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^  On a 20 November:
2002 Publication of The National Geographic–Roper 2002 Global Geographic Literacy Survey [PDF], of more than 3000 18- to-24-year-olds in Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the US, and Mexico, in which the US ends next to last, and Mexico last. — [Highlights] — [Test yourself with 20 sample survey questions]
2002 After the previous evening's announcement of quarterly losses and of coming restatement of 2000 and 2001 earnings, 3 million of the 26 million shares of reinsurer Annuity &Life RE (ANR) are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, dropping from their previous close of $4.08 to an intraday low of $2.18 and closing at $2.24. They had traded as high as $26.09 as recently as 04 January 2002 and $36.98 on 13 August 2001, after starting trading at $22.50 on 22 February 1999.
2002 In Florida brothers Ramiro Ramos and Juan Ramos are each sentenced to 12 years and three months in prison and the forfeiture of real estate and personal property worth $3 million. Their cousin, José Ramos, is sentenced to 10 years, three months in prison. The three citrus contractors were were convicted in June 2002 of enslaving harboring undocumented workers (mostly from Mexico), interfering with interstate commerce by extortion (alleging the workers were in debt to them) and using a firearm (to threaten the workers).
2001 Municipal, county, and parliamentary elections in Denmark. The right-wing Liberal Party, with allied anti-immigration parties, wins a majority in the Folketing, insuring that Liberal Party leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 48, will become Prime Minister, replacing Social Democratic Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (no relation), 58, who has held the office since 1993.
2000 From Japan, the land of his ancestors, Peru's president Alberto Fujimori resigns, ending a 10-year authoritarian rule that ended in corruption.
2000 Lawyers for Al Gore and George W. Bush battled before the Florida Supreme Court over whether the presidential election recount should be allowed to continue.
2000 El ejército israelí ataca la franja de Gaza en represalia por el atentado contra un autobús escolar cometido por un comando radical palestino, que acabó con la vida de dos colonos judíos.
2000 Las autoridades francesas extraditan al dirigente de ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) José María Arregui Erostarbe, Fittipaldi, para que sea juzgado en España por varios delitos de sangre.
1998 Comienza a construirse la Estación Espacial Internacional, futura colonia terrestre en el espacio.
1998 El Ejército israelí se retira de poco más de cien kilómetros cuadrados del noroeste de Cisjordania (2% del total del territorio) en los alrededores de la ciudad de Jenín.
1998 The Federal Communications Commission says that it will re-auction 356 wireless phone licenses that were returned by companies that could not pay for them. The licenses had been auctioned in 1996, but many companies later proved unable to pay for them. For instance, Pocket Communications, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997, alone had returned some forty licenses.
1997 Los jefes de Estado y de gobierno de los 15 países miembros de la Unión Europea, a excepción de España, firman un acuerdo de reinserción laboral y formación para parados de larga duración (12 meses) y para jóvenes que lleven seis meses parados.
1995 El poeta y escritor granadino Luis García Montero gana el Premio Nacional español de Poesía por su obra Habitaciones separadas.
1994 The Convention Against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US ratified in October 1994, enters into force for the US.
1993 The US Senate approved the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
^ 1993 Senator censured for his part in Savings and Loan scandal.
 (er 1991???)     The Senate Ethics Committee handed down a stern censure of Alan Cranston, taking the California senator to task for his "dealings" with the scandal-ridden Savings and Loan executive Charles Keating. In the strongly worded statement, which capped off a two-year probe into the actions of the "Keating Five," the committee chided Cranston for "violating unwritten but commonly understood standards of Senate behavior.” Specifically, Cranston had pursued $800'000 in "charitable contributions" from Keating during the same period in which he had acted with Federal regulators to defend Lincoln Savings and Loan, Keating's troubled operation. However, an enraged Cranston took to the Senate floor to rebut the claims brought against him.”Nothing I did violated a law or Senate rule," the senator declared, though he did tender an apology for engaging in behavior which gave the appearance of being improper. This prompted an angry rebuttal by New Hampshire Republican Warren B. Rudman.
1991 The US provides $1.5 billion in food and technical assistance to the Soviet Union, about half of what was requested.
1990 British Prime Minister Thatcher failed to win a 65% majority for Conservative party leadership, forcing a runoff against Michael Heseltine.
1990 Guinness Beer buys for $1 billion Spain's biggest brewer, La Cruz del Campo. This is not only stood as the largest foreign investment in a Spain, but also a key strategic move for Guinness, which plans to use Cruzcampo as a building block for globalizing its brewing operations.
1989 Jean Vautrin, seudónimo de Jean Herman, obtiene el premio Goncourt por su novela Un grand pas vers le bon Dieu.
1986 UN's World Health Organization announced a coordinated global effort against the disease AIDS.
1983 100 million watch ABC-TV movie “The Day After," about nuclear war
1982 Se disuelve la organización política de extrema derecha Fuerza Nueva, dirigida por el notario Blas Piñar López.
^ 1980 Mao's widow on trial for treason
      In China, Jiang Qing, the widow of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, goes on trial on charges of treason, subverting the government, and wrongly arresting, detaining, and torturing innocent people. In the Chinese struggle for succession following the death of Mao in 1976, Jiang Qing and three others were arrested and charged with plotting a coup. Labeled the "Gang of Four," the four were expelled from the Communist party and imprisoned. Deng Xiaoping, who by 1978 was the dominant figure in Chinese politics, sent Jiang Qing and the rest of the Gang of Four to trial in 1980. Jiang Qing is found guilty and sentenced to death along with the other three, although her sentence is later suspended. During the 1960s, Jiang Qing attacked the bourgeois influences in Chinese arts and literature, and was a leader in Mao's "Cultural Revolution.”
1980 Steve Ptacek in Solar Challenger makes 1st solar-powered flight
1978 A satellite system for transmitting newspaper content is initiated by transmitting The Wall Street Journal from where it was typeset in Massachusetts to Orlando, Florida, at a rate of 3.5 minutes per page.
1978 ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) ataca con metralleta un cuartel de la policía en Basauri (País Vasco).
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became 1st Arab leader to address Israeli Knesset
1977 Konstantinos Karamanlis, jefe del partido conservador, obtiene la mayoría absoluta en las elecciones legislativas de Grecia.
1976 Grecia y Turquía llegan a un acuerdo con respecto al zócalo continental del Mar Egeo.
^ 1975 US Senate charges FBI and CIA with illegal activities
      A bipartisan Senate investigation of activities by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) releases its report, charging both US government agencies with illegal activities. The committee, headed by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, reports that both the FBI and the CIA had conducted illegal surveillance of over a hundred thousand US citizens, and charges the CIA with plotting to assassinate foreign leaders, such as Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile who was overthrown with CIA assistance in 1973. The Senate committee also reports that the CIA has maintained a secret stockpile of poisons despite a specific presidential order to destroy the substances.
^ 1969 My Lai war crimes revelations continue
      In the United States, Seymour Hersh, an independent investigative journalist, files a second My Lai story based on interviews with Michael Terry and Michael Bernhardt, who served under 1st Lt. William Calley during the action that was later dubbed the My Lai massacre. Also on this day, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published explicit photos of the dead at My Lai. The American public was stunned. Hersh broke the story earlier in the month, describing how soldiers from the Americal Division conducting a sweep of My Lai indiscriminately shot people as they ran from their huts, and then systematically rounded up the survivors, allegedly leading them to a ditch where they were executed per Calley's orders. Despite the fact that an Army board of inquiry found that 30 persons either participated in the atrocity or knew of it and failed to do anything, only 14 were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted, except Calley, who was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced twice and President Richard Nixon paroled him in November 1974.
1969 Manifestación de más de 250'000 personas en Washington por la paz en Vietnam.
1969
The Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phaseout in the US.
1967 Students demonstrate against napalm.
      San Jose State College students demonstrate against the Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm. Police were sent in, but the students refused to disperse and several protest leaders were arrested. The next day the students defied California governor Ronald Reagan's warning against further demonstrations and again staged an anti-Dow demonstration. Napalm was an acronym derived from naphthetic and palmic acids, whose salts were used to manufacture the jellied gasoline — napalm — that was used in flame-throwers and bombs. Napalm first came into widespread use during World War II, especially in flame throwers used to destroy entrenched Japanese positions in the Pacific war. It was also used extensively in aerial bombs during the Korean War against Chinese and North Korean entrenchments. The use of napalm in the Vietnam War concerned many Americans who considered it an especially cruel and barbaric weapon.
1967 At 11:00, Census Clock at Department of Commerce shows that the US population has reached an estimated 200 million
1967 President Lyndon Johnson announces the formation of the National Commission on Product Safety charged with safeguarding the public against "hazardous products," as well as exploring the efficacy of Federal consumer protection legislation.
1965 En la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), México y Chile rechazan el proyecto de una fuerza interamericana permanente contra la subversión.
1963 Camboya renuncia a la ayuda de EE.UU. y pide que la comunidad internacional garantice su neutralidad.
1962 US lifts blockade of Cuba
1961 The Russian Orthodox Church joined the World Council of Churches.
1959 Creación de la Asociación Europea de Libre Comercio, de la que forman parte Gran Bretaña, Suecia, Noruega, Dinamarca, Austria, Suiza y Portugal.
1959 The United Nations adopts the "Declaration of the Rights of the Child."
^ 1959 The British Anglia car comes to the US
