November 21st ~

1620– Leaders of the Mayflower expedition framed the “Mayflower Compact,” designed to bolster unity among the settlers. The Pilgrims reached Provincetown Harbor, Mass.

1789– North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west, Virginia to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet (2,037 m) at Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US. The climate of the coastal plains is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.

1794– Honolulu Harbor was discovered.

1818– Frenchman Hipolito Bouchard and Englishman Peter Corney led a 2-ship attack against the presidio at Monterey, Ca. Gov. Pablo de Sola and his soldiers and families fled as some 400 rebels pulled to shore. The presidio was ransacked and burned. Bouchard and Corney days later plundered Mission San Juan Capistrano and the rancho at El Refugio.

1860 – The notorious hired killer Tom Horn is born on this day in 1860, in Memphis, Missouri. “Killing is my specialty,” Horn reportedly once said. “I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.” Horn was raised on a farm, and like many young farm boys, Horn loved to roam the woods with his dog and rifle, hunting for game and practicing his marksmanship. He was an unusually skilled rifleman, an ability that may have later encouraged him to gravitate towards a career as a professional killer. That his father was a violent man, who severely beat his son, might also explain how Horn came to be such a remorseless killer. However, the young Horn did not immediately begin his adult life as a professional murderer. Fleeing his home in Memphis after a particularly savage beating from his father, the 14-year-old boy first worked as a teamster in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he demonstrated a quick intelligence and learned Spanish. Horn’s packing and language skills later won him a job with the U.S. Army, where he served as an interpreter with the Apache Indians, learned to be a skilled scout and tracker, and tracked the cunning movements of the famous Apache warrior Geronimo.

Ironically, Horn’s career as a hired gunman began legitimately when he signed up with the well-known Chicago-based Pinkerton Detective Agency, which supplied agents to serve as armed guards and private police forces. Though Pinkerton detectives generally stopped short of carrying out actual murders, they were sometimes called on to fight gun battles with everyone from striking miners to train robbers. Horn’s four-year stint with the Pinkertons doubtlessly impressed his next employer, the giant