Perfunctory.

















j/k You probably know more than I.

If it helps, they serve fruit so scurvy's not a problem.

I took a shit one of these years on this date.

Heck, even the Constitution, which was just an oversized Frigate, had a complement of nearly 500, IIRC.

Think about it. You've got 90 cannon. I don't know what the standard number was on naval vessels, but I'm figuring at least 2, probably more like 3 men per cannon. Then you have marines in the rigging, men dealing with the sails and steering, lookouts, etc. Then the complement of officers. It adds up pretty fast.

ROFLROFLROFL

That's racist.

I still thought it had said Sicily until I read your post and looked again. Epic navigation error!

On <birth_month>Oct.</birth_month> <birth_day>23</birth_day>, <birth_year>1869</birth_year>, <first_name>John William</first_name> <last_name>Heisman</last_name>, <description>the coach who revolutionized the game of college football</description>, was born. <death> Following <sex>his</sex> death on <death_month>Oct.</death_month> <death_day>3</death_day>, <death_year>1936</death_year>, <sex>his</sex> obituary appeared in The Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/gene...day/index.html
</death>

You should have quoted it. That link isn't permanent.

October 23

1861. Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas of corpus for all military-related cases.

1911. Airplanes are first used in war, when an Italian flies over Turkish lines on a reconnaissance mission during the Turco-Italian War.

1917. After months of tremendous internal unrest throughout Russia, the Bolshevik Central Committee, led by Lenin, passes a resolution by a vote of 10-2 saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe." This triggers the Russian Revolution which will thrown down Tsarism and give rise to Communisms. I'm thinking the two dissenting votes didn't enhance their long-term prospects in teh Party by their vote...

1929. Less than a week before the great stock market crash that will serve as the official start of the Great Depression, the first transcontinental air service begins between New York and Los Angeles.

1935. Arthur Flegenheimer, better known to the world as the brutal and ruthless Jewish-American gangster Dutch Schultz, is shot down with several other mafia members at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey. Reportedly, the Commission ordered Schultz permanently removed as they feared that he would follow through on his threats to kill US Attorney Thomas Dewey (later to lose a famous Presidential race), after the Commission had denied his request for permission to make such a high profile hit.

1941. Georgi Zhukov takes command of Red Army forces tasked with preventing the capture of Moscow.

1942. The Battle for Henderson Field begins on Guadalcanal.

1944. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, begins. The US, never one to bring a knife to a gunfight, brings 8 Fleet Carriers, 8 Light Carriers, 18 Escort Carriers, 12 Battleships, 24 Cruisers and 124 Destroyers and other light vessels (PT boats, etc.) to the fray.

Despite this absurdly overwhelming display of firepower (which, of course, is exactly what you want in war), the Americans screw up battle, and are lucky to avoid disaster. The naval forces are split, with Admiral Kinkaid in command of vessels responsible for the landing on Leyte (in the Phillippines) and Admiral "Bull" Halsey in command of the Third Fleet, where most the carrier striking power is centered. The Japanese plan a brilliant strategy -- a "Northern Fleet" will have most of its carriers, but these are nearly completely depleted of air power, and are little more than bait. This fleet is designed to lure most of the American strike power away, while two other fleets will steam in from the west and south to destroy the American landing craft.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._annotated.jpg

Halsey, living up to his name, took the bait and left the invasion fleet with too little protection. Worse, he sends a message that is confusing, and leaves the Seventh Fleet (under Kinkaid) and CINCPAC (Nimitz) with the impression that a powerful blocking force had been left behind by Halsey to defend the San Bernadino Strait, while he took only a part of his forces to chase the Japanese Carriers.

Instead, not a single picket was left at the San Bernadino Strait. Halsey had taken everything with him.

After several skirmishes and hard fought battles, and various retreats and doubling-backs (remember, this all took several days) the Center Fleet of Japanese Admiral Kurita steams untouched through the San Bernadino Straits, left uncovered by Halsey. Only a light (light only by American standards, however) screening force of the 7th fleet is there to deal with them. Admiral Kurita thinks that he has actually found the main American fleet, and after some initial attacks, withdraws, a grave (no pun intended) error).

Before the withdrawal, however, the fleet under Admiral Kinkaid, shocked by such a powerful Japanese surface force appearing, and having no idea how they got through, and seriously concerned that they will not be able to contend with them, send a message in the clear (no coding) in complete panic to Halsey.

Halsey is shocked by the message. Then, the hammer falls, from 5,000 miles away, Admiral Nimitz sends a follow up message.


The first few and last words were just buffer, thrown in to throw off enemy cryptologists. Halsey's communications officers correctly deletes the first few words, but retains "the world wonders" in the message handed to Halsey. Bull Halsey, 40 years in the navy, breaks down and sobs in tears of rage and anguish, thinking that Nimitz has deliberately insulted him.

He turns his fleet, but too late to help. Luckily, the Japanese also had turned their fleet, and escape, but without having seriously interdicted the invasion, as they almost certianly could have done had Kurita pressed his attack.

Halsey will face severe criticism for his decisions. Kurita's decisions were by far the worse, however, as the Imperial Japanese Navy will never be involved in a serious fleet action again. Kurita had one chance to do something useful, and instead he went home to park his ships in their harbors.

The Ticonderoga Class Cruiser "Leyte Gulf" is named after the battle.

1958. The Smurfs make their first appearance.

October 24

1861. In the midst of war, the transcontinental telegraph is completed, signalling the end for the 18 month old Pony Express.

1929. Black Thursday signals the beginning of the Great Depression. A then-record 12.9 million shares trade hands as the market undergoes systemic collapse. A group of leading Wall Street bankers intervene, tasking the President of the NYSE to act on their behalf and put in bids at price well above ask for US Steel and several other blue chip companies -- the same strategy that J.P. Morgan had used to stabilize the market in 1907. It offers only a temporary respite from the freefall.