      In 1911, the Ford Motor Company, which had been exporting Ford Model Ts to the UK for several years, opened its first overseas plant at Trafford Park in Manchester, England. In 1920, after a decade of brisk sales in Britain and all over Europe, Ford was faced with a crisis — a new British law established higher tax penalties for larger-engine cars, and Ford's market share was suffering. Ford of England responded by developing several prototypes for a Ford automobile small enough to avoid British tax penalties. Designers also predicted that the citizens of dense European cities would prefer a car smaller than the standard American Ford. The resulting Model Y Ford "8" went into production in 1932, and after a strong first year Ford's British market share began to rapidly expand. In 1938, the Ford E93A Prefect was introduced, the first marquee British Ford, followed by the 100E Anglia in 1939. On this day, the all-new 105E Anglia was introduced in the United States — the first British Ford to be marketed to Americans on a large scale. Internally, the compact 105E Anglia had a brand new overhead-valve engine and a four-speed gearbox, and externally, it was like nothing else on the road with it distinctive rear-sloping back window, frog-like headlights, and stylish colors: light green and primrose yellow. Despite appreciation for the well-designed car by a few automobile enthusiasts in America, the Anglia, which was a bestseller on the world's markets, failed to make a noticeable impact in the general US market.
1957 Newly appointed US Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy testifies before Congress about the United States ballistic missile programs. He also says that he will set up an agency to manage all defense research. Despite objections by various branches of the military, the research agency, known as ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was created in early 1958. ARPA developed ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, in 1969.
1956 Milovan Djilas, ex vicepresidente yugoslavo, es detenido por criticar a Josip Broz Tito.
1950 Charles André de Gaulle es reelegido [alcalde de París. ???????]
1949 Una revolución incruenta en Panamá provoca la dimisión del presidente.
^ 1948 American consul in China held "hostage" by communists
      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 US 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, US 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 US nationals.
      The US 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 US recognition would ever be forthcoming until the Americans at Mukden were released. On 24 November 1949, Ward and his staff were allowed to leave the consulate. Ward and four other US nationals had actually been found guilty of the inciting-to-riot charge and were ordered deported. Together with the other US nationals, 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 US 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 US nationals so angered the US public.
^ 1945 Trial of 24 major Nazi war criminals by the International Military Tribunal begins at 10:00. in Nuremberg, Germany.
      The International Military Tribunal begins trying German war criminals at Nuremberg. Following Germany's defeat in World War II, Winston Churchill planned to shoot top German and Nazi military leaders without a trial, but Henry Stimson, the US Secretary of War, pushed President Roosevelt to consider holding an international court trial. Since the trial did not begin until after the death of US President Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman appointed Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to head the prosecution team. The four countries pressing charges were Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and France.
      In his thoughtful opening remarks, Robert Jackson eloquently summarized the significance of the trial.”That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law," said Jackson, "is one of the significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.” The trial, which lasted 78 days, attempted to hold Nazi and German military officials accountable for atrocities including the massacre of 30'000 Russians during the German invasion and the massacre of at least 50'000 persons in the Warsaw Ghetto. Twenty-four defendants were tried, including Hermann Goering, the designated successor to Hitler, and Rudolf Hess, Hitler's personal secretary. All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. When one of the defendants demanded that an anti-Semitic lawyer represent him, an ex-Nazi was assigned to his defense.
      Because of the mountains of evidence and the many languages spoken by the defendants and prosecutors, the trial was beset with logistical problems. During the proceedings, Rudolf Hess feigned amnesia to escape responsibility. Though many expected the most excitement to arise from the cross-examination of Hermann Goering, his testimony was a letdown: he was even attacked by his fellow defendants for refusing to take responsibility for anything. Twenty-one defendants were convicted: 12 were sentenced to hang, and the rest were sent to prison. One man escaped the hanging by remaining at large while Goering escaped by committing suicide first. On 16 October 1946, 10 Nazi officials were hanged.
— Comienza el Proceso de Nuremberg contra 24 dirigentes nazis y ocho organizaciones hitlerianas, acusados de crímenes de guerra.
1943 US forces land on Tarawa and Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Island
1942 Arrestation de general Weygand, suspect au yeux des Allemands, qui l'internent en Allemagne.Il fut le ministre de la Defense nationale de juin a septembre 1940, puis commandant des armees restees fideles a Vichy en 1940 et 1941. Apres la Liberation, il sera traduit devant la Haute Cour, qui rendra un non-lieu.
1941 Se ordena la depuración de la Falange Española.
1940 Hungría se incorpora al Pacto Tripartito.
1938 1st documented anti-Semitic remarks over US radio (by Father Coughlin)
1931 The first commercial teletype service is inaugurated. The system, set up by AT&T, allowed messages typed on tape to be transmitted automatically to a central office, and then on to their destination. In December, Western Union Telegraph and the Postal Telegraph Company teamed up, allowing patrons of one service to transmit to patrons of the other service.
1929 Primera exposición individual de Salvador Dalí en París.
1917 Ukrainian Republic declared
1916 La Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) pacta con la UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) la convocatoria de una huelga general en España.
1914 US State Department starts requiring photographs for passports
1910 Mexican Revolution against the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship announced in advance by Francisco I Madero from his exile in the US. Of course authorities are ready, so real revolution starts months later. Nevertheless the anniversary of this day is celebrated as a Mexican national holiday.
1894 US intervenes in Bluefields, Nicaragua
1890 Pope Leo XIII encyclical On slavery in the missions
1888 William Bundy patents the timecard clock
^ 1873 Le septennat presidentiel: une loi de l'Assemblee nationale decide de proroger pour sept ans le mandat presidentiel du marechal de Mac-Mahon.
L'affaire du drapeau
      Apres la chute de l'empereur Napoleon III, la France doit supporter l'occupation allemande. Des elections generales sont organisees dans la precipitation en fevrier 1871. Elles entrainent la formation d'une Assemblee nationale conservatrice, avec une majorite de deputes favorables a une restauration de la monarchie. La plus grande partie des monarchistes se tournent vers le pretendant legitime au trone, le comte de Chambord. Ce quinquagenaire, petit-fils de Charles X et fils du duc de Berry, a ete eduque par Elisabeth, fille de Louis XVI et ancienne prisonniere du Temple, dans la haine de la Revolution. Des l'âge de dix ans, il a vecu en exil en Autriche. Il a epouse une princesse etrangere depourvue de sympathie pour la France. Le couple n'a pas eu d'enfant. Le comte de Chambord meconnait la realite francaise, garde la nostalgie du passe et se berce de l'illusion de restaurer une monarchie de droit divin. Il decoit ses partisans en exigeant dans un manifeste en date du 06 Jul 1871 que la France renonce au drapeau tricolore bleu-blanc-rouge en prealable a sa restauration sur le trone. Il ecrit notamment: "Je ne laisserai pas arracher de mes mains l'etendard d'Henri IV, de Francois 1er et de Jeanne d'Arc. C'est avec lui que s'est faite l'unite nationale... Il a flotte sur mon berceau, je veux qu'il ombrage ma tombe... Francais! Henri V ne peut abandonner le drapeau blanc d'Henri IV.” Meme les plus farouches monarchistes ne peuvent le suivre dans cette voie, considerant que le drapeau tricolore de la Revolution a acquis sa legitimite du sang de tous les Francais qui sont morts pour lui jusqu'aux extremites de l'Europe. L'affaire est d'autant plus consternante pour les royalistes que le drapeau blanc auquel se refere le pretendant au trone ne fut le drapeau officiel de la France que pendant les quinze annees de la Restauration (1815-1830). Sous l'Ancien Regime, avant 1789, il n'existait pas, en effet, de drapeau officiel de la Nation! Sous l'effet de leur deception, les deputes decident le 31 Aug 1871 de se constituer en Assemblee constituante et, dans la foulee, ils votent la premiere loi constitutionnelle. Celle-ci confere au chef du pouvoir executif, Adolphe Thiers, le titre de President de la republique. Adolphe Thiers, vieux chef conservateur et serviteur du roi Louis-Philippe 1er, commence des lors a se dire qu'il vaut mieux etre President de la republique que Premier ministre d'un roi, fût-il constitutionnel. Il se detache de ses amis royalistes et se rallie prudemment a l'idee d'une republique conservatrice, a meme d'eviter aux Francais de renouer avec les dechirements du passe.
L'homme qui ne voulut pas etre roi
      Deux ans plus tard, le 24 May 1873, les deputes retirent leur confiance a Adolphe Thiers, qui doit demissionner. Il est aussitot remplace par le marechal de Mac-Mahon a la presidence de la republique. Le vaincu de Sedan passe pour un monarchiste legitimiste, susceptible d'ouvrir la voie a une restauration monarchique. Comme l'ex-empereur Napoleon III vient de mourir des suites d'une operation a Londres, le 06 janvier 1873, le petit clan des bonapartistes se rallie de mauvais gre aux monarchistes. Ceux-ci sont divises entre les partisans du comte de Chambord, ou legitimistes, et les partisans du comte de Paris, ou orleanistes. Les premiers soutiennent la branche capetienne des Bourbons, qui descendent d'Henri IV et dont le comte de Chambord est l'ultime heritier. Les seconds soutiennent la branche cadette d'Orleans dont le comte de Paris, petit-fils de Louis-Philippe 1er, est le representant. Son aïeul, Philippe-Egalite, vota sous la Revolution la mort de son cousin Louis XVI. Apres beaucoup d'hesitations, les monarchistes des deux camps s'accordent sur un plan simple: le comte de Chambord, sans enfant, monte sur le trone, et a sa mort, que chacun espere prochaine, cede le trone au comte de Paris, lequel est jeune et charge de famille. Avec lui, l'avenir de la monarchie parait assuree. Une commission de neuf deputes conduite par Charles Chesnelong se rend a Salzbourg, en Autriche, aupres du comte de Chambord. Elle croit comprendre que le pretendant est pret a un arrangement concernant la couleur du drapeau. A Versailles, l'assemblee approuve sans s'etonner le rapport de Chesnelong et se prepare a une restauration de la monarchie. Carrosses, costumes,... tout se met en place pour le retour du futur roi, le defile d'intronisation et la ceremonie. Il ne manque plus qu'un vote de pure forme de l'assemblee. C'est une question d'heures. C'est alors que, le 23 octobre 1873, le pretendant, reste jusque-la silencieux, adresse de sa retraite autrichienne une lettre ouverte a Chesnelong ou il se rebiffe et reitere son refus de tout compromis sur le drapeau. Par son dogmatisme, il prend le contrepied de son glorieux ancetre, Henri IV, qui considerait que Paris valait bien une messe et ne rechigna pas a abjurer le calvinisme pour acceder au trone. Dans la consternation, a l'initiative du comte de Broglie, chef des monarchistes, les deputes se resignent a proroger le mandat du marechal de Mac-Mahon dans l'espoir qu'entretemps, le comte de Chambord aura cesse de faire obstacle a leur souhait, d'une facon ou d'une autre... La France entre de la sorte a petits pas dans un regime republicain aussi conservateur que pouvait le souhaiter Adolphe Thiers. Elle n'aura jamais d'"Henri V".
