Post by farmgal on Nov 19, 2012 9:33:19 GMT -5
November 20 is the 324th day of this lrap year, in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 41 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should have been leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1541 In Switzerland French reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) established a theocratic government at Geneva, thereby creating a home base for emergent Protestantism throughout Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin
1637 Peter Minuit & first Swedish immigrants to Delaware sail from Sweden Minuit took two ships, the Kalmar Nycel [Key of Colmar] and the Fogel Grip [Flying Griffin]. He and his crew reached the Minquas River in March 1638, and re-named it the Christina River after the Swedish Queen. Peter Minuit bought some land along the Christina River from five Native American chiefs. He built a fort on land where Wilmington, Delaware is located today. He named it Fort Christina. Peter Minuit was the first governor of New Sweden.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit[/a][/url]
1789 New Jersey becomes first state to ratify Bill of Rights
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
1819 First person to successfully complete a parachute jump in America. On November 20, 1818, Louis Charles Guille at 500 feet altitude, cut his basket loose from a balloon in Jersey City and parachuted safely to earth. He is credited with the first parachute jump in the western world.
www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/aved/museum/aviation_firsts/newjersey.html
The Essex being struck by a whale on November 20, 1820
(sketched by Thomas Nickerson)1820 An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story). The 238-ton Essex was in pursuit of sperm whales, specifically the precious oil and bone that could be derived from them, when an enraged bull whale rammed the ship twice and capsized the vessel. The 20 crew members escaped in three open boats, but only five of the men survived the harrowing 83-day journey to the coastal waters of South America, where they were picked up by other ships. Most of the crew resorted to cannibalism during the long journey, and at one point men on one of the long boats drew straws to determine which of the men would be shot in order to provide sustenance for the others. Three other men who had been left on a desolate Pacific island were saved later.
The first capture of a sperm whale by an American vessel was in 1711, marking the birth of an important American industry that commanded a fleet of more than 700 ships by the mid 18th century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)
1838 The first group of Prussian Lutheran immigrants arrived in Australia, forming the Klemzig settlement near what is today Adelaide.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemzig,_South_Australia
Robidoux Row, St. Joseph, Missouri
1843 Blacksnake Hills trading post is renamed St. JosephEstablished as the Blacksnake Hills trading post in 1826, the growing community along the banks of the Missouri River adopts the more impressive St. Joseph as its name.
As with many early western towns, St. Joseph began as a fur trading post. The French-Canadian Joseph Robidoux III shrewdly located his Blacksnake Hills post at the entrance to the Indian-controlled Platte country so he could trade cloth, metal pots, and other manufactured goods for Native Americans' furs. As the numbers of Anglo settlers in the region increased and the fur-bearing animals disappeared, though, the Indians were steadily squeezed out. In June 1836, the Platte territory became part of the new state of Missouri.
Although the fur trade declined after the 1830s, the town nonetheless prospered and continued to grow as a popular gateway to the West for overland travelers. No longer a mere trading post, the city leaders decided their little town needed a more impressive title than Blacksnake Hills and renamed it St. Joseph. The number of overland emigrants picking St. Joseph as a rendezvous spot and jumping-off point for their westbound wagon trains continued to grow, and the town prospered by providing these emigrants with the food, wagons, stock animals, and the many other supplies they needed to make the westward journey. In 1849 alone, more than 2,000 wagons crossed the Missouri River there. The emigrant demand for meat led some innovative St. Joseph businessmen to begin large-scale hog raising and meatpacking operations, two businesses that continued to play a major role in the town's economy well into the 1950s.
By 1859, St. Joseph was the second largest city in Missouri, surpassed only by St. Louis. With the arrival of the railroad that same year, St. Joseph became the eastern terminus of the short-lived Pony Express, which picked up mail delivered by train to St. Joseph and brought it by horseback to California from 1860 to 1861.
After the Civil War, Kansas City began to eclipse St. Joseph as the major western travel hub and crossroad for western emigrants. Its proximity to the southern cattle trails and Hannibal Bridge across the Missouri, which eliminated the need for ferries, made it a more attractive stop than St. Joseph.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Robidoux
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacksnake-hills-trading-post-is-renamed-st-joseph
1850 Blind Fanny Crosby underwent a dramatic spiritual conversion at age 30. Fifteen years later, she began writing her first of over 8,000 hymns texts. Many of these remain popular today, including "Rescue the Perishing," "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross," "All the Way My Savior Leads Me" and "Tell Me the Story of Jesus."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/r/o/crosby_fj.htm
1861 American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_government_of_Kentucky
The members of Charles W. Carroll Post 144 pose on the steps of the Norfolk County Courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts on Dedham's 250th anniversary in 1885.
1866 First national convention of Grand Army of the Republic (veterans' organization) In October, 1866, departments had been formed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota, and posts had been organized in Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. On October 31, 1866, Doctor Stephenson issued General Orders No. 13, directing a national convention to be held at Indianapolis, November 20, 1866, signing this order as commander-in-chief. In accordance with this order, the First National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic convened at Indianapolis on the date appointed, and was called to order by Commander-in-Chief Stephenson.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic
1866 A colloquy between the Missouri Synod and the Buffalo Synod began in Buffalo, New York (through 5 December).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=B&word=BUFFALOSYNOD
1866 The first U.S. patent for a yoyo was issued to James L. Haven and Charles Hittrick of Cincinnati, Ohio. Although termed a "Whirligig" or a "Bandalore" in the patent title, it had the familiar construction of a yoyo with two disks "coupled together at their centers by means of a clutch". It was also the first time rim-weighting to maintain momentum was mentioned in a patent. "It will be observed that the marginal swell ... exercises the function of a flywheel". This patent is important since it shows the first use of patents to protect design improvements in the manufacture of a yoyo. Messrs. Haven and Hettrick were in the business of mass-producing yoyos over a half century before the better known Flores brand.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Yo-yo.png/200px-Yo-yo.png
1867 The General Council was organized at a meeting in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that lasted through 26 November.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=g&word=GENERALCOUNCILOFTHEEVANGELICALLUTHERANCHURCHIN.NORTH.AMERICA
1869 A second great windstorm in three days struck Vermont and New York blowing railroad trains off their tracks. (David Ludlum)
1866 The first U.S. patent on a rotary crank bicycle was issued to Pierre Lallemont of Paris, France (No. 59,915). With pedals applied directly to the front wheel, this so called velocipede ("fast foot") was a major advance on the old hobby horse bicycle that had to be pushed with the feet. It soon came to be known as "the bone shaker" because being made of stiff materials, straight angles and steel wheels, it gave a stiff ride over the cobblestone roads of the day. Soon indoor riding academies, similar to roller rinks, could be found in large cities. He rode on it from Ansonia, Conn. to the green at New Haven, Conn.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede
1872 The hymn penned by Annie Sherwood Hawks, 36, "I Need Thee Every Hour", was first sung at a National Baptist Sunday School Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.