Over the weekend, the papers cover the fall. On Monday, more investors pull out, and the market falls a then-record 13%. Rumors that President Hoover will not veto the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill puts further pressure on stocks. Several famous financiers, led by John D. Rockefeller (THE Rockefeller), lead an effort to stabilize stocks by making large purchase orders. Their efforts fail. On Black Tuesday, October 29, a new record is set when 16 million shares trade, and the market loses another 12 percent. The record for shares traded will stand for 40 years, until 1968.

1931. The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.

1944. The Japanese Carrier Zuikaku, one of the six Japanese carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor, is sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

1945. Founding of the United Nations.

A few pictures of the famous financiers who have been metnioned lately:

John D. Rockefeller, who was probably the richest man in the world for most of his life after founding Standard Oil Company, which was later split into several major oil companies, including Exxon and Mobil. He lived into his 90s, and led an amazing life in terms of his public profile and image.

http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/so/scans/JDRd.jpg


J.P. Morgan, who was the unquestioned leader of Wall Street during his heyday. He put together the consortium that became US Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation in the world. His wealth did not match his power, however, as he was dwarfed by contemporaries such as John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie when it came to fortunes. He was very conscious of his very prominent nose, reputedly broken at least twice, and pock-marked, and disliked having his photograph taken. Nearly all photographs used what remedial measures they could to hide the pock-marking.

http://muson.info/images/h_jp_morgan_062300_03.jpg

http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp-...rgan-ghost.jpg



Like I said -- not a fan of having his picture taken:


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OQAiMcEXte...x-Jpmorgan.jpg

October 25

1415. The English once again trounce the French, this time at the Battle of Agincourt. Henry V of England had a string of successes against France, beginning in this battle, and by the end it was clear the French could do nothing to him. Luckily for them, he died young, in 1422, leaving an infant successor to the throne, who would prove a weak king. By 1420 Henry V had married the French King's daughter, and was mindful of the fact that the French King was sickly. Ironically, however, the sickly king lived two months longer than the mighty warrior. Had Henry V lived longer, he may well have united all of England and France under his rulership.

1854. The Charge of the Light Brigade occurs at the Battle of Balaklava during hte Crimean War.

1962. At the UN, Adlai Stevenson shows photos of the Cuban missiles.

I've read that John D. Rockefeller was by far the richest American ever if you measure it as a percent of the nation's wealth in his era. In fact, this link by Forbes shows that he was 1.53 percent of the entire U.S. GDP. That's pretty impressive. Bill Gates, by contrast, is 0.58 percent, which is still impressive, but he's a housemaid compared to Rockefeller.

http://www.forbes.com/asap/1998/0824/032.html

Interesting analysis. I never even heard of the last guy on the list (#7), Alexander Stewart.

Best book on Rockefeller is "Titan", by Ron Chernow. He also wrote a very good one on J.P. Morgan and the entire Morgan "dynasty", called House of Morgan.

I finished reading the book on Vanderbilt (Cornelia?! WTF?!?!, it's Cornelius) -- The First Tycoon.

They are all very good reads if you're interested in economic history stuff, because economic history by itself is painfully dry, but if you study how people interacted with the world around them in terms of economics, then it becomes much livelier.

Chernow also wrote the seminal book on Alexander Hamilton, which obviously also has alot of economic stuff involved (the debt funding scheme, etc.)

Reading the fine print below is informative as well. It shows both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin being among the wealthiest 100 Americans in history. I would've never guessed that.

I might have to check out some of those books. I'm not much on economic history, but the history of how wealth is used is interesting to me.

That's what makes these books very readable. It's about people who amassed amazing wealth, and how they did it. And about their lives, etc. Less insightful, no doubt, than a hard core economics 101 book, but who can read that for pleasure?

Didn't know those two founders were that rich either.

October 26

1776. Benjamin Franklin, one of the richest Americans (as a percentage of GDP) in history, leaves for France on a critical mission to obtain support for the Revolution.

1795. In Revolutionary France, the Directory is created.

1825. The Erie Canal opens, revolutionizing commerce.

1861. The Pony Express ceases operations.

1881. The gunfight at the OK Corral occurs.

October 27

1275. Traditional founding date of the city of Amsterdam.

1682. Philadelphia, PA is founded.

1806. The French Army (Napoleonic) enters Berlin.

1870. 140,000 French soldiers surrender to Prussia following the siege of Metz. Marshall Bazaine, in command, surrenders the entire Army of the Rhine under his command, totalling 180,000 soldiers. He will eventually be made a scapegoat for the defeat of the French by the Prussians, put on trial, sentenced to death, and then granted clemency.

1936. Mrs. Wallis Simpson, who has been involved in a romantic relationship with King Edward VIII of some time, divorces her husband, paving the way for her to marry the king and give rise to a constitutional crisis in Great Britain.

1962. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a U-2 reconnaissance plane is shot down, its pilot becoming the only casualty of the crisis.

2004. The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

October 28

312. Constantine the Great defeats Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, becoming sole emperor.

1636. What will eventually be known as Harvard University is established.

1885. The first porcelain toilet is built.

1919. Over President Wilson's veto, the Volstead Act is passed, paving the way for Prohibition.

1922. Italian Fascists, under Mussolini, march on Rome.

1962. Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of the missiles from Cuba.

Oct 28 1985.

At 10:12 pm:

Andy van Slyke's lazy fly ball nestles into the glove of Darrell Motley and the Royals are WS Champions.

October 29

1618. English adventurer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for an alleged plot against King James I. As he was shown the axe that would remove his head from his body, the aged courtier remarked that "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries."

Though his popularity had waned, Raleigh's execution was seen by many as a travesty, as his "involvement" in the plot was exceedingly limited and may have been unknowing. One of the judges at his trial later remarked that "[T]he justice of England has never been so degraded and injured as by the condemnation of the honourable Sir Walter Raleigh."