L'amendement Wallon fonde la Republique
      En janvier 1875, l'assemblee nationale se trouve dans l'obligation de sortir du provisoire. Elle met au vote deux projets de lois "relatifs a l'organisation des pouvoirs publics" en ecartant soigneusement le vocable "republique". Mais le 30 janvier, Henri-Alexandre Wallon, un depute modere du centre gauche, historien de profession, depose un amendement au contenu anodin, ainsi concu: "Le President de la Republique est elu a la majorite des suffrages par le Senat et la Chambre des deputes reunis en assemblee nationale. Il est nomme pour sept ans et reeligible". C'est ainsi, au detour d'un amendement, que la Republique, la fonction presidentielle et le septennat entrent d'un coup dans les lois constitutionnelles de la France. Le septennat tiendra bon pendant... 127 ans pour disparaitre comme il est venu, en catimini, pour des raisons de convenance partisane, par le referendum du 24 septembre 2000.
     On a evite un nouveau roi ! Stupide ces propos : " Ma personne n'est rien ; mon principe est tout ", c'est ce qu'a declare le comte de Chambord, fils posthume du duc de Berry et petit-fils de Charles X, auquel la France s'appretait a rendre le trone. Mais, celui-ci intraitable sur ce principe qui est tout, le comte refuse d'accepter le drapeau tricolore. Ce refus change tout et dans la nuit du 19 au 20, les deputes monarchistes et centre gauche se sont reunis chez le duc de Broglie parviennent a un accord. Mac-Mahon, president de la Republique, voit ses pouvoirs reconduits pour sept ans. Paradoxe incroyable, c'est a la deception de deputes legitimistes que la Republique doit de n'etre plus remise en cause.
1866 Pierre Lalemont patents rotary crank bicycle
1863 Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee continues
1862 Confederate army of Tennessee, organizes under Gen Braxton Bragg
1861 Skirmish at Butler and Little Santa Fe, Missouri
1848 El príncipe Luis Napoleón jura su cargo de presidente de la República Francesa.
1843 El Gobierno provisional español presenta su dimisión tras declarar la mayoría de edad de Isabel II, que tiene 13 años.
^ 1843 Blacksnake Hills trading post is renamed St. Joseph
      Established as the Blacksnake Hills trading post in 1826, the growing community along the banks of the Missouri River adopts 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.
1829 Jews are expelled from Russia's Nikolayev and Sevastopol
^ 1820 Whale sinks ship
      Thousands of kilometers off the coast of Chile, a giant sperm whale rams twice into Nantucket whaleship Essex and sinks it. Three months later, the 20 crew members who had tried to survive on small life-boats in the middle of the Pacific had been reduced to only eight. They had clung to life by eating their dead comrades, killing one by one, drawing lots to determine who would be next to be eaten.
      Never before, in the entire history of the Nantucket whale fishery, had a whale been known to attack a ship. Possibly the whale was enraged by the noise of hammering, as a sailor aboard the Essex worked to repair a whaling boat on the deck of the ship. The clicking signals sperm whales use to communicate bore such a startling similarity to the tapping of a hammer that the whalemen called the sperm whale the 'carpenter-fish.'"
      There are a number of written accounts by survivors, including one by first mate Owen Chase, and one by a 14-year-old ship's boy (written much later, in his old age). Two ramming assaults by the giant whale, striking below the water line, opened an irreparable waterway into the Essex, sinking it within minutes.”My God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter?"
      Then began one of the longest and most atrocious ordeals in maritime history. Tahiti, which might have been reached in a week, was believed to be inhabited by cannibals, and this led the officers of the Essex to make a fateful — and for many of them fatal — decision. They began paddling their small whaling boats back toward the coast of South America, more than 3000 kilometers away.
      The tragic irony is that, while they steered clear of Tahiti fearing cannibalism, the desperate sailors ultimately resorted to eating each other so that a few of them might survive. The first to die and be eaten were blacks.
      At the end of February 1821, sailors of the ship Dolphin found and rescued the bedraggled survivors not far from Easter Island, still thousands of kilometers ) off the coast of Chile. They looked like emaciated ghosts. The Dolphin's sailors would never forget the handful of hairy, haggard crew of the Essex, their beards stained with blood, sitting in lifeboats filled with human remains, sucking the bones of their late comrades.
      It's a story that was out there long before Melville heard about it. He was a whaleman in his twenties. A crew man told him about the story of the Essex. And one day, in the Pacific, he came across another whaleship that had the son of Owen Chase on board. The boy went to his sea chest, took his own copy of his father's narrative and gave it to Melville for the night. He said that it had a profound influence on him. A decade later, he writes Moby Dick (published 14 November 1851). Melville used the disaster for the climax of Moby Dick. But the issues of man against nature, leadership, class, race are all in the Essex and in Moby Dick.
     Captain George Pollard was one of the survivors. He went out to sea again, and again his ship sank. No one wanted to ship out with the "cursed" captain, so he ended his life as a night watchman on Nantucket.
     The Essex tragedy is the subject of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, published in 2000.
     The American whaler Essex, which hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, is attacked by a sperm whale near the western coast of South America. The Essex was in pursuit of sperm whales, or 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 crew escapes in open boats, but only five of them survive the eighty-three-day journey to Peru, nearly 8000 km away. The first capture of a sperm whale by an American vessel was in 1711, and thus began an important American industry that numbered over 700 ships by the mid-eighteenth-century.
^ 1815 Traite de Paris et fin de l'Empire
      Le traite de Paris du 20 novembre 1815 sanctionne le retour de Napoleon de l'ile d'Elbe et sa defaite a Waterloo. L'annee precedente, apres l'abdication de l'empereur a Fontainebleau, les vainqueurs avaient permis a la France, par le premier traite de Paris (30 mai 1814), de conserver ses frontieres de 1792. Ils se contentaient de lui enlever les conquetes de la Revolution tout en lui laissant Mulhouse, Montbeliard, le comtat Venaissin, la Savoie, les forteresses allemandes de Marienbourg, Philippeville, Sarrelouis et Landau, ainsi que la plupart de ses colonies a l'exception de l'ile de France (qui deviendra l'ile Maurice), Sainte-Lucie et Tobago, dans les Antilles. Les Francais avaient restaure la monarchie sans hesiter et installe sur le trone le frere du roi guillotine, Louis XVIII. Celui-ci se montre d'emblee pret a tous les arrangements. Il definit par une Charte un gouvernement relativement democratique et refrene les ultras-royalistes, desireux d'en decoudre avec les anciens revolutionnaires.
      Cependant sur l'ile d'Elbe dont il est devenu le prince, Napoleon, separe de sa famille, prive de ressources, apprehende l'avenir. Il debarque par surprise a Golfe-Juan avec 900 grenadiers et profite du mecontentement latent chez les paysans pour s'emparer du pouvoir et chasser les Bourbons. Malgre l'invocation de la liberte et de la revolution par l'ancien autocrate, cette escapade dure a peine cent jours avant de s'achever a Waterloo par la defaite militaire.
      Les diplomates europeens reunis a Vienne pour refaire le monde n'ont meme pas a interrompre leur congres. Ils se contentent de deleguer a Paris quelques-uns des leurs pour signer un second traite en vue de liquider les sequelles de la Revolution et de l'Empire. Tremblants de frayeur retrospective, les Allies se montrent beaucoup plus durs dans la renegociation du traite de Paris. La France perd des terres qui etaient siennes depuis longtemps. Le duche de Bouillon et les forteresses allemandes de Philippeville et Marienbourg sont cedees aux Pays-Bas. Sarrelouis et Sarrebrück sont cedees a la Prusse. Landau est remise a la Baviere, le pays de Gex a la Suisse, la Savoie au roi de Piemont-Sardaigne. La France doit aussi payer une indemnite de 700 millions de francs et subir l'occupation etrangere pendant trois ans.
      Neanmoins, le gouvernement du roi Louis XVIII appliquera a la lettre les termes du traite, ce qui lui vaudra de reintegrer le concert des nations europeennes trois ans plus tard. Quant a l'empereur dechu, il echange la principaute tranquille de l'ile d'Elbe contre la prison lugubre de Sainte-Helene. Guides par l'ecole romantique, les Francais se consolent en exaltant le souvenir de la Revolution et de l'Empire.
     L'humiliation du Traite de Paris II: Ce traite est le second. Le premier date du 30 mai 1814, mais tout aussi humiliant. Les signataires en sont l'Angleterre, la Prusse, la Russie, l'Autriche et la France. La France est " condamnee " a payer une indemnite de guerre de 700 millions de francs aux cohalises. Elle aussi devra subir l'occupation de leurs troupes durant trois ans dans le nord et l'est du pays. Les frais d'entretien de cette armee d'occupation seront a sa charge comme par hasard. L'article premier du traite stipule : " Les frontieres de la France seront telles qu'elles etaient en 1790.” Enfin, toutes les oeuvres d'art prises par Napoleon devront etre restituees.
1789 New Jersey becomes 1st US state to ratify the Bill of Rights
1780 Britain declares war on Holland
^ 1759 Defaite de la flotte francaise dans la baie de Quiberon
      La flotte francaise sous le commandement del'amiral Conflans est surprise par celle de l'amiral Edward Hawke. Ce combat naval, qui devait voir la defaite de la flotte francaise, n'est que l'un des episodes de la Guerre de Sept ans (1756-1763), qui eut lieu sous le regne de Louis XV et qui opposa la France, la Russie et l'Autriche d'une part, a l'Angleterre et la Prusse d'autre part. A l'issue de cette guerre desastreuse pour la France, la Prusse affirme sa suprematie en Europe et le traite de Paris (Le Honteux Traite) donnera a l'Angleterre le Canada, alors possession francaise.
1759 James Ramsay goes aboard the slave shift Swift and sees horrors that make him the champion of abolition. He broke his thigh that day and had to leave the navy. Pastoring in the islands he learned more about slavery which he revealed in books.
1637 Peter Minuit & 1st Swedish immigrants to Delaware sail from Sweden
1542 New Spanish colonial laws are passed to protect Indians at the urging of Bartolomé de las Casas. — Se promulgan las Nuevas Leyes de Indias.
1542 Por las ordenanzas de Barcelona se crea en América la Audiencia de los Confines (luego llamada de Guatemala).
1541 In Switzerland, French reformer John Calvin, 32, established a theocratic government at Geneva, thereby creating a home base for emergent Protestantism throughout Europe.
1520 La expedición marítima de Fernando Magallanes atraviesa el estrecho que tomará su nombre.
1272 Edward I is proclaimed King of England
0284 Dioclétien devient empereur. Il est originaire d'Illyrie (les rives de l'Adriatique) comme ses predecesseurs immediats. Il va restaurer pour un temps la puissance romaine et instaurer un gouvernement original a quatre, la tetrarchie.
TO THE TOP
< 19 Nov 21 Nov >
^  Deaths which occurred on a 20 November:

2006 Christine Collier, 16; Nicole Ford, 19; and Tanesha Hill, 17; students of Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama, after, at 10:10 (15:10 UT) the school bus taking some 40 of the students to classes at the Center for Technology on Drake Avenue swerves to avert and then is sideswiped by a passing car driven by a Lee High School student, crashes through the guard rail, .and plunges nose first off the Interstate 565 access ramp at US highmay 231 some 10 meters onto Church Street. Injuries are suffered by the driver, 17, and more than 30 students, including Crystal Renee McCrary, 17, who dies the next day. Nicole Ford was the single mother of Demarcus Ford, 4; she had returned to school after his birth and after the boy's father, her former mate Darius M. Bedford, had shot her the face in December 2002, leaving her with impaired vision in one eye and partially paralyzed. Large buses in Alabama and school buses throughout the US are not required to have seat belts. —(061121)

2004 Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, 19, stabbed 46 times by Mamnoor Rahman, 15, assisted by his brother Mohammed Mujibar “Muji” Rahman, 18, in Oxford, England. His sister, Manna Begum, 19, was pregnant having openly become the mate of Ghorbani-Zarin, an Iranian who, intending to marry her, gave up his studies of electronic engineering at Oxford Brookes University and took a job. Her father, Chomir Ali, 43, a Bangladeshi, was trying to force her into a marriage with another man. She even attempted suicide (the unborn child would be murdered by abortion). He ordered his two sons to kill Ghorbani-Zarin to vindicate “the family honor”. The father and the two sons would be convicted on 04 November 2005, and later sentenced to life in prison. — (051105)

