The Week in History November 8-November 14
November 8, 1656 – Astronomer and mathematician Edmund Halley was born in London. He sighted the Great Comet of 1682 (now named Halley’s Comet) and foretold its reappearance in 1758. Halley’s Comet appears once each generation with the average time between appearances being 76 years. It is expected to be visible again in 2061.
November 8, 1895 – X-rays (electromagnetic rays) were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.
November 8, 1900 – Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her romantic novel about the American Civil War sold over 10 million copies, was translated into 30 languages, and was made into one of the most popular movies of all time. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the novel, her only book. She died in 1949 after being struck by an automobile in Atlanta.
November 8, 1923 – National Socialist (Nazi) Adolph Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch took place in the Buergerbraukeller in Munich. Hitler, Goering, and armed Nazis attempted, but ultimately failed, to forcibly seize power and overthrow democracy in Germany.
November 8, 1939 – An assassination attempt on Hitler failed at the Buergerbraukeller. A bomb exploded soon after Hitler had exited following a speech commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Seven others were killed.
November 9-10, 1938 – Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) occurred in Germany as Nazi mobs burned synagogues and vandalized Jewish shops and homes.
November 9, 1965 – At 5:16 p.m., the Great Blackout of the Northeast began as a tripped circuit breaker at a power plant on the Niagara River caused a chain reaction sending power surges knocking out interconnected power companies down the East Coast. The blackout affected over 30 million persons, one-sixth of the entire U.S. population. Electricity also failed in Ontario and Quebec.
November 9, 1989 – The Berlin Wall was opened up after standing for 28 years as a communist-socialist symbol of the Cold War. The 27.9 mile wall had been constructed in 1961.
November 10, 1483 – Reformation founder Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben, Saxony. In 1517, Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg’s castle church asserting the Bible should be the sole authority of the church, and calling for reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.
November 10, 1775 – The U.S. Marine Corps was established as part of the U.S. Navy. It became a separate unit on July 11, 1789.
November 10, 1871 – Explorer Henry M. Stanley found missionary David Livingstone at Ujiji, Africa. Stanley began his search the previous March for Livingstone who had been missing for two years. Upon locating him, he simply asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
November 10, 1885 – German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveils the world’s first motorcycle.
November 10, 1928 – Hirohito was crowned Emperor of Japan. He was Imperial Japan’s Emperor during World War II. Following Japan’s defeat, he was allowed to stay and remained Emperor until his death in 1989.
November 11th – Celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day (formerly called Armistice Day) with parades and military memorial ceremonies.
November 11, 1620 – Forty-one Puritan separatists arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They had hoped to settle further south, but as William Bradford wrote in his journal on December 19, “We could not now take much time for further search . . . our victuals being much spent
November 11, 1821 – Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow. Best known for The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment andThe Idiot.
November 11, 1885 – World War II General George S. Patton was born in San Gabriel, California. In 1942, he led the Allied task force that landed at Casablanca in North Africa. He commanded the U.S. 7th Army during the invasion of Sicily. After D-Day, he led the U.S. 3rd Army across France and into Germany.
November 11, 1918 – At 5 a.m., in Marshal Foch’s railway car in the Forest of Compiegne, the Armistice between the Allied and Central Powers was signed, silencing the guns of World War I effective at 11 a.m. – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In many places in Europe and America, a moment of silence in memory of the millions of fallen soldiers is still observed. Celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day (formerly called Armistice Day) with parades and military memorial ceremonies.
November 11, 1938 – Irving Berlin’s God Bless America was first performed. He had written the song especially for radio entertainer Kate Smith who sang it during her regular radio broadcast. It soon became a patriotic favorite of Americans and was one of Smith’s most requested songs.
November 11, 1972 – The U.S. turned over its military base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese, symbolizing the end of direct American military participation in the Vietnam War.
November 12, 1660 – John Bunyan is arrested for unlicensed preaching and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he penned Pilgrim’s Progress.
November 12, 1889 – DeWitt Wallace is born in St. Paul. Wallace would found Reader’s Digest in 1922, and his family’s fortune has benefited many educational and performing arts associations.
November 13, 1850 – Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Best known for Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
November 13, 1942 – The five Sullivan Brothers from Waterloo, IA, were lost in the sinking of the cruiser USS Juneau by a Japanese torpedo off Guadalcanal during World War II in the Pacific. Following their deaths, the U.S. Navy changed regulations to prohibit close relatives from serving on the same ship.
November 14, 1765 – Steamboat developer Robert Fulton was born in rural Pennsylvania.
November 14, 1765 – Telegraph service reaches Minneapolis.
November 14, 1976 – The Plains (Ga.) Baptist Church, where then-presidential candidate Democrat Jimmy Carter was a member, votes to permit blacks to attend.