www.hymntime.com/tch/img/h/a/w/hawks_as.jpg
1888 Willard LeGrand Bundy, a jeweller, was issued the first U.S. patent for a time recording clock (No. 393,205). A workman inserted a key which actuating his number by engaging corresponding catches on a type-wheel mechanism. This printed his identification number and time on a paper tape. In this way, a company could save the expense of watchmen or time-keepers usually employed for the purpose of recording the time of arrival and departure of the employees. With his brother, Bundy formed the Bundy Manufacturing Company (1889), which later was consolidated into one of IBM's forerunners in 1902. Bundy clocks were also sold in England, where they were also used for time recording to regulate schedules on routes of trams and buses. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_clock
1894 Classes began at Concordia Teachers College (Seward, Nebraska) with a faculty of one, Professor J. G. Weller, and thirteen students, who lived in the same building with Weller.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_University_(Nebraska)
1900 An unusual tornado outbreak in the Lower Mississippi Valley resulted in 73 deaths and extensive damage across Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. (David Ludlum)
1906 A U.S. patent was issued for the crystal detector, which was one of the first devices widely used for receiving radio broadcasts (until superseded by the triode vacuum tube). It was invented by Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, a U.S. electrical engineer. His patent described it as "a means for receiving intelligence communicated by electric waves."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenleaf_Whittier_Pickard
1914 The high temperature of 28 degrees at Atlanta, GA, was their earliest daily high below the freezing mark. (The Weather Channel)
1917 First use of tanks in a battle. The first use of tanks in battle occurred at Cambrai, France, during World War I. Over 300 tanks commanded by British General Sir Douglas Haig went into battle against the Germans. There were 216 tanks in the initial advance with 96 in reserve. Certain of the tanks were equipped with massive wood fascines to aid trench crossing or special 'grapnels' to aid wire removal. The first advances were mixed tank and infantry in 'Tank Battle Drill', with a leading tank echelon and then 50 yards back infantry platoons in two files, assigned as eight platoons per tank as either trench cleaners or trench 'stop'. Fourteen Royal Flying Corps squadrons were assigned to the battle, to provide trench strafing and to cover the noise of the tanks' advance.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Tank
1919 First municipally owned airport in US opens in Tucson, AZ Tucson opened the first municipally owned airport in the United States in 1919. Commercial air service began in Tucson with Standard Airlines (later American Airlines) in 1928. Regular airmail service started two years later.
1923, African-American Garrett Morgan (1877-1963) patented an automatic traffic signal. He later sold the technology for the Morgan traffic signal to General Electric Corporation for $40,000. His invention came after he had seen an automobile crash into a horse-drawn carriage. Morgan was distressed by that traffic accident, and so he developed a new way to make streets safer for motorists and pedestrians.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light
1923 Rentenmark replaces the Papiermark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Rentenmark to One Trillion (One Billion on the long scale) Papiermark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentenmark
1929 Leo Reisman and his orchestra recorded "Happy Days are Here Again" Dubbed "the String Quartet of Dance Bands" by composer Jerome Kern, the Leo Reisman Orchestra also gained fame as a launching pad for talents including Fred Astaire, Eddy Duchin, Harold Arlen and Dinah Shore. The orchestra remained at the Brunswick for a decade, in 1929 moving to the Central Park Casino; at this point the lineup included Duchin and fellow pianist Nat Brandywynne, as well as vocalist Lee Wiley.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days_Are_Here_Again
1929 The "Goldbergs" was first broadcast on U.S. radio. On November 20, 1929, the first episode of The Rise of the Goldbergs aired as a sustaining program on WJZ, flagship of the NBC Blue network, no doubt building on the success of radio's first network dramatic serial, Amos 'n' Andy, introduced in August 1929. Early scripts concerned themselves explicitly and intimately with an immigrant Jewish family's assimilation into American life. Combining aspects of the family comedy and the daytime serial, The Goldbergs pioneered the character-based domestic sitcom format that would become television's most popular genre.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goldbergs
1931 Commercial teletype service begins
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
1940 World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact#Hungary
1942 NHL abolishes regular season OT until WW II is over
1943 World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa
1945 Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials[/a][/url]
1948 In what begins as a fairly minor incident, the American consul and his staff in Mukden, China, are made virtual hostages by communist forces in China. The crisis did not end until a year later, by which time U.S. relations with the new communist government in China had been seriously damaged.
Mukden was one of the first major trade centers in China to be occupied by Mao's communist forces in October 1948 during the revolution against the Nationalist Chinese government. In November, American Consul Angus Ward refused to surrender the consulate's radio transmitter to the communists. In response, armed troops surrounded the consulate, trapping Ward and 21 staff members. The Chinese cut off all communication, as well as water and electricity. For months, almost nothing was heard from Ward and the other Americans.
The U.S. response to the situation was to first order the consulate closed and call for the withdrawal of Ward and his staff. However, Ward was prevented from doing so after the Chinese communists, in June 1949, charged the consulate with being a headquarters for spies. With the situation worsening, the United States tried to exert diplomatic pressure by calling upon its allies to withhold recognition of the new communist Chinese government. Chinese forces thereupon arrested Ward, charging him and some of his staff with inciting a riot outside the consulate in October 1949. President Harry Truman was incensed at this action and met with his military advisors to discuss the feasibility of military action. Secretary of State Dean Acheson bluntly and angrily informed the new People's Republic of China that no U.S. recognition would ever be forthcoming until the Americans at Mukden were released. On November 24, 1949, Ward and his staff were allowed to leave the consulate. Ward and four other Americans had actually been found guilty of the inciting-to-riot charge and were ordered deported. Together with the other Americans, they left China in December.