2003 David Dacko, 73, who succeeded Central African Republic's independence leader Barthélemy Boganda killed in a plane crash in 1959. Dacko became president at the nation's declaration of independence but on 01 January 1966, he was overthrown by the dictator and future self-proclaimed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa. Bokassa was overthrown in 1979 with the help of French paratroopers. Dacko was reinstated as leader, and won elections in 1981 but was pushed aside soon afterward by the military ruler André Kolingba.

2003 Five bystanders and the driver of a suicide truck bomb at the office of the PUK in Kirkuk, Iraq, at 10:30. The dead include a boy, 7, who died of his injuries in the evening.

Bomi 29 Nov 992003 British Consul-General Roger Short, British consulate employee Lisa Hallworth, two other Brits, and at least 25 other persons including two suicide truck bombers in Istanbul, Turkey, one the at the Turkish headquarters of the London-headquartered HSBC bank at 11:10 (09:10 UT), the other at the British consulate 8 km away, at 11:12. Some 450 persons are wounded. HSBC bank is the world's second biggest bank by stock market value; it is present in 79 countries. It opened on 03 March 1865, founded by Thomas Sutherland [1834-1922], Francis Chomley, and 12 other UK nationals in Hong Kong, as the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. After acquiring other banks it is now the HSBC Group.

2002 Puan Sri Azizah Abdul Aziz, 57, her son-in-law Shamsul Azhar Shafie, 35, her son Ahmad Ijaz, 37, Ahmad's wife Zaradina Zaini, 29, and their children Johan, 1, and Zurian Aishah, 5; and the two Indonesian maids Su and Tini, as a landslide destroys the Kuala Lumpur home where they were about to have their sahur (pre-dawn Ramadan meal) with Puan's husband, former Armed Forces commanding general Tan Sri Ismail Omar, 62, now chairman of Affin Bank Bhd, and four other survivors, Intan Jasmin (Shamsul's wife) and her children, Ilya Syamira, Shamir Izat, and Shazwan. Ismail's house, at the end of Jalan Tiga in the Taman Hillview neighborhood, was less than 300 meters from the scene of the 1993 collapse of one of three blocks of the Highland Tower apartments which killed 48.