1863. Eighteen countries meeting in Geneva form the International Red Cross.

1886. At a parade for the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, office workers in New York spontaneously throw ticker tape into the air, thus being the first "ticker tape parade". The stock ticker had first gained use in New York City in 1867.

1918. In an action that will trigger the German Revolution, sailors of the German High Seas Fleet mutiny. This mutiny will place a stain on the Navy in the eyes of the German government right through to the end of the Nazi era.

1923. Turkey reforms as a republic following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

1929. The Great Crash, or "Crash of '29", on Black Tuesday signals the onset of the Great Depression. As noted earlier, this was really a multi-day affair.

1956. The beginning of the Suez Crisis, when Israeli forces attack the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula and starts pushing them back towards the Suez Canal. The war was between England, FRance and Israel against Egypt, mostly as a result of Egypt's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. Eventually, under US pressure (Eisenhower Administration), the Egyptians got their way even though they had suffered military reverses on the field. Today, the Suez Canal is run by an authority of the Egyptian government, and by international treaty is open to all during times of war or peace.

1960. Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, wins his first professional fight.

October 30

1938. Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, creating anxiety and, in some cases, outright panic in parts of the US that Earth is being invaded by Martians. The realism of the attack was heightened by the fact that parts of the show were broadcast as pretend news reports, and it ran without commercial break.

1945. Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers to break baseball's color barrier.

1961. The Soviet Union detonates the most powerful explosive device ever detonated -- the 58 megaton hydrogen "Tsar Bomba".

1974. The Rumble in the Jungle, a boxing match between former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and then heavyweight champion George Foreman, takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire. Using his rope-a-dope technique, Ali wins by knockout in the eighth round.

October 31

475. Romulus Augustus is crowned as Western Roman Emperor. His reign will last less than a year, and he will be the last Emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire.

1517. Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany.

1861. General Winfield Scott, citing failing health, resigns as a general in the United States army. In truth, the man who had served as Commander in Chief for 20 years -- longer than anyone in American history -- had been squeezed out by the seriously ambitious and seriously incompetent (on the field of battle at least) General McClellan. The former Presidential candidate (Whig, 1852) will live to see the Union victory, largely using his "Anaconda Plan", and to see McClellan fail spectacularly.

November 1

1512. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is revealed to the public.

1604. Shakespeare's Othello debuts.

1755. Lisbon, Portugal is practically wiped off the map by an earthquake and tsunami, killing between 60,000 to 90,000 people.

1800. The Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House, is first occupied, by John Adams.

1814. The Congress of Vienna opens to redraw Europe's political map in the wake of the fall of Napoleon. The "Final Act" will be signed, ironically, a few days before Waterloo as Napoleon had since escaped his exile and sought to reestablish his empire.

1896. National Geographic includes a photograph of a woman's bare breast for the first time. Unrelatedly, teenage boys everywhere start taking much longer trips to the bathroom.

1911. Again the little-known Turko-Italian War makes it mark as the first bomb is dropped from an airplane.

1938. Seabiscuit defeats Triple Crown champion War Admiral in a race dubbed "the Match of the Century."

1959. Montreal Canadians goalie Jacques Plante, who clearly also needed a skirt (or was the first goalie with an IQ over 80 -- and wanted to keep it that way, you decide), is the first goalie to don a face mask in a NHL game. Unrelatedly, the script for the first Friday the 13th movie starts being written the next day.

Monsieur Plante:

http://www.prohockeyfr.com/photogall...ues/plante.jpg

1982. Honda becomes the first Asian car company to begin production in the US, when it opens its Marysville, Ohio plant. It will start producing Honda Accords. Detroit probably didn't realize for whom the bell tolled.

Okay, it's not the ceiling, but it is Michelangelo, and it is the Sistine Chapel, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, so it is worth sharing:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eh31j6L95Ok?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eh31j6L95Ok?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

November 2

1895. The first gasoline powered race in US history. Prize? $2,000.

1917. The controversial Balfour Declaration is issued by Great Britain, supporting the concept of the return of Jews to Palestine.

1920. KDKA, in Pittsburgh, begins broadcasting results of the Presidential election. It is the first commercial radio broadcast in the world.

1936. Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin "Axis", in describing a recent agreement signed by Italy and Germany, marking the first public use of the phrase in relation to what will become formally known as the "Axis Powers". In May 1939 the two countries will sign an alliance, which Mussolini will call the Pact of Steel. In 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan will sign the Tripartite Pact.

1947. Designer and eccentric Howard Hughes flies the Spruce Goose, the largest fixed wing aircraft ever built, on its maiden and only flight. It is the largest flying boat ever built, and has the largest wingspan of any plane. Despite its nickname, it was actually built mostly of birch, not spruce, due to wartime raw material restrictions on the use of aluminum. It wasn't finished, however, until the war was over.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Hercules_2.jpg

1959. Twenty-One contestant Charles van Doren admits in Congressional testimony that he'd been given questions and answers in advance.

1963. South Vietnamese President, and former CIA toady, Ngo Diem is assassinated in a military coup. Unquestionably corrupt, Diem had stopped being sufficiently toadying, if you will, and so the CIA didn't thwart his removal, and he was ruthlessly executed by the military. North Vietnam, however, had a much keener insight on the ramifications of this decision, given that Diem was a strident anti-communist and, though corrupt, able leader.

And indeed, South Vietnam never had a truly stable government again, despite persistent US efforts and investments to help the situation. Instead, the North Vietnamese claims that South Vietnam was just another exercise in Western colonial gained traction by the perception that Diem was whacked for being too independent of the US.