The Chinese actions, which are still difficult to explain or understand, no doubt damaged any possibilities that might have existed for U.S. recognition of the People's Republic of China. Truman, already under heavy attacks at home for not "saving" the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, could ill-afford to show weakness in dealing with the Chinese communists, particularly after the arrest of Ward and the other Americans so angered the American public.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Ward
1952 Slánský trials a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trials
1953 Scott Crossfield in Douglas Skyrocket, first to break Mach 2 (1300 MPH) On November 20, 1953, shortly before the 50th anniversary of powered flight, Scott Crossfield piloted the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket research aircraft to Mach 2, or more than 1,290 mph (2076 km/h). In addition to adding the nozzle extensions, the NACA flight team at the HSFRS chilled the fuel (alcohol) so more could be poured into the tank and waxed the fuselage to reduce drag. With these preparations and employing a flight plan devised by project engineer Herman O. Ankenbruck to fly to approximately 72,000 feet (21,900 m) and push over into a slight dive, Crossfield made aviation history on November 20, 1953, when he flew to Mach 2.005, 1,291 miles per hour (2,078 km/h).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Crossfield
1954 "I Need You Now" by Eddie Fisher topped the charts. After recording "Wish You Were Here") that year, Fisher scored with the biggest year of his career in 1953; both "I'm Walking Behind You" and "Oh! My Pa-Pa" which spent many weeks at the top of the charts. Fisher then gained his own top-rated television programs, Coke Time and The Chesterfield Supper Club. His success continued apace in 1954 with "I Need You Now," and he starred in his first movie, Bundle of Joy, in 1956 -- co-billed with his first wife, Debbie Reynolds.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Need_You_Now_(1954_song)
1955 Elvis Presley's contract purchased by RCA. RCA paid the unheard of sum of $35,000 to Sam Phillips of Memphis, TN for the rights to the music of a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi: Elvis Presley. Thanks to negotiations with Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, RCA tossed in a $5,000 bonus as well -- for a pink Cadillac for Elvis' mother.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley
1959 The ‘Moondoggy’, Alan Freed, was axed in the midst of the payola music scandal. In 1959 the U.S. House Oversight Committee, at the urging of ASCAP, began to look into deejays who took gifts from record companies in return for playing their records on their shows. Though a number of deejays and program directors were caught in the scandal, the committee decide to focus on Freed. Freed's broadcasts alliances quickly deserted him. In 1959, WABC in New York asked him to sign a statement confirming that he had never accepted payola. Freed refused "on principle" to sign and was fired. Freed claimed that the money he received was for "Consultation" and not payola.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freed
1961 The Russian Orthodox Church joined the World Council of Churches.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis ends. The Cuban Missile Crisis concluded as President John F. Kennedy announced he had lifted the U.S. Naval blockade of Cuba stating, "the evidence to date indicates that all known offensive missile sites in Cuba have been dismantled."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
1965 "I Hear a Symphony" by the Supremes topped the charts. "I Hear a Symphony" was the follow-up to the Supremes' previous hit "Nothing But Heartaches" (which failed to make the Top 10) and it brought the Supremes back to the #1 spot. Unlike all of their previous #1 hits (with the exception of "Back in My Arms Again," their fifth #1), this song is about the happiness and ecstasy of pure true love.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hear_a_Symphony
1966 "Cabaret" opened on Broadway for the first of 1,165 stellar performances at the Broadhurst, Imperial and Broadway Theatres and for 336 performances in London at the Palace Theatre. It was revised for Broadway, first in 1987 and played for 261 performances at the Imperial and Minskoff Theatres, and most recently in 1998 at Studio 54, where it played for 2,377 performances.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_(musical)#Songs
1967 At 11 AM, Census Clock at Department of Commerce ticks past 200 million
www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
1968 Methane gas explosions in a West Virginia coal mine kill 78 men. The damage to the mine was so extensive that it had to be sealed with the bodies of the men still inside.
The Consol No. 9 mine was located about 10 miles from the town of Monongay, between Farmington and Mannington in West Virginia. It was a large mine, approximately eight miles by six miles, with untapped oil and natural gas below the coal. At midnight on November 20, the workers descended 600 feet below the earth's surface to begin the night shift. At 5:40 a.m., a large explosion was quickly followed by three smaller ones. The blasts were so powerful that the lamphouse near the entrance to the mine was demolished.
Twenty-one men working in one section of the mine were able to escape in the early morning light even though dense smoke continued to billow from the nine entrances for hours. As rescue and relief workers arrived on the scene, it was unclear how many men remained in the mine, as the list of late-shift workers had been stored in the now-destroyed lamphouse. Since it was still impossible to enter the mine, the rescuers surveyed the families of the mine workers to get a complete list of the trapped miners.
At 10 p.m., as the would-be rescuers waited for an opportunity to enter the mine, there was another explosion; yet another occurred overnight. Given that the mine had only two working ventilators and the fire continued to burn, it became clear that it was unlikely the mine workers were still alive. Furthermore, the only way that the fire, smoldering in the coal deposits, could be extinguished was to cut off its air supply, which would suffocate any survivors. It was decided to drill a hole down to the area of the mine that was the only possible location of survivors.
When there was still no indication of life 10 days after the explosions first ripped through the mine, it was decided to seal the mine completely, with the 78 victims still buried inside it.