2002 Bomi Jampa Lodroe, born in 1918, senior Tibetan lama (“Rimpoche”) who did the Chinese Communist authorities' bidding in conducting a 29 November 1995 recognition ceremony of their phony puppet 11th Panchen Lama, is opposition to the authentic one recognized by the Dalai Lama.
[photo: Bomi Jampa Lodroe at the ceremony for the selection of the phony Panchen Lama. Sitting behind is puppet master Luo Gan, then Secretary General of the State Council, later Secretary of the Communist Party's Political and Legal Affairs Commission >]
Bomi obit in Tibetan
2000 Carlos Cardoso, murdered in Maputo.
      Cardoso was one of Mozambique's best known journalists, founder and editor of the independent newspaper Metical. Cardoso wrote extensively about the country's largest ever bank fraud, in which the equivalent of $14 million was siphoned out of the Commercial Bank of Mozambique in 1996, on the eve of its privatization. He accused bank manager Vicente Ramaya and the powerful Abdul Satar family of orchestrating the crime. The case has never been brought to court — and Cardoso blamed this on corruption in the Attorney-General's office. In his 25 years as a reporter, Cardoso gained a reputation as a respected journalist who highlighted social problems and challenged the government to fix them.
     On 22 May 2001 it would be announced that Ramaya and businessman Ayob Abdul Satar are charged with contracting the killing of Cardoso, and Abdul Satar's brother Momade, Anibal Antonio dos Santos, Carlitos Rachid and Manuel Fernandes are accused of carrying it out.
2000 Louis Eugène Néel, físico francés.
1999 Amintore Fanfani, político italiano, senador vitalicio, dirigente de la Democracia Cristiana italiana y seis veces presidente del Gobierno, fallece en Roma a los 91 años de edad.
1996 Thirty-nine persons, in a fire in a building in Hong Kong.
^ 1990 Layne Hall, US's oldest driver, 105 (or 109?)
      Layne Hall of Silver Creek, New York, died at the age of 105, according to his death certificate. However, according to Hall's active driver's license, issued in 1988, he would have been one month shy of 110 years old. Whether he was actually 110 years old, or only 105, Halls had the distinction of being the oldest licensed driver in the United States at the time. If he was 110, he likely beat the previous record holder, Mrs. Maude Tull of Inglewood, California, who was issued a license renewal in 1976 at the age of 104. Tull first took up driving at the age of ninety-one after her husband died.
1989 Josu Muguruza, en un grupo de dirigentes de Herri Batasuna (HB) que son tiroteados en un restaurante de Madrid por extremistas de derecha.
1989 Leonardo Sciascia, escritor italiano.
1986 Beurling, mathematician.
1986 Alexander Ostrowski, mathematician.
1984 Santiago “Santi” Brouard Pérez, nacido en 1919, pediatra, dirigente de Herri Batasuna (HB), asesinado, se lo atribuyen los Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL).
^ 1975 Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teodulo Franco Bahamonde, 82 ( two weeks before his 83rd birthday), in Madrid, general and leader of the Nationalist forces that overthrew the Spanish democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39); thereafter until his death he was Spain's dictator
     A 82 ans, Francisco Franco y Bahamonde meurt apres un mois d'une interminable agonie. La disparition du caudillo (le chef en espagnol), apres quarante ans de pouvoir sans partage, genere en Espagne et dans le monde occidental des sentiments meles d'espoir et de crainte. Beaucoup de gens apprehendent le retour des fantomes de la guerre civile. Peu osent parier sur le succès de Juan Carlos de Bourbon, designe par l'ancien dictateur pour lui succeder avec le titre de roi. On ne se gêne pas dans le pays pour le traiter publiquement de "tonto" (idiot). Juan Carlos 1er saura en definitive conduire le pays vers la democratie.
1963 Luis Cernuda, poeta español. do fin a casi 40 años de dictadura en España.
1959 Alfonso López Pumarejo, político liberal y ensayista colombiano.
1955 Benedetto Croce, filósofo italiano.
1921 Reijiro Wakatsuki, 25th and 28th Prime Minister of Japan (30Jan1926-20Apr1927, 14Apr1931-13Dec1931), born on 05 February 1866 in Shimane Prefecture.
^ 1943 Hundreds of US Marines landing on Tarawa
      One of the bloodiest battles in the history of the US Marine Corps begins. The 2nd Division landed on Tarawa, an atoll (a ring-shaped coral reef enclosing a lagoon) in the Gilbert Islands, on amphibious tractors with little armor. Their 3.5-mile surge up the beachfront was met with heavy fire from Japanese shore guns. So much smoke and coral dust was raised by this preinvasion bombardment that fire was halted for half an hour to allow the smoke to clear. When the smoke did finally clear, it unveiled hundreds of US Marines struggling to wade ashore through blood-stained turf. The landing craft had come in at extremely low tide, forcing soldiers to clamor a full half-mile to shore. Some of them got caught in barbed wire strung through the shallow water and were gunned down. The leader of the Second Division, Colonel David Shoup, stood in waist-deep water, his leg badly wounded, directing the assault. Shoup was one of four Marines to receive a Medal of Honor for his bravery at Tarawa. Sadly, the other three Marines received their medals posthumously. At 6:15 the next morning, Major General Julian C. Smith sent in the rest of the Marine division, which faced the same merciless fire as the day before. But slowly, with the help of tanks, howitzers, flame throwers, TNT charges, and grenades, they fought their way inland. By the end of the second day, Shoup radioed to headquarters: "We are winning.” The American press covered "Bloody Tarawa" more thoroughly than any previous campaign. The 1000 American soldiers killed in just seventy hours, as well as the pictures of bodies floating in red surf, shocked the nation. Still, despite heated debate about the execution of Tarawa, it was an undisputed victory. Almost the entire Japanese garrison, a total of 4690 men, had been killed.
1936 José Antonio Primo de Rivera, abogado y político español, fundador de Falange Española, fusilado en la cárcel de Alicante.
1934 Sitter, mathematician
^ 1910 (7 November Julian) Lev Nikolayevich graf Tolstoy, 82, great Russian writer born on 28 August 1828.. — MORE.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (po-russki): Anna Karenina. Voyna i MirNabeg. Rasskaz volonteraRubka lesa. Rasskaz yunkeraKreytserova SonataIz kavkazskix vospominaniy. RazzhalovanyiZapiski markeraMetel'Dva gusaraFilosoficheskie zamechaniya na rechi J. J. RousseauO tseli filosofii
Ne ubiy nikogo