November 3

1783. After George Washington's farewell address of a few days earlier, the Continental Army is disbanded.

1903. After intensive machinations by the United States, Panama, formerly a part of the country of Colombia, breaks away and declares independence, paving the way for the US to build a canal there.

1913. The US introduces the income tax. BEP's great-grandfather screams in outrage.

1918. Austria-Hungary enters into an armistice, and the Empire dissolves. Poland declares its independence from Russia.

1986. The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the US has been secretly selling weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of American hostages held in Lebanon. This leads to the Reagan Administration's arms-for-hostages and wider Iran-Contra scandal. The investigation will be impeded by the destruction of, and/or refusal to produce, documents. Ultimately 14 members of the Administration will be indicted, and 11 convicted, and the affair claims the head of Secretary of Defense Casper (Cap) Weinberger. Eventually, then Vice President, later President, George H.W. Bush will pardon the 11 convicted men at the end of his administration.

November 4

1677. The future Mary II of England marries William of Orange, future King William III. In 1693 they will charter a college, the second in the American colonies, in their name, located at Williamsburg, Virginia. It will go on to educate Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Chief Justice Marshall, Henry Clay and 16 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

1921. Hitler forms the SA, more commonly known as the brownshirts, a paramilitary organization that will be essential to his rise to power only to be brutally suppressed once that rise is complete and their fanaticism is a thorn in his side.

1922. British archeologist Howard Carter finds the entrace to the tomb of King Tut. He died of cancer in 1939, at age 64, seemingly unaffected by any curses.

1952. The National Security Agency (NSA) is established.

1956. Soviet troops enter Hungrary and suppress the revolution against Communist rule that had started some weeks earlier.

1970. Genie, a 13 year old girl, a feral child, is discovered. She had spent most of her life strapped to a potty chair locked in her room, and as such one of the worst cases of social isolationism known to history, is discovered by authorities in Los Angeles when her mother left her father and brought her to a welfare office seeking benefits. Indications were that her father beat her with a stick if she vocalized, and only barked or growled at her. By age 13, she had a rudimentary vocabulary of 20 words. Though she could walk, she had an unusual "bunny walk" in which she held up her hands in front of her, like paws, and she constantly sniffed, spat and clawed. She later moved out of the hospital to which she was committed, and after one failed foster home experiment, moved in with a therapist, his wife and children, where she lived for four years. While she had made some progress, lack of keeping good data led to a cutoff of funds from the National Institute of Mental Health. By the end of the four years, she had learned to smile and say very simple sentneces such as "applesauce buy store". Work with her led to theories that there was a critical time to learn language past which it became exceedingly difficult. In new foster homes she regressed, becoming silent and acting out. She currently lives in a sheltered and undisclosed accomodation.

1979. The Iranian hostage crisis begins when a group of Iranians, mostly students, storm the US embassy in Teheran.

November 5

1838. The Federal Republic of Central America, aka the United Provinces of Central America and sometimes mistakenly aka the United States of Central America, begins to break up when Nicaragua withdraws. The Republic had consisted of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

1862. Abraham Lincoln discharges General McClellan for the second and final time.

2006. Saddam Hussein and two co-defendants are sentenced to death by an Iraqi court.

You simply can't trust Hitler.

Nor Roehm, especially in the shower.

November 6

1528. The first known European steps foot in Texas -- a shipwrecked Conquistador.

1860. Abraham Lincoln is elected President. The South is unthrilled by this development.

1861. Jefferson Davis is elected President of the Confederate States of America. The North is unthrilled by this development.

1865. The last Confederate military unit surrenders -- the CSS Shenendoah, a ship that had circumnavigated the globe and sank or captured 37 vessels.

1869. In what will become known as the first official Intercollegiate college football game, Rutgers beats the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), by a score of 6-4. The game would not be recognizable today as "football", but rather was a mix of rugby and soccer rules. It was, however, the father of what would become football.

1935. Parker Brothers obtains the patents for what will become Monopoly.

1941. Josef Stalin addresses the people of the Soviet Union for only the second time, despite having ruled since the mid 1920s. He states that although 350,000 Soviet troops have died as a result of the German invasion, they have killed 4.5 million German troops and victory is near.

November 7

1811. The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought between the US and Tecumseh's growing Indian federation. William Henry Harrison will ride the (overstated) success of this battle to the Presidency, being elected in 1840 on the famous ticket of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too". It turns out to be very little Tippecanoe and alot of Tyler, as his inaugural speech, given March 4, 1841 on a wet cold day, leads to his death by pneumonia. He wanted to show he was still a war hero, so he read his two hour address (one of the longest ever), without a topcoat or hat. As a result, he had the shortest Presidency ever, being in office only one month before he died.

1910. The first air freight shipment is made, by the Wright Brothers, between Dayton and Columbus Ohio.

1917. The "October Revolution", when the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace and seize power in Russia. It is called the October Revolution because, under the old Julian calendar then still used in Russia, it was only October 25.

1919. On the second anniversary of the October Revolution, the first Palmer raid is conducted in America. Named after the then-Attorney General, the mastermind behind the wide-ranging sweeps of suspected Communists is the very young J. Edgar Hoover. Over 10,000 suspected Communists and anarchists are arrested in 23 cities.

1929. The Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.

1973. Congress overrides Nixon's veto, passing the War Powers Act, which limits a President's ability to wage war without Congressional approval.

1991. Magic Johnson announces he has HIV, and retires from the NBA.

November 8

1519. Cortes enters Tenochtitlan, captial of the Aztecs. Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration. After the conquest, Cortes will oversee the destruction and levelling the city.

1793. The Louvre is opened as a museum by French Revolutionary forces. Originally built as a fortress in the 12th century, it later served as a palace for the King, and was subsequently renovated. AFter Louis XIX chose Versailles as his palace, the Louvre apparently housed artists. Until the Revolution, there had been much debate about its future use.