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/explosions-rock-west-virginia-coal-mine
1969 Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
1971 "Theme From Shaft" by Isaac Hayes topped the charts. The "Theme From Shaft" was featured in the 1971 movie of the same name starring Richard Roundtree. It was remade in 2000 starring Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft. Hayes made an uncredited appearance in the remake. It won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement and an Oscar for Best Original Score. Hayes wrote this. He was the first African-American to win an Oscar in a composer category.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaft_(1971_film)
1974 The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._AT%26T
1976 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" by Rod Stewart topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_(Gonna_Be_Alright)
1977 Walter Payton (Bears) rushes for NFL-record 275 yards. In 13 seasons with the Chicago Bears from 1975 to 1987, Payton literally rewrote the NFL record book with his ball-carrying feats. He rushed 3,838 times for 16,726 yards and 110 touchdowns-all records. He also caught 492 passes for 4,538 yards and 15 more touchdowns. Altogether, he scored 125 touchdowns, second most ever, and he accounted for a record 21,803 combined net yards. Payton rushed for an all time high 275 yards against the Minnesota Vikings on November 20,1977. He rushed for more than 100 yards a stunning 77 times.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton
1979 Artificial blood was first used in a patient by transfusion at the University of Minnesota Hospital. The patient was a Jehovah's Witness, who had refused a transfusion of real blood because of his religious beliefs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_blood
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_Seizure
1979 A blizzard struck Cheyenne, WY, producing a record 19.8 inches of snow in 24 hours, and a record total of 25.6 inches in forty hours. Strong winds created huge drifts stopping all transportation. (19th-21st) (The Weather Channel)
1980 Steve Ptacek in Solar Challenger piloted its first solar-powered flight. The aircraft was designed and built by AeroVironment, Inc. (founded in 1971 by ultra-light airplane innovator, Dr. Paul MacCready). An earlier, 71-ft wingspan, solar-powered design, the Gossamer Penguin, after test flights, flew about 1.95 miles at a public demonstration on 7 Aug 1980. Solar Challenger built upon this experience to be a piloted, solar-powered aircraft strong enough to handle both long and high flights when encountering normal turbulence. With only a 46.5-ft wingspan, it had a huge horizontal stabilizer and had enough wing area for 16,128 solar cells. After design modifications, Ptacek flew across the English Channel flight on 7 July 1981.
1982 "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes topped the charts. "Up Where We Belong" was the theme song to the movie An Officer And A Gentleman. It won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1983. Will Jennings wrote the lyrics. He's responsible for the words to many famous songs, including "My Heart Will Go On," "Looks Like We Made It," and many of Steve Winwood's hits.
1983 100 million watch ABC-TV movie "The Day After," about nuclear war.
1984 McDonalds flip past the 50 billionth burger mark. "You deserve a break today..." by knowing that 35 years and 11 months after the very first McDonald's hamburger was sold, the 50 billionth burger was made by Edward Rensi, president of Mickey D's.
1984 The SETI Institute is founded. The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit organization which is looking for evidence of life beyond Earth, a scientific discipline known as astrobiology. The mission of the SETI Institute is to “explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe”. One program is the use of both radio and optical telescopes to search for deliberate signals from extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Other research, pursued within the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, includes the discovery of extrasolar planets, potentials for life on Mars and other bodies within the Solar System, and the habitability of the galaxy (including the study of extremophiles). The SETI Institute’s public outreach efforts include working with teachers and students in promoting science education and the teaching of evolution, working with NASA on exploration missions such as Kepler and SOFIA, and producing a weekly science program: Are We Alone?.
1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released. Windows 1.0 is a 16-bit graphical operating environment that was released on 20 November 1985. It was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. Windows 1.0 was the first version of Windows launched. It was succeeded by Windows 2.0.
1985 A successful heart transplant to a 4-day-old infant, Eddie Anguiano known then as Baby Moses, was performed by Dr. Leonard Lee Bailey of the Loma Linda University Medical Center. Eddie had been born with the fatal heart defect hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and had only days to live. Luckily, the heart of a brain-dead baby became available. His was the third such transplant attempted. The previous two were unsuccessful, but Eddie thrived. By his 10th birthday, almost 300 other children at Loma Linda, 203 of them under six months old, had their faulty hearts replaced. Eddie celebrated his 21st birthday in 2006. In earlier work, Dr Bailey had transplanted a young baboon's heart into Baby Fae (26 Oct 1984).
1987 Blustery northwest winds created snow squalls in the Great Lakes Region and the Upper Ohio Valley. Snowfall totals in Upper Michigan ranged up to 18 inches at Paradise. Lake City MI received 9.5 inches of snow in four and a half hours. Up to a foot of snow blanketed Oswego County in western New York State. Strong winds produced wind chill readings as cold as 22 degrees below zero at Duluth MN. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Thunderstorms developing ahead of a fast moving cold front produced severe weather in the Upper Ohio Valley and the Middle Atlantic Coast Region during the afternoon and early evening. Thunderstorm winds gusted to 69 mph at Kennedy Airport in New York City, and winds along the cold front itself gusted to 56 mph at Cincinnati OH. The same storm produced snow in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, with eight inches reported at Rolla MO. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1989 Low pressure brought thunderstorms and high winds to the northeastern U.S. There were 193 reports of damaging winds with thunderstorms in New York State, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Tornadoes touched down near Seaside Park NJ and McAlevys Port PA. Winds with thunderstorms gusted to 92 mph at Poughkeepsie NY, and reached 94 mph at Newburgh NY. High winds in the Washington D.C. area, gusting to 73 mph, resulted in one death. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1992 In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California Democratic senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1998 A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 The first module of the International Space Station was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. This $240 million Zarya functional cargo block was followed two weeks later by the Unity connecting module from the U.S. After 16 years of planning and design, the orbiting station was taking shape, the beginning of what some called "a city in space." The project, initiated by NASA in 1983, also involved Canada, Japan and the 11 members of the European Space Agency. After the Cold War, the Russians had been invited to participate, not merely as an exercise in international cooperation, but also to employ Russian scientists who might have otherwise sold their expertise to renegade countries.
2001 In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2008 After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
Births
1620 Peregrine White, first English child born in the Plymouth Colony (d. 1704) His parents, William and Susanna, named him "Peregrine", which means: "one who journeys to foreign lands" or "pilgrim."
1726 Oliver Wolcott (d 1797) signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and also the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Connecticut.
1761 Pope Pius VIII (d. 1 Dec 1830).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_VIII
1866 Kenesaw Mountain Landis, (d 1944) American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922, and subsequently as the first commissioner of organized baseball, including both the American and National leagues and the governing body of minor league baseball, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, from 1920 until his death.
1869 Clark Calvin Griffith (d 1955), nicknamed "the Old Fox", was a Major League Baseball pitcher, manager and team owner.