TOLSTOY ONLINE (in English translations):
  • Anna Karenina
  • Anna Karenina
  • Childhood , Boyhood , Youth
  • A Confession
  • The Death of Ivan Ilych
  • The Devil
  • Family Happiness
  • Father Sergius
  • The Forged Coupon and Other Stories
  • The Forged Coupon and Other Stories
  • The Gospel in Brief
  • Hadji Murad
  • The Kreutzer Sonata
  • The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
  • Master and Man
  • Resurrection
  • The Slavery of Our Times
  • Twenty-three Tales
  • War and Peace
  • War and Peace
  • War and Peace
  • 1910 Benes Knupfer, Czech artist born on 21 March 1848.
    1908 Voronoy, mathematician.
    1901 (or 13 Nov) Egisto Sarri, Italian artist born in 1837.
    ^ 1894 Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein, born on 28 November 1829, Russian composer and one of the greatest pianists of the 19th century.
          In 1835 Rubinstein's father opened a small factory in Moscow, and there in the same year his brother Nikolay was born. Both boys were taught piano, first by their mother and then by Aleksandr Villoing. Anton gave his first public recital in Moscow in 1839, and the following year Villoing took him abroad for a three-year concert tour. He appeared in Paris, London, The Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, attracting the attention of Chopin and Liszt. From 1844 to 1846 he and his brother studied music theory in Berlin. Anton spent two more years abroad alone, mainly in Vienna, studying the piano and composition. On his return to Russia in 1848 he settled in St. Petersburg, where in 1852 his first opera, Dmitry Donskoy, was produced; Fomka durachok and Sibirskiye okhotniki were introduced in St. Petersburg in 1853. The years 1854 to 1958 he spent abroad.
          Under the patronage of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, Rubinstein in 1859 founded the Russian Music Society and later became conductor of its orchestral concerts. In 1862 he founded and became the director of the Imperial (or St. Petersburg) Conservatory, and in 1866 his brother founded the Moscow Conservatory, where Nikolay remained as director until his death in 1881. Anton Rubinstein resigned his directorship of the Imperial Conservatory in 1867 but resumed it in 1887 and continued to hold the post until 1891. From 1871 to 1872 he directed the Vienna Philharmonic concerts, and in 1872 he toured the United States.
          Rubenstein's operas include Demon (1875), Der Makkabäer (1875), and Kupets Kalashnikov (1880). He wrote six symphonies, the biblical opera Der Turm zu Babel (1870), five piano concerti, songs, piano pieces, and numerous chamber works.
          In 1889 Rubinstein published an autobiography.
    1857 Sebastien Wegmayr, Austrian artist born on 07 February 1776.
    1856 Farkas Bolyai, mathematician.
    ^ 1806 Isaac Backus, New England preacher who advocated religious liberty, in Norwich, Connecticut.
          His Puritan mother had great influence in shaping his religious ideas. In the summer of 1741, Isaac was deeply moved by the preachers of the Great Awakening. He later described how all of his past life flashed before him, how he saw his own sinfulness, and how God's light enabled him to trust Christ's righteousness for salvation. When English evangelist George Whitefield came to New England Isaac was so eager to hear his preaching that he followed him to five different towns. About this time, Isaac's mother and brother helped form a church which required that members must accept Christ as Saviour. Since the official Massachusetts state Church had no such membership requirement, and it was against the law for any church to have different rules, Backus' mother and brother were jailed for a time. After that incident, the importance of religious liberty was indelibly imprinted in Backus' mind. Isaac was ordained as an independent preacher in 1748, and in l75l organized a Baptist church. For the next sixty years, he travelled more than 70,000 miles in America preaching the Gospel. In 1774, at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Isaac Backus was there representing the Baptists and urging religious liberty for Massachusetts. Later, as Massachusetts' delegate he voted for the US Constitution's protection of free worship.
    1764 Goldbach, mathematician.
    1678 Karel Dujardin, Dutch Romanist painter and etcher born in 1622. — MORE ON DUJARDIN AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
    0869 Saint Edmund is martyred by the Danes when he refuses to submit because it is not right for a Christian king to submit to a pagan. They tie him to a tree and shoot his extremities full of arrows.
     
    < 19 Nov 21 Nov >
    ^  Births which occurred on a 20 November:

    1942 Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr., lawyer, US senator for Delaware since 03 January 1973. —(061120)
    1939 Camino de José María Escrivá de Balaguer y Alba, fundador del Opus Dei, se publica.
    1925 Robert F. Kennedy, in Brookline, Massachusetts, US Senator; JFK's brother; assassinated on 05 June 1968.
    1924 Benoit Mandelbrot, Warsaw Poland, mathematician (proved Zipf's law)
    1923 Nadine Gordimer South Africa, actress/writer (Lying Days) — Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1991.
    1923 Beryl Sprinkel, economist.
    1917 Robert Byrd , prominent US Senator (D-WV)
    1917 Savage, mathematician.
    1914 José Revueltas, escritor mexicano.
    1908 Sir Alistair Cooke (author: America; TV host: Omnibus, PBS Masterpiece Theater)
    1902 Malas herencias, de José Echegaray Eizaguirre, se estrena en el Teatro Español.
    1893 Bloch, mathematician.
    1889 Edwin Hubble, mathematician, astronomer (discoverer of galaxies, red shift)
    1886 Karl von Frisch zoologist/bee expert (Nobel 1973)
    1884 Norman Thomas, in Marion Ohio, six times the Socialist Party candidate for US president (1928-1948)
    ^ 1875 Roderick Hudson, Henry James' first novel, is published
          Earlier in the year, American writer James had published Transatlantic Sketches, a book of travel essays, and a short-story collection titled A Passionate Pilgrim. James, born in New York in 1843, was the second son of a wealthy and eccentric philosopher. His older brother William became the country's first distinguished psychologist as well as an influential philosopher. The brothers and their younger siblings were taken abroad by their parents for four years to study European culture during their teens. The family roamed England, Switzerland, and France, visiting galleries, museums, theaters, and libraries. A back injury exempted James from serving in the Civil War, and he briefly attended Harvard Law School.
          He began writing fiction in his teens and published his first story when he was 21. He soon became a regularly contributor of essays, reviews, and stories to Atlantic Monthly and other important periodicals. In 1873, James moved to England and continued publishing reviews while writing many more novels, including The American (1877) and the popular Daisy Miller (1878). In 1881, he published his masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady. Like many of his other works, it deals with naïve, young Americans moving among sophisticated European circles. He wrote prolifically, nonfiction as well as fiction, and the prefaces to new editions of his novels have been collected in The Art of the Novel (1834).
    JAMES ONLINE:
  • The Altar of the Dead
  • The Ambassadors
  • The Ambassadors
  • The American
  • The Aspern Papers
  • The Aspern Papers
  • The Awkward Age
  • The Beast in the Jungle
  • The Beast in the Jungle
  • The Bostonians
  • A Bundle of Letters
  • Complete On-Line Works
  • Confidence
  • The Coxon Fund
  • Daisy Miller
  • Daisy Miller
  • What Maisie Knew
  • The Death of the Lion
  • The Diary of a Man of Fifty
  • Eugene Pickering
  • The Europeans
  • The Figure in the Carpet
  • The Finer Grain
  • Glasses
  • The Golden Bowl
  • Hawthorne
  • In the Cage
  • In the Cage
  • An International Episode
  • The Ivory Tower
  • The Jolly Corner
  • The Jolly Corner
  • The Lesson of the Master
  • A Little Tour in France
  • The Madonna of the Future
  • The Outcry (zip+requires Decoder)
  • The Point of View
  • The Portrait of a Lady
  • The Portrait of a Lady
  • The Portrait of a Lady
  • The Real Thing, and Other Stories
  • Roderick Hudson
  • The Sacred Fount
  • The Spoils of Poynton
  • The Tragic Muse
  • The Turn of the Screw
  • The Turn of the Screw
  • Washington Square
  • Washington Square
  • Watch and Ward
  • The Wings of the Dove
  • 1858 Selma Ottiliana Lovisa Lagerlöf, Swedish novelist (Tales of a Manor-Nobel 1909)
    1851 John Merle Coulter, botanist
    1841 Sir Wilfrid Laurier (L) 7th Canadian PM (1896-1911)
    1786 John Bradley, British artist who died after 1843.
    1782 Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, Dutch artist who died on 24 July 1861. — more
    1761 Pius VIII 253rd pope (1829-30)
    1752 Thomas Chatterton English poet (Christabel)
    1713 Guillaume Voiriot, French artist who died on 30 November 1799.
    1708 Balthasar Beschey, Flemish artist who died on 15 April 1776.
    1647 Jan van Huchtenburg, Dutch artist who died in 1733.
    1625 Paulus Potter, Dutch painter and etcher, celebrated chiefly for his paintings of animals. Potter died on 17 January 1654. — MORE ON POTTER AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
    ^ 1620 Peregrine White, first English child born in New England (aboard Mayflower)
         Peregrine White, the son of Susanna and William White, is born aboard the Mayflower, anchored near the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. She is the first child ever born of English parents in New England. Nine days before, the Mayflower arrived to the New World carrying the White family and approximately one hundred other English settlers, commonly known as the pilgrims. The majority of the pilgrims were Puritan Separatists, who traveled to America to escape the jurisdiction of the Church of England, which they believed violated the biblical precepts for true Christians.
          After a month of exploration by a party of armed pilgrims, during which time Peregrine White was born, the settlers decide on Plymouth as the location of their new community. The Mayflower arrives in Plymouth harbor on 16 December 1620, and construction on the settlement begins on December 23. Despite a difficult first winter, the settlement perseveres, and Peregrine is saved the fate of Virginia Dare. In 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child ever born to English parents in America, but in 1588 she mysteriously disappeared along with approximately one hundred other English colonists on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. Peregrine White eventually becomes a captain of militia, settles in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and lives to the ripe old age of eighty-three.
    Guericke stamp^ 1602 Otto von Guericke, Prussian physicist, engineer, and natural philosopher who died on 11 May 1686.
          Guericke was educated at the University of Leipzig and studied law at the University of Jena in 1621 and mathematics and mechanics at the University of Leyden in 1623. In 1631 he became an engineer in the army of Gustav II Adolf [19 Dec 1594 – 16 Nov 1632] of Sweden, and from 1646 to 1681 he was bürgermeister (mayor) of Magdeburg and magistrate for Brandenburg.
          In 1650 Guericke invented the first air pump, which he used to create a partial vacuum. His studies revealed that light travels through a vacuum but sound does not. In 1654, in a famous series of experiments that were performed before Emperor Ferdinand III at Regensburg, Guericke placed two copper bowls (Magdeburg hemispheres) together to form a hollow sphere about 35.5 cm in diameter. After he had removed the air from the sphere, horses were unable to pull the bowls apart, even though they were held together only by the air around them. Thus the tremendous force that air pressure exerts was first demonstrated. Guericke used his air pump it to study the phenomenon of vacuum and the role of air in combustion and respiration.
          In 1663 he invented the first electric generator, which produced static electricity by applying friction against a revolving ball of sulfur. In 1672 he discovered that the electricity thus produced could cause the surface of the sulfur ball to glow; hence he became the first man to view electroluminescence. Guericke also studied astronomy and predicted that comets would return regularly from outer space.
    1580 Guy François “Le Grand François”, French Baroque painter who died on 05 October 1650. — MORE ON FRANÇOIS AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
     
    Holidays Mexico: Revolution Day (1910) / World: Rights of the Child Day

    Religious Observances Ang: Edmund / Santos Agapito, Beltrán, Benigno, Dionisio, Edmundo, Félix de Valois, Gregorio e Hipólito./ Saint Edmond: En 855, le jeune Edmond monte sur le trone du royaume anglo-saxon d'Est-Anglie. Aime de ses sujets pour sa piete et sa bonte, le saint du jour est fait prisonnier et decapite par les envahisseurs vikings. Ses restes seront plus tard transferes dans la basilique Saint-Sernin de Toulouse. / RC: St Felix of Valois, confessor

    QUESTION: WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO FINNISH A STORY? (look for answer in this space on 21 November)
    click click

    Thoughts for the day:
    “Freedom has a thousand charms to show, that slaves, however content, will never know.”
    “The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.” —
    Milan Kundera
    “The past has a thousand charms to show, that the present, however content, will never know.”
    “The people who want to be masters will never be content with their slaves.”
    “The only way to be master of the future is to change the past.”
    “The only way to master the future is to learn from the past.”
    “The only way to change the future is to change the past.”
    “The only way to change the future is to rewrite the past.”
    “The only way to be master of the future is to change from the past.”
    “The only reason people want to be masters of the future is that they have not learned from the past.”
    “The only reason people want to be masters of the past is that they have no future.”
    “The only reason people are shocked by the future is that they are slaves to the past.”
    “The only people who have no future are those that live in the past.”
    “The only way to know the future is to wait 'till it has passed.”
    “The only reason people want to be masters of the past is to change the future.”
    “The only hope for the future is that it'll be a change from the past.”
    “Festina lente.” —
    Caesar Augustus, imperator romanus [63 B.C.-A.D. 14]. {it does NOT mean “Feast on tiny lentils.”}
    “Slow down fast.”
    “Haste makes waste.”
    {an excuse for not meeting deadlines}
    “Taste makes waist.”
    “Haste ruins taste.”
    “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
    “A waist is a terrible thing to mind.”
    “A mind in haste is a terrible thing.”
    TO THE TOP
    PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “TODAY IN HISTORY”
    http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4nov/h4nov20.html
    http://www.intergate.com/~canu/history/h4nov/h4nov20.html
    http://www.freewebtown.com/canu/history/h4nov/h4nov20.html
    updated Wednesday 22-Nov-2006 14:59 UT
    previous updates:
    v.5.90 Tuesday 15-Nov-2005 16:35 UT
    Saturday 20-Nov-2004 0:59 UT
    Sunday 23-Nov-2003 1:41 UT

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