1861. A US warship stops the British mail ship Trent, and takes two Confederate envoys off the ship, sparking the "Trent Affair", which comes close to bringing the US to war with Britain while its hands are already full with the Confederate rebellion. Eventually, Lincoln, to the great outrage of many in the NOrth, returns the two Confederate envoys and possession of the Trent, defusing the crisis.

1917. The People's Commissars in Russia give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin.

1923. The Beer Hall Putsch is carried out in Munich, landing Hitler in jail for his failed attempt to overthrow the German government. The Putsch was inspired by Mussolini's successful March on Rome, and was carried out with the active support of former German general Erich Ludendorff.

The Defendants at trial.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ff_Prozess.jpg

While in jail, Hitler will babble, err, write, Mein Kampf. The failed Putsch also convinces Hitler he must seize power legally, within the framework of the government, rather than by militant acts.

Also noteworthy is that Hermann Goring is shot by police in the leg and groin, beginning his long addiction to morphine which would only be broken when he was imprisoned at Nuremburg.

1960. Kennedy defeats Nixon.

1965. The United Kingdom abolishes the death penalty.

1973. The right ear of John Paul Getty III (then 16 years of age) is delivered along with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay $2.9 million. The young boy was so rebellious that at first the family thought it a ploy for him to extract money from his fantastically wealthy grandfather. Once the ear arrived, everything changed, and the boy's grandfather agreed to loan his son (the kidnapped boy's father) the money to pay the ransom, at 4% interest. The kidnappers were never caught.

The nice thing about being a dictator is that you don't have to retract statements later.

"Mr. Stalin? Mr. Stalin?"

"Da? Ze gentleman in ze corner..." [points]

"You said four years ago that while 350,000 soldiers had died defending the Motherland, we had killed 4.5 million Germans and that victory was near. Latest estimates put Soviet deaths at well over ten million, though your ministries seem to be suppressing the.....wait.....who are you, what are you doi..........gaaaaaaaaaaaa."

"Any vurther qestons?"

[silence]

LMAO

November 9

1620. Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land. Cape Cod.

1799. Napoleon leads a coup d'etat overthrowing the Directory and becoming one of three Consuls.

1862. The overmatched Ambrose Burnside accepts command of the Army of the Potomac following McClellan's dismissal. A good man and a good soldier, Burnside actually knew that he wasn't really fit for the command of the entire army, but accepted it in lieu of seeing it go to his rival, Joseph Hooker. He would fail, spectacularly, at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and then begin (and fail) to achieve anything in what would become known as the Mud March. He will be relieved in late January, having accomplished nothing to further the Union cause.

1887. The US receives the rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1888. Ex-soldier Thomas Bowyer stood outside the small apartment and politely knocked. He was there to collect rent for his employer, a landlord. The tenant was six weeks behind, and owed 29 shillings. If the tenant still couldn't pay, she would need to be evicted. Hearing no answer, he noted a hole in the window next to the door, and put his hand through to push aside the coat being used as a curtain. He then saw the horribly mutilated body of the tenant, Mary Jane Kelly. Jack the Ripper had struck again.

A small minority of scholars believe it is possible that this was not the work of the same killer as the prior victims. This victim was considerably younger than the other victims, being only 25. The scene of the crime was inside an apartment, as opposed to in the streets. Finally, the significant delay between the prior murders and this one, and the fact that this was the last, and by far the worst, suggests the possibility of a different killer. The majority of those who have studied the matter, however, deem this to be the work of the same man.

The killer would have had more time in the privacy of the room to commit his crime, leading to the far worse mutliation he inflicted on the body. This woman, too, was a prostitute like the others, and was in the Whitechapel district of London. And besides, how many truly grisly murderers could operate in the same area? The details are lengthy and fantastically grisly, but (in brief) the entire abdomen and thighs had been cut away, the abdominal cavity emptied, and hte breasts removed. The removed body parts had been rearranged, with the uterus, kidneys and one breast under the head, etc.

Thankfully, so far as anybody knows, Jack the Ripper had performed his last murder.

1906. For the first time in history, a sitting President leaves the country on an official trip when Teddy Roosevelt goes to visit the Panama Canal, which is in the process of being built.

http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/gra...0col/HC2x5.jpg

1918. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates, and Germany is declared a Republic.

1967. The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

1989. The Berlin Wall "falls" when East Germany opens the checkpoints. This will rapidly lead to reunification.

Nov 10, 1975

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November 10

1766. The last royal governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter for Queen's College, later Rutgers University. More interesting, relaly, is that Franklin was a steady loyalist throughout, eventually fleeing hte colonies to live in and die in England, despite the fact that his father, Benjamin Franklin, was a leader of the Revolutionary movement.

1865. The Commandant of Andersonville Prison, Henry Wirz, is hanged, becoming the only Civil War soldier to be (officially) executed for war crimes.

1919. The first national convention of hte American Legion is held, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1951. Direct-dial coast-to-coast phone service is begun in the United States.

1975. As noted by Bugeater, the 729 foot-long freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing her entire crew of 29.

November 11

1215. The Fourth Lateran Council meets to discuss Transubstantiation, the process by which wine and bread are, by that doctrine, turned into the blood and body of Christ.

(let me pause here to say, and I apologize for the heresy but....ewwwww)

1831. Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a large slave rebellion.

1864. General Sherman cuts the telegraph wires connecting Atlanta to the rest of the Union, prepatory to beginning his March to the Sea.

1918. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year, Germany signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the deadliest conflict (until then) in human history.

1921. The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated at Arlington National Cemetary by President Harding.

1926. The "Mother Road", US Route 66, is established.

1940. The Battle of Taranto occurs. This is a strike by the British off aircraft carriers on the Italian fleet stationed at the harbor of Taranto. This is the first aircraft carrier strike on warships in history. It was previously thought that the harbor was too shallow to allow effective torpedo attack, but the British proved them wrong. The Japanese paid close attention to what had happened here and would repeat the strike, with devatating effectiveness, 13 months later, at Pearl Harbor.