1873 William Weber Coblentz (d 1962) American physicist and astronomer whose work lay primarily in infrared spectroscopy. In 1905 he founded the radiometry section of the National Bureau of Standards, which he headed for 40 years. Coblentz measured the infrared radiation from stars, planets, and nebulae and was the first to determine accurately the constants of blackbody radiation, thus confirming Planck's law.
1884 Norman Mattoon Thomas (d 1968) American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
1887 Earnest Albert Hooton (d 1954) American physical anthropologist who investigated human evolution and racial differentiation, classified and described human populations, and examined the relationship between personality and physical type, particularly with respect to criminal behaviour. He established Harvard University as a principal U.S. centre for physical anthropology. In the 1930s, he studied American criminals, and in his controversial books, The American Criminal (1939) and Crime and the Man (1939), he sought to to connect criminal behaviour with physical or racial factors. His books written for the layperson include: Up from the Ape; Apes, Men and Morons; and Twilight of Man, Why We Behave Like Apes and Vice Versa.
1889 Edwin Powell Hubble (d 1953) American astronomer, born in Marshfield, Mo., who is considered the founder of extragalactic astronomy and who provided the first evidence of the expansion of the universe. In 1923-5 he identified Cepheid variables in "spiral nebulae" M31 and M33 and proved conclusively that they are outside the Galaxy. His investigation of these objects, which he called extragalactic nebulae and which astronomers today call galaxies, led to his now-standard classification system of elliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies, and to proof that they are distributed uniformly out to great distances. Hubble measured distances to galaxies and their redshifts, and in 1929 he published the velocity-distance relation which is the basis of modern cosmology.
1900 Chester Gould (d 1985) American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977, incorporating numerous colorful and monstrous villains.
1907 Fran Allison (d 1989) American television and radio comedian, personality and singer. She is best known for her starring role on the daily NBC-TV puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, which ran from 1947 to 1957, occasionally returning to the air until the mid 1980s. The trio also hosted The CBS Children's Film Festival, introducing international children's films, from 1967–77.
1908 Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE (d 2004) British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for 42 years, Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to present Letter from America until shortly before his death. He was the father of author and folk singer John Byrne Cooke.
Sam Berman's 1947 caricature
of The Judy Canova Show1913 Judy Canova (d 1983), born Juliette Canova, American comedienne, actress, singer and radio personality. She appeared on Broadway and in films. She hosted her own network radio program, a popular series broadcast from 1943 to 1955.
1916 Robert Arthur Bruce (d 2004, Seattle, Washington)cardiologist and a professor at the University of Washington. Because of the nature of his research and his development of the Bruce Protocol for exercise testing of cardiac patients, he was known as the "father of exercise cardiology".
1917 Robert Carlyle Byrd born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr, (d 2010) United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a Senator from 1959 to 2010 and is the longest-serving senator and the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress.
1921 Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison (d 1992) changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s, was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK).
1925 Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (d 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK, American politician, a Democratic Senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and acted as one of his advisers during his presidency. From 1961 to 1964, he was the U.S. Attorney General.
1932 Richard Dawson English-American actor, comedian, game show panelist, and host. He is best known for his role as Corporal Peter Newkirk on Hogan's Heroes, and as the original host of the Family Feud game show from 1976–1985 and from 1994 to 1995. Dawson also appeared as a panelist on the 1970s version of Match Game on CBS from 1973 to 1978. He is also famous for his final film role, that of Damon Killian, the host of "The Running Man" in the hit 1987 film, The Running Man.
1939 Richard Remick "Dick" Smothers American actor, comedian, composer and musician. He is best known for being half of the musical comedy team, the Smothers Brothers, with his older brother Tom.
1942 Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama. He was a United States Senator from Delaware from January 3, 1973 until his resignation on January 15, 2009, following his election to the Vice Presidency.
1945 Robert James "Rick" Monday, Jr. former center fielder in Major League Baseball and is currently a broadcast announcer. From 1966 through 1984, Monday, a center fielder for most of his career, played for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (1966–71), Chicago Cubs (1972–76) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1977–84). He batted and threw left-handed.
1948 John Robert Bolton American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican presidential administrations. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 on a recess appointment. He resigned in December 2006 when his recess appointment would have ended because he was unable to gain confirmation from the Senate.
Deaths
1437 Cardinal Thomas Langley, dean of York, bishop of Durham (1406–1437) and twice Lord Chancellor of England to three kings (1405–1407), keeper of the King's signet and Keeper of the Privy Seal before becoming de facto England's first Foreign Secretary, died (b. 1363). He was the second longest serving Chancellor of the Middle Ages.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Langley
1806 Baptist preacher Isaac Backus, an influential voice in arguing for religious liberty in Massachusetts and later the United States, (b. 9 Jan 1724).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Backus
1879 Georg Philipp Speckhard, first director of the Lutheran School for the Deaf in Michigan, (b. 22 Jan 1821, Wersau, Hesse).
1882 Henry Draper (born 7 Mar 1837)American physician and amateur astronomer who made the first photograph of the spectrum of a star (Vega), in 1872. He was also the first to photograph a nebula, the Orion Nebula, in 1880. For his photography of the transit of Venus in 1874, Congress ordered a gold medal struck in his honour. His father, John William Draper, in 1840 had made the first photograph of the Moon.
1942 Charles Schuchert (b 1858)American invertebrate paleontologist who was a leader in the development of paleogeography, the study of the distribution of lands and seas in the geological past. During the 1880s he made a living drawing fossil illustrations for state geological surveys, while continuing to search for specimens for his own growing collection. After serving as curator of the U.S. National Museum (1894-1904) Charles Schuchert joined the Yale University faculty following their first invertebrate paleontologist, Charles E. Beecher.
1954 Clyde Vernon Cessna (b 1879) American aircraft designer, aviator, and founder of the Cessna Aircraft Corporation, invented the cantilever wing and a V-shaped tail configuration and a simple, flexible monoplane design.
1973 Allan Sherman (b 1924) American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer (1962), became the fastest-selling record album up to that time. His biggest hit single was "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah", a comic novelty in which a boy describes his summer camp experiences to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.
