of gorillas. In the 1920's Akeley made a large specimen collection, part of the American Museum's famous African mammal hall. He died in the Virunga mountains while working towards the mountain gorilla diorama.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Ethan_Akeley
1929 Herman Hollerith (b 1860) American inventor of a tabulating machine that was an important precursor of the electronic computer. For the 1890 U.S. census, he invented several punched-card machines to automate the sorting of data. The machine which read the cards used a pin going through a hole in the card to make an electrical connection with mercury placed beneath. The resulting electrical current activated a mechanical counter. It saved the United States 5 million dollars for the 1890 census by completing the analysis of the data in a fraction of the time it would have taken without it and with a smaller amount of manpower than would have been necessary otherwise. In 1896, he formed the Tabulating Machine Company, a precursor of IBM.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Hollerith
1940 Raymond Pearl (b 1879) American zoologist, one of the founders of biometry, the application of statistics to biology and medicine. Pearl was chief statistician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1919-35). He pioneered studies in longevity, changes in world population, and genetics. He reported in the May 1938 Scientific American that "the smoking of tobacco was associated definitely with an impairment of life duration and the amount or degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased." In 1926, he first reported health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption (as opposed to both abstinence and heavy drinking) in a modern medical light.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Pearl
1955 James P. Johnson (James Price Johnson, also known as Jimmy Johnson), (b 1894) American pianist and composer. A pioneer of the stride style of jazz piano, he was a model for Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum and Fats Waller. Johnson composed many hit tunes including "Charleston" and "Carolina Shout" and remained the acknowledged king of New York jazz pianists until he was dethroned c. 1933 by the recently arrived Art Tatum. His influence and success is often overlooked.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_(song)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P._Johnson
1962 Arthur Vining Davis (b 1867) American industrialist and philanthropist.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Vining_Davis
1975 Detlev (Wulf) Bronk (b 1897) American scientist credited with formulating the modern theory of the science of biophysics. He pioneered use of electro-microscopy to monitor human nerve network and was a leader in the study of human physiology in aeronautics. During WW II, he coordinated a group physiologists, located on air bases at home and abroad, who developed the Army Air Force altitude training and night vision training programs for pilots. Meanwhile, he studied the effects of low oxygen pressure on human performance. After the war, he became president of Rockefeller Institute/University (1953-68) and was prominent in scientific and governmental organizations including the National Science Foundation and the Presidential Science Advisory Committee.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detlev_Wulf_Bronk
1988 Sheilah Graham Westbrook (b 1904) English-born American nationally syndicated gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age," who with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper wielded power to make or break careers prompting her to describe herself as "the Last of the unholy trio."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheilah_Graham_Westbrook
1990 Robert Hofstadter (b 1915) American scientist, a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1961 for his investigations in which he measured the sizes of the neutron and proton in the nuclei of atoms. He revealed the hitherto unknown structure of these particles and helped create an identifying order for subatomic particles. He also correctly predicted the existence of hte omega-meson and rho-meson. He also studied controlled nuclear fission. Hofstadter was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. He also made substantial contributions to gamma ray spectroscopy, leading to the use of radioactive tracers to locate tumors and other disorders. (He shared the prize with Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer of Germany.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hofstadter
1961 Charles H. Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harrison_Mason
1998 Esther Rolle (b 1920) American actress of stage and television. She was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Florida Evans on the CBS television sitcom Maude and its spin-off Good Times.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Rolle
2003 Donald Eugene Gibson (b 1928) American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Stop_Loving_You
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gibson
2006 Glenn Edward "Bo" Schembechler, Jr. (b 1929) American football player, coach, and athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Miami University from 1963 to 1968 and at the University of Michigan from 1969 to 1989, compiling a career record of 234–65–8. Only Joe Paterno and Tom Osborne have recorded 200 victories in fewer games as a coach in major college football. In his 21 seasons as the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, Schembechler's teams amassed a record of 194–48–5 and won or shared 13 Big Ten Conference titles. Though his Michigan teams never won a national championship, in all but one season they finished ranked, and 16 times they placed in the final top ten of both major polls.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Schembechler
2008 George Stephen Morrison (b 1919) rear admiral and naval aviator in the United States Navy. Morrison was commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964. He was the father of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephen_Morrison
Christian Feast Day
Acisclus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acisclus
Elisabeth of Hungary
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Hungary
Gennadius of Constantinople (Greek Orthodox Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_of_Constantinople
Gregory of Tours (Roman Catholic Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Tours
Gregory Thaumaturgusa well-loved bishop in Pontus and the author of the first Christian biography (on Origen), (b. ca. 213).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Thaumaturgus
Hilda of Whitby
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_of_Whitby
Hugh of Lincoln
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Lincoln
[/size]
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_17.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov17.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_17
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.lcms.org/
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1117.htm