November 12

1847. Chloroform is used as an anesthetic for the first time.

1892. William "Pudge" Heffelfinger becomes the first professional football player in history when he is paid for his efforts in the Allegheny Athletic Association.

1927. Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, leaving Josef Stalin in undisputed command of the party, and the country. Trotsky will later be assassinated.

1936. The Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.

1941. Temperatures around Moscow fall to -12C, or about 10 degrees F, and the USSR begins launching ski unit attacks on the freezing Germans for the first time.

1969. Independent journalist Seymour Hersh breaks a story alleging that American troops committed a massacre at the My Lai village in Vietnam.

1970. An 8 ton beached Sperm Whale is blown up by Oregon authorities using a half ton of dynamite. The result, somehow unexpected, is massive chunks of whale landing on buildings, cars, parking lots and other locations all around the beach. The news reporter on the scene relayed that "the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds."

1998. Daimler-Benz completes its acquisition of Chyrsler Motors. Let me pause to ask...what the HELL were they thinking?

November 13.

1002. King Aethelred II orders the killing of all Danes in England.

1841. Scottish surgeon James Braid sees a demonstration of "Animal Magnetism", which will launch his investigation into what he will eventually name hyponotism.

1941. In a grevious blow to the Royal Navy, the HMS Ark Royal, one of England's relative few Aircraft Carriers, is torpedoed by a British U-Boat, sinking the next day.

1947. The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first true modern assault rifles. The "47" used in the name is, of course, named after the year in which it was developed.

November 14

1864. Sherman burns Atlanta to the ground, and leaves the city behind as he starts marching East with 60,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Contrary to the standard military doctrine of the time, he is completely cut loose from his sources of supply, and must rely entirely on what he brings with him, and what his foragers can find living off the land. Despite his desperate exhortations to keep his supply train as compact as possible, thousands of wagons and horses and other supplies travel with his army.


http://64.34.162.133/uploads2/Genera...an-Atlanta.jpg

2001. Northern Alliance soldiers take over the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul.

November 15


1791. The first Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.

1943. By order of Hienrich Himmler, Gypsies are categorized along with Jews for placement into concentration camps.

1969. Dave Thomas opens the first Wendy's Restaurant. He names it after his daughter, whose real name was Melinda Lou but whose nickname was Wendy as she couldn't say her own name when she was young. Thomas will eventually appear in over 800 television commercials -- the most in television history -- in support of his chain.

1971. Intel releases the world's first commercial single chip microprocessor.

Or at least that's when it took effect. If I remember correctly, it was agreed upon early that morning. So there were basically several hours in which you had everyone killing each other for nothing, only because they hadn't gotten the order yet or they didn't want to haul back all the bullets. And so you had several thousand casualties from that.

It's also a moment in time when you see the attachment of symbols to history. The carriage, where Germany and France signed the Armistice, where Germany gave up so much, in just a generation became Hitler's mark of triumph against the French in WWII.

November 16

1532. Spanish Conquistadors capture the Inca Emperor Atahualpa. He will be the last of the Inca Emperors.

1914. The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.

1938. LSD is first synthesized by a Swiss chemist, as part of a program seeking treatments for migraines, Parkinson's Syndrome and other disorders.

1940. The Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world. Hundreds of thousands will die from disease and starvation, or being shipped to Nazi death camps, before all is said and done.

1945. The US Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology. Later, more will be added, including Wernher von Braun, one of the most influential and important rocket scientists of the 20th century, even though he was a member of the Nazi party and an SS officer.

Oklahoma entered the Union as the forty-sixth state on November 16, 1907. Derived from the Choctaw Indian words "okla," meaning people, and "humma," meaning red, Oklahoma was designated Indian Territory in 1828. By 1880, sixty tribes, forced by European immigration and the U.S. government to relocate, had moved to Oklahoma.

:spock:

Nov 16



1973
President Nixon signed the bill authorizing the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
2004
President George W. Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state.

Dear fellow history students,

A brisk, but heartfelt and strong plea for the education of history found here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-antony-beevor

With kind regards,

Jenson71

I tried to read all that, but it was so boring that I couldn't finish it.

The comments below the article are interesting, too.

Nov 17
 

1973
President Nixon said "I am not a crook."

2003
Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of california.

1800
Congress met in Washington, DC, for the first time.


1968
Night of the "Heidi bowl:" NBC switched from football to movie of Heidi. In the missing 42 seconds, the lagging Raiders scored two touchdowns, defeating the Jets.

1851 - The U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent carrier stamp to make it easier to pay fees for delivering and collecting letters. It was the first postage stamp to depict an American eagle; and the last to make it easier to pay the fees

November 17

284. Diocletian is pronounced Roman Emperor by his soldiers. A brilliant administrator, he reforms the government of the Empire, ennabling it to last another hundred years despite seemingly being on the brink of collapse during his youth. He will also create the Tetrarchy, and institute various reforms which will help serve as the basis on which the empire will split into its Eastern and Western halves, with the Eastern half to last another thousand years, and known to history as Byzantium. The Tetrarchy would collapse after his death, but many of his other reforms would remain and help stabilize the Empire. He also becomes the first Roman Emperor to voluntarily abdicate.

1558. Queen Mary I dies, to be succeeded by her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I. A daughter of Henry VIII, her 44 year reign is one of the longest on record, and will become known as the Elizabethan era, and oversee victory over the Spanish Armada.

1800. As noted above, Congress convenes for the first time in Washington DC.

1869. The Suez Canal is opened, a mighty engineering achievement linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.