2004 Ancel Keys (b 1904) American nutritionist and epidemiologist who was the first to identify the role of saturated fats in causing heart disease. In 1935, he studied the physiological effects of altitude, which he conducted in the Andes. At the onset of WW II, he designed the lightweight yet nutritious K ration used by American paratroops. The hard biscuits, dry sausage, hard candy and chocolate it contained were items he originally selected at a Minneapolis grocery store, and the ration was named with his initial. In 1947, he began a decade of study of 283 local businessmen. From its results, he determined that saturated fat chiefly determined blood cholesterol levels, and linked smoking, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol with heart attacks.
Christian Feast Day:
Bernward of Hildesheim
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernward_of_Hildesheim
Edmund the Martyr (Church of England)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_the_Martyr
November 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
St. Gregory Decapolites (816)
orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_the_Decapolite
Archbishop Proclus of Constantinople (c. 447)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclus_of_Constantinople
Ecgbert (archbishop of York) (766)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecgbert_(archbishop_of_York)
Earliest day on which the Feast of Christ the King can fall, while November 26 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday before Advent. (Roman Catholic Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Christ_the_King
[/size]
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov20.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_20
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuremberg-trials-begin
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1120.htm
www.lcms.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_20_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
There are 41 days remaining until the end of the year.
Countdown until Obama should have been leaving Office
www.obamaclock.org/
Days until coming elections:
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1541 In Switzerland French reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) established a theocratic government at Geneva, thereby creating a home base for emergent Protestantism throughout Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin
1637 Peter Minuit & first Swedish immigrants to Delaware sail from Sweden Minuit took two ships, the Kalmar Nycel [Key of Colmar] and the Fogel Grip [Flying Griffin]. He and his crew reached the Minquas River in March 1638, and re-named it the Christina River after the Swedish Queen. Peter Minuit bought some land along the Christina River from five Native American chiefs. He built a fort on land where Wilmington, Delaware is located today. He named it Fort Christina. Peter Minuit was the first governor of New Sweden.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit[/a][/url]
1789 New Jersey becomes first state to ratify Bill of Rights
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
1819 First person to successfully complete a parachute jump in America. On November 20, 1818, Louis Charles Guille at 500 feet altitude, cut his basket loose from a balloon in Jersey City and parachuted safely to earth. He is credited with the first parachute jump in the western world.
www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/aved/museum/aviation_firsts/newjersey.html
The Essex being struck by a whale on November 20, 1820
(sketched by Thomas Nickerson)
The first capture of a sperm whale by an American vessel was in 1711, marking the birth of an important American industry that commanded a fleet of more than 700 ships by the mid 18th century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)
1838 The first group of Prussian Lutheran immigrants arrived in Australia, forming the Klemzig settlement near what is today Adelaide.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemzig,_South_Australia
Robidoux Row, St. Joseph, Missouri
1843 Blacksnake Hills trading post is renamed St. JosephEstablished as the Blacksnake Hills trading post in 1826, the growing community along the banks of the Missouri River adopts the more impressive St. Joseph as its name.
As with many early western towns, St. Joseph began as a fur trading post. The French-Canadian Joseph Robidoux III shrewdly located his Blacksnake Hills post at the entrance to the Indian-controlled Platte country so he could trade cloth, metal pots, and other manufactured goods for Native Americans' furs. As the numbers of Anglo settlers in the region increased and the fur-bearing animals disappeared, though, the Indians were steadily squeezed out. In June 1836, the Platte territory became part of the new state of Missouri.
Although the fur trade declined after the 1830s, the town nonetheless prospered and continued to grow as a popular gateway to the West for overland travelers. No longer a mere trading post, the city leaders decided their little town needed a more impressive title than Blacksnake Hills and renamed it St. Joseph. The number of overland emigrants picking St. Joseph as a rendezvous spot and jumping-off point for their westbound wagon trains continued to grow, and the town prospered by providing these emigrants with the food, wagons, stock animals, and the many other supplies they needed to make the westward journey. In 1849 alone, more than 2,000 wagons crossed the Missouri River there. The emigrant demand for meat led some innovative St. Joseph businessmen to begin large-scale hog raising and meatpacking operations, two businesses that continued to play a major role in the town's economy well into the 1950s.
By 1859, St. Joseph was the second largest city in Missouri, surpassed only by St. Louis. With the arrival of the railroad that same year, St. Joseph became the eastern terminus of the short-lived Pony Express, which picked up mail delivered by train to St. Joseph and brought it by horseback to California from 1860 to 1861.
After the Civil War, Kansas City began to eclipse St. Joseph as the major western travel hub and crossroad for western emigrants. Its proximity to the southern cattle trails and Hannibal Bridge across the Missouri, which eliminated the need for ferries, made it a more attractive stop than St. Joseph.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Robidoux
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacksnake-hills-trading-post-is-renamed-st-joseph
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/r/o/crosby_fj.htm
1861 American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_government_of_Kentucky
The members of Charles W. Carroll Post 144 pose on the steps of the Norfolk County Courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts on Dedham's 250th anniversary in 1885.
1866 First national convention of Grand Army of the Republic (veterans' organization) In October, 1866, departments had been formed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota, and posts had been organized in Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. On October 31, 1866, Doctor Stephenson issued General Orders No. 13, directing a national convention to be held at Indianapolis, November 20, 1866, signing this order as commander-in-chief. In accordance with this order, the First National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic convened at Indianapolis on the date appointed, and was called to order by Commander-in-Chief Stephenson.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic
1866 A colloquy between the Missouri Synod and the Buffalo Synod began in Buffalo, New York (through 5 December).
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=B&word=BUFFALOSYNOD
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Yo-yo.png/200px-Yo-yo.png
1867 The General Council was organized at a meeting in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that lasted through 26 November.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=g&word=GENERALCOUNCILOFTHEEVANGELICALLUTHERANCHURCHIN.NORTH.AMERICA
1869 A second great windstorm in three days struck Vermont and New York blowing railroad trains off their tracks. (David Ludlum)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede
1872 The hymn penned by Annie Sherwood Hawks, 36, "I Need Thee Every Hour", was first sung at a National Baptist Sunday School Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.
www.hymntime.com/tch/img/h/a/w/hawks_as.jpg
1894 Classes began at Concordia Teachers College (Seward, Nebraska) with a faculty of one, Professor J. G. Weller, and thirteen students, who lived in the same building with Weller.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_University_(Nebraska)
1900 An unusual tornado outbreak in the Lower Mississippi Valley resulted in 73 deaths and extensive damage across Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. (David Ludlum)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenleaf_Whittier_Pickard
1914 The high temperature of 28 degrees at Atlanta, GA, was their earliest daily high below the freezing mark. (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Tank
1919 First municipally owned airport in US opens in Tucson, AZ Tucson opened the first municipally owned airport in the United States in 1919. Commercial air service began in Tucson with Standard Airlines (later American Airlines) in 1928. Regular airmail service started two years later.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light
1923 Rentenmark replaces the Papiermark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Rentenmark to One Trillion (One Billion on the long scale) Papiermark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentenmark
1929 Leo Reisman and his orchestra recorded "Happy Days are Here Again" Dubbed "the String Quartet of Dance Bands" by composer Jerome Kern, the Leo Reisman Orchestra also gained fame as a launching pad for talents including Fred Astaire, Eddy Duchin, Harold Arlen and Dinah Shore. The orchestra remained at the Brunswick for a decade, in 1929 moving to the Central Park Casino; at this point the lineup included Duchin and fellow pianist Nat Brandywynne, as well as vocalist Lee Wiley.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days_Are_Here_Again
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goldbergs
1931 Commercial teletype service begins
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
1940 World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact#Hungary
1942 NHL abolishes regular season OT until WW II is over
1943 World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa
1945 Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials[/a][/url]
1948 In what begins as a fairly minor incident, the American consul and his staff in Mukden, China, are made virtual hostages by communist forces in China. The crisis did not end until a year later, by which time U.S. relations with the new communist government in China had been seriously damaged.
Mukden was one of the first major trade centers in China to be occupied by Mao's communist forces in October 1948 during the revolution against the Nationalist Chinese government. In November, American Consul Angus Ward refused to surrender the consulate's radio transmitter to the communists. In response, armed troops surrounded the consulate, trapping Ward and 21 staff members. The Chinese cut off all communication, as well as water and electricity. For months, almost nothing was heard from Ward and the other Americans.
The U.S. response to the situation was to first order the consulate closed and call for the withdrawal of Ward and his staff. However, Ward was prevented from doing so after the Chinese communists, in June 1949, charged the consulate with being a headquarters for spies. With the situation worsening, the United States tried to exert diplomatic pressure by calling upon its allies to withhold recognition of the new communist Chinese government. Chinese forces thereupon arrested Ward, charging him and some of his staff with inciting a riot outside the consulate in October 1949. President Harry Truman was incensed at this action and met with his military advisors to discuss the feasibility of military action. Secretary of State Dean Acheson bluntly and angrily informed the new People's Republic of China that no U.S. recognition would ever be forthcoming until the Americans at Mukden were released. On November 24, 1949, Ward and his staff were allowed to leave the consulate. Ward and four other Americans had actually been found guilty of the inciting-to-riot charge and were ordered deported. Together with the other Americans, they left China in December.
The Chinese actions, which are still difficult to explain or understand, no doubt damaged any possibilities that might have existed for U.S. recognition of the People's Republic of China. Truman, already under heavy attacks at home for not "saving" the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, could ill-afford to show weakness in dealing with the Chinese communists, particularly after the arrest of Ward and the other Americans so angered the American public.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Ward
1952 Slánský trials a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trials
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Crossfield
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Need_You_Now_(1954_song)
1955 Elvis Presley's contract purchased by RCA. RCA paid the unheard of sum of $35,000 to Sam Phillips of Memphis, TN for the rights to the music of a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi: Elvis Presley. Thanks to negotiations with Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, RCA tossed in a $5,000 bonus as well -- for a pink Cadillac for Elvis' mother.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freed
1961 The Russian Orthodox Church joined the World Council of Churches.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis ends. The Cuban Missile Crisis concluded as President John F. Kennedy announced he had lifted the U.S. Naval blockade of Cuba stating, "the evidence to date indicates that all known offensive missile sites in Cuba have been dismantled."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hear_a_Symphony
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_(musical)#Songs
1967 At 11 AM, Census Clock at Department of Commerce ticks past 200 million
www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
1968 Methane gas explosions in a West Virginia coal mine kill 78 men. The damage to the mine was so extensive that it had to be sealed with the bodies of the men still inside.
The Consol No. 9 mine was located about 10 miles from the town of Monongay, between Farmington and Mannington in West Virginia. It was a large mine, approximately eight miles by six miles, with untapped oil and natural gas below the coal. At midnight on November 20, the workers descended 600 feet below the earth's surface to begin the night shift. At 5:40 a.m., a large explosion was quickly followed by three smaller ones. The blasts were so powerful that the lamphouse near the entrance to the mine was demolished.
Twenty-one men working in one section of the mine were able to escape in the early morning light even though dense smoke continued to billow from the nine entrances for hours. As rescue and relief workers arrived on the scene, it was unclear how many men remained in the mine, as the list of late-shift workers had been stored in the now-destroyed lamphouse. Since it was still impossible to enter the mine, the rescuers surveyed the families of the mine workers to get a complete list of the trapped miners.
At 10 p.m., as the would-be rescuers waited for an opportunity to enter the mine, there was another explosion; yet another occurred overnight. Given that the mine had only two working ventilators and the fire continued to burn, it became clear that it was unlikely the mine workers were still alive. Furthermore, the only way that the fire, smoldering in the coal deposits, could be extinguished was to cut off its air supply, which would suffocate any survivors. It was decided to drill a hole down to the area of the mine that was the only possible location of survivors.
When there was still no indication of life 10 days after the explosions first ripped through the mine, it was decided to seal the mine completely, with the 78 victims still buried inside it.
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/explosions-rock-west-virginia-coal-mine
1969 Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaft_(1971_film)
1974 The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._AT%26T
1976 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" by Rod Stewart topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_(Gonna_Be_Alright)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_blood
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_Seizure
1979 A blizzard struck Cheyenne, WY, producing a record 19.8 inches of snow in 24 hours, and a record total of 25.6 inches in forty hours. Strong winds created huge drifts stopping all transportation. (19th-21st) (The Weather Channel)
1982 "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes topped the charts. "Up Where We Belong" was the theme song to the movie An Officer And A Gentleman. It won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1983. Will Jennings wrote the lyrics. He's responsible for the words to many famous songs, including "My Heart Will Go On," "Looks Like We Made It," and many of Steve Winwood's hits.