1903. The Russian Social Democratic Party splits into two groups -- the Bolsheviks (which is Russian for "more" or, here, "majority"), following Vladimir Lenin, and the Mensheviks (Russian for "fewer", "less" or, more appropriately in this case, "minority"). Two guesses who won out in the long run. But if nothing else, now you know what Bolshevik means, and what its etymology is.

1933. 15 years after it seized power, the Soviet Union is recognized by the United States.

1947. Two American scientists observe the characteristics of the transistor, which will become a key feature in the coming revolution in electronics.

1973. As also noted above, US President Nixon memorably states that he is "not a crook." While technically he may have been correct, the reality is that key, high-ranking members of his administration ordered burglaries to be committed against Nixon's political enemies, and their actions were a distinct reflection of Nixon's own deep paranoia, deep hatred of his political opponents, and overall vileness.

2004. KMart announces it is buying Sears, once the largest retailer in America, with sales equivalent to 1% of the country's GDP.

Space
1970 Space Moonrover

17th November, 1970: The Soviet Union's moonrover rolled over the moon's surface today, becoming the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on the moon.

LMAO

Which allowed the Dread Pirate Roberts to conquer Lake Baikal!

Lyndon B Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor (already nicknamed "Lady Bird") of Karnack, Texas on November 17, 1934 after having attended Georgetown University Law School for several months. They had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and Luci Baines, born in 1947. Johnson enjoyed giving people and animals his own initials; his daughters' given names are examples, as was his dog, Little Beagle Johnson.

Do you live in Costa Rica, ChiefsNow? How long have you been there?

Nov 17
 

Tibet
1950 Tibet Dalai Lama

17th November, 1950: 15-year-old Tenzin Gyatso, is enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama at age 15.


1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville begins – Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege.

1603 – English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.

I was there when I updated my profile last. I'm in Everett wa right now, I bought some property down there though and plan to spend as much time as I can down there. ;)

:banghead:

November 17, 1994 - The last offspring of Hydrae is born. The world rejoices at the birth and mourns that there will be no more such beautiful children.

Happy Birthday my son! :)

This is one I would like to have been around for.

nov 17
 

1940 Green Bay Packers become 1st NFL team to travel by plane

1884 Cops arrest John L Sullivan in 2nd round for being "cruel"

1913 Panama Canal opens

I look forward to the errors almost as much as the knowledge!

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nov 18
 

Italy
1922 Italy Mussolini Comes To Power

18th November, 1922: This was the start of Benito Mussolini’s term as the new Italian premier. He received strong support from the Parliament at this time, and served in the premier position until 1943. Mussolini was a strong supporter of fascism, communism, as well as the Nazi Hitler regime.

nov 18
 

U.S.
1928 U.S.A. Mickey Mouse

18th November, 1928: Mickey Mouse appears for the first time in Steamboat Willie, It was the first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon film produced by Walt Disney and premiered at the Colony Theater in NYC.

U.S.
1966 U.S.A. Fridays Fish

18th November, 1966 : U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

1307 – William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head.

1493 – Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico

1865 – Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.

1909 – Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya.

1961 – United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service.

1978 – Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple cult to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.


1951 Former Cubs 1st baseman and future TV star of Rifleman Chuck Connors is 1st player to oppose the major league draft

1805 Lewis and Clark reach Pacific Ocean, 1st Americans to cross continent


On November 18, 1883, four standard time zones for the continental U.S.A. were introduced at the instigation of the railroads. At noon on this day the U.S. Naval Observatory changed its telegraphic signals to correspond to the change. Until the invention of the railway, it took such a long time to get from one place to another that local "sun time" could be used. When traveling to the east or to the west, a person would have to change his or her watch by one minute every twelve miles.
When people began traveling by train, sometimes hundreds of miles in a day, the calculation of time became a serious problem. Operators of the new railroad lines realized that a new time plan was needed in order to offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals.
Since every city was using a different time standard, there were over 300 local sun times to choose from. The railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 railroad time zones, but this was only a partial solution to the problem.

Fast Mail, Northern Pacific Railroad, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., James White, producer, July or August 1897.
Inventing Entertainment: The Edison Companies
The fact remained that the different railroad lines were using time schedules that varied from each other and from the cities they passed through, causing considerable befuddlement. Where railroad lines using different time zones intersected with each other, or with cities using different time standards, travelers were especially confused.
During the mid-nineteenth century, people throughout the world had experimented with methods of standardizing their clocks. In 1830 the U.S. Naval Observatory was created to cooperate with Great Britain's Greenwich Observatory to determine time based on astronomical observations. Accurate sea navigation based on the calculation of latitude and longitude, depended on accurate timekeeping.
Samuel Morse's invention of the telegraph made it possible to coordinate time signals over long distances. In the 1840s, the Royal Greenwich Observatory established an official standard time for all of England, Scotland, and Wales. The U.S. Naval Observatory was responsible for keeping official time in the United States.

Burlington Route, Rand McNally and Company.
For Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, 1897.
Railroad Maps, 1828-1900
U.S. railway managers were the first to adopt a plan to simplify calculation of time for the convenience of travelers within the continental United States. They agreed that four time zones would be adopted: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific Time. Local times would no longer be used by the railroads. The American Railway Association obtained the cooperation of city governments served by the railroads. The U.S. Naval Observatory agreed to make the change.
At twelve o'clock noon on November 18, 1883, as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was transmitted, the U.S. Naval Observatory began signaling the new time standard. Authorities in major cities and managers of the railroad reset their clocks. All over the United States and Canada, people changed their clocks and watches in synchronization with their zone's standard time. In one moment the many different standards of time that had caused conflict and confusion, were resolved into four simple standards.
A year later, on November 1, 1884, the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. agreed to establish international zones according to the same system. GMT was considered the "time zero," and the twenty-four standard meridians marked the centers of the zones. The International Dateline was placed along the 180 degree meridian in the Pacific Ocean. Around the world, clocks were reset to reflect the new system of timekeeping. By the time travelers began to rely on the airplane for travel, they had become accustomed to the system. Today, travelers think little of crossing more than one time zone in a trip of a few hours.

The standardization of the time zones is cool stuff.

At 4:05 AM on Nov 18, 1966 The world was introduced to Pamela Rose (esolc) who surprised doctors by surviving and thriving even tho she was one month premature and the doctors blistered her back because the incubator light was to close to her tiny delicate skin.

I swear that we've discussed MM somewhere before.

:ZZZ:

November 18. Note that I won't recover items previously posted.

1302. Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (One Faith). Perhaps THE most extreme statement of papal supremacy every made, the doctrine proclaims that there is absolutely NO path to heaven save through the Church, and that submission to the Pope as supreme head of the Church is a necessary part of being a member of the Church, and thus the ability to attain salvation. Stated a bit differently, all who wish to belong to the fold of Christ have absolutely no choice but to fall under the dominion of Peter (the first Pope, according to Roman Catholic dogma) and his successors.

All others are doomed to eternal torment in Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

1626. St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.

1903. A treaty is signed giving the US exclusive rights over the Panama Canal zone.

1916. British General (soon to be Field Marshal) Douglas Haig gives the order to end the First Battle of the Somme, which had begun on July 1 and saw over a million casualties, combined, as well as the first serious introduction of the tank. There is much dispute about the advantages gained (or not) and damage inflicted (or not) as a result of the battle. While the Allies pushed the Germans back somewhat, the Germans also shortened their defensive lines, and generally improved their defensive position as a result. There's also mixed evidence about whether the battle seriously impacted the German's ability to replace casualties for the remainder of the war. Only one thing is clear about the battle -- it was horrific beyond measure.

1938. John L. Lewis is elected first President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, later to be part of the AFL-CIO).

2003. In a 50 page, 4-3, decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court extends equal rights protections to same-sex civil unions.

Ahh, the famous, or infamous, Unam Sanctum. I think your summary is fair, Amnorix. It was quite the throw-down of the gauntlet, mainly to his enemies, especially the King of France, Philip the Fair. The enemies' response to the declaration of spiritual authority trumping secular authority? An invasion, an imprisonment. And famously, one Italian opponent of Boniface slapped him in the face. And Dante entertained the idea of him in the inferno.

November 19.

1863. At the consecretation of a cemetary on the site of the famous battle, Abraham Lincoln gives the Gettysburg Address. The "address" was really supposed to be that given by Massachusetts Congressman and famous orator, Edward Everett, who spoke for over two hours. Shortly thereafter, President Lincoln got up and gave a two minute address. The precise wording of the address is in dispute -- as there are multiple drafts floating around, and some newspaper accounts are at odds with the drafts. The most commonly accepted version is the only one that Lincoln signed.

After the speech, there was muted, delayed clapping, apparently in part at the surprise over its brevity. Lincoln himself was said to be unimpressed with his speech, saying (at least according to legend), "that speech won't scour", referring to a plow implement that doesn't do a good job of accomplishing its purpose. The Democratic Chicago Times wrote of the speech

Everett himself was the more farsighted of the reviewers, sending a letter to Lincoln the next day stating that " should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." Lincoln replied that he was glad to hear that the speech was not a "total failure."

1930. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow commit their first robbery.

1942. The USSR launches Operation Uranus, counterattacks around Stalingrad that will turn the tide of the battle in its favor.

1969. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land on the Moon, becoming the third and fourth humans to do so, though they do not quite earn the fame of their predecessors.

1998. The House begins impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton.

November 19.

1863. At the consecretation of a cemetary on the site of the famous battle, Abraham Lincoln gives the Gettysburg Address. The "address" was really supposed to be that given by Massachusetts Congressman and famous orator, Edward Everett, who spoke for over two hours. Shortly thereafter, President Lincoln got up and gave a two minute address. The precise wording of the address is in dispute -- as there are multiple drafts floating around, and some newspaper accounts are at odds with the drafts. The most commonly accepted version is the only one that Lincoln signed.

After the speech, there was muted, delayed clapping, apparently in part at the surprise over its brevity. Lincoln himself was said to be unimpressed with his speech, saying (at least according to legend), "that speech won't scour", referring to a plow implement that doesn't do a good job of accomplishing its purpose. The Democratic Chicago Times wrote of the speech

Everett himself was the more farsighted of the reviewers, sending a letter to Lincoln the next day stating that " should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." Lincoln replied that he was glad to hear that the speech was not a "total failure."

1930. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow commit their first robbery.

1942. The USSR launches Operation Uranus, counterattacks around Stalingrad that will turn the tide of the battle in its favor.

1969. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land on the Moon, becoming the third and fourth humans to do so, though they do not quite earn the fame of their predecessors.

1998. The House begins impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton.

November 20

1820. 2,000 miles from the coast of South America, an 80 ton sperm whale attacks by ramming, and sinks, the Nantucket, Massachusetts based whaling ship Essex, which was in the midst of a 2.5 year whaling trip to the South Pacific. This event will inspire Herman Melville's Moby Dick after the young Melville meets the son of the Essex's first mate while serving on the whaling ship Acushnet.

1945. The Nuremberg trials commence.

1947. Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth (II) marries Lieutenant PHilip Montbatten. They remain married to this day, 62 years later.

1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis ends after President Kennedy lifts the quarantine on the island following the Soviet Union's promise to remove its missiles from Cuba. Given the impending advent of ICBMs and submarine launched ballistic missiles, in retrospect it seems a bit of a silly exercise in end-of-the-world gamesmanship, though the adventure will soon cause the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev.

1969. Newsweek and other magazines widely report the My Lai village massacre, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes photographs, bringing intense pressure to bear on the US military.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:De...i_massacre.jpg

1985. Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.