1983 100 million watch ABC-TV movie "The Day After," about nuclear war.
1984 McDonalds flip past the 50 billionth burger mark. "You deserve a break today..." by knowing that 35 years and 11 months after the very first McDonald's hamburger was sold, the 50 billionth burger was made by Edward Rensi, president of Mickey D's.
1984 The SETI Institute is founded. The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit organization which is looking for evidence of life beyond Earth, a scientific discipline known as astrobiology. The mission of the SETI Institute is to “explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe”. One program is the use of both radio and optical telescopes to search for deliberate signals from extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Other research, pursued within the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, includes the discovery of extrasolar planets, potentials for life on Mars and other bodies within the Solar System, and the habitability of the galaxy (including the study of extremophiles). The SETI Institute’s public outreach efforts include working with teachers and students in promoting science education and the teaching of evolution, working with NASA on exploration missions such as Kepler and SOFIA, and producing a weekly science program: Are We Alone?.
1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released. Windows 1.0 is a 16-bit graphical operating environment that was released on 20 November 1985. It was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. Windows 1.0 was the first version of Windows launched. It was succeeded by Windows 2.0.
1987 Blustery northwest winds created snow squalls in the Great Lakes Region and the Upper Ohio Valley. Snowfall totals in Upper Michigan ranged up to 18 inches at Paradise. Lake City MI received 9.5 inches of snow in four and a half hours. Up to a foot of snow blanketed Oswego County in western New York State. Strong winds produced wind chill readings as cold as 22 degrees below zero at Duluth MN. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Thunderstorms developing ahead of a fast moving cold front produced severe weather in the Upper Ohio Valley and the Middle Atlantic Coast Region during the afternoon and early evening. Thunderstorm winds gusted to 69 mph at Kennedy Airport in New York City, and winds along the cold front itself gusted to 56 mph at Cincinnati OH. The same storm produced snow in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, with eight inches reported at Rolla MO. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1989 Low pressure brought thunderstorms and high winds to the northeastern U.S. There were 193 reports of damaging winds with thunderstorms in New York State, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Tornadoes touched down near Seaside Park NJ and McAlevys Port PA. Winds with thunderstorms gusted to 92 mph at Poughkeepsie NY, and reached 94 mph at Newburgh NY. High winds in the Washington D.C. area, gusting to 73 mph, resulted in one death. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1992 In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California Democratic senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1998 A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
2001 In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2008 After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
Births
1620 Peregrine White, first English child born in the Plymouth Colony (d. 1704) His parents, William and Susanna, named him "Peregrine", which means: "one who journeys to foreign lands" or "pilgrim."
1761 Pope Pius VIII (d. 1 Dec 1830).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_VIII
1869 Clark Calvin Griffith (d 1955), nicknamed "the Old Fox", was a Major League Baseball pitcher, manager and team owner.
1908 Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE (d 2004) British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for 42 years, Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to present Letter from America until shortly before his death. He was the father of author and folk singer John Byrne Cooke.
Sam Berman's 1947 caricature
of The Judy Canova Show
1916 Robert Arthur Bruce (d 2004, Seattle, Washington)cardiologist and a professor at the University of Washington. Because of the nature of his research and his development of the Bruce Protocol for exercise testing of cardiac patients, he was known as the "father of exercise cardiology".
1925 Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (d 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK, American politician, a Democratic Senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and acted as one of his advisers during his presidency. From 1961 to 1964, he was the U.S. Attorney General.
1932 Richard Dawson English-American actor, comedian, game show panelist, and host. He is best known for his role as Corporal Peter Newkirk on Hogan's Heroes, and as the original host of the Family Feud game show from 1976–1985 and from 1994 to 1995. Dawson also appeared as a panelist on the 1970s version of Match Game on CBS from 1973 to 1978. He is also famous for his final film role, that of Damon Killian, the host of "The Running Man" in the hit 1987 film, The Running Man.
1939 Richard Remick "Dick" Smothers American actor, comedian, composer and musician. He is best known for being half of the musical comedy team, the Smothers Brothers, with his older brother Tom.
1942 Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama. He was a United States Senator from Delaware from January 3, 1973 until his resignation on January 15, 2009, following his election to the Vice Presidency.
1945 Robert James "Rick" Monday, Jr. former center fielder in Major League Baseball and is currently a broadcast announcer. From 1966 through 1984, Monday, a center fielder for most of his career, played for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (1966–71), Chicago Cubs (1972–76) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1977–84). He batted and threw left-handed.
Deaths
1437 Cardinal Thomas Langley, dean of York, bishop of Durham (1406–1437) and twice Lord Chancellor of England to three kings (1405–1407), keeper of the King's signet and Keeper of the Privy Seal before becoming de facto England's first Foreign Secretary, died (b. 1363). He was the second longest serving Chancellor of the Middle Ages.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Langley
1806 Baptist preacher Isaac Backus, an influential voice in arguing for religious liberty in Massachusetts and later the United States, (b. 9 Jan 1724).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Backus
1879 Georg Philipp Speckhard, first director of the Lutheran School for the Deaf in Michigan, (b. 22 Jan 1821, Wersau, Hesse).
1973 Allan Sherman (b 1924) American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer (1962), became the fastest-selling record album up to that time. His biggest hit single was "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah", a comic novelty in which a boy describes his summer camp experiences to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.
Christian Feast Day:
Bernward of Hildesheim
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernward_of_Hildesheim
Edmund the Martyr (Church of England)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_the_Martyr
November 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
St. Gregory Decapolites (816)
orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_the_Decapolite
Archbishop Proclus of Constantinople (c. 447)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclus_of_Constantinople
Ecgbert (archbishop of York) (766)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecgbert_(archbishop_of_York)
Earliest day on which the Feast of Christ the King can fall, while November 26 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday before Advent. (Roman Catholic Church)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Christ_the_King
[/size]
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm
www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/nov20.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_20
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuremberg-trials-begin
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1120.htm
www.lcms.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_20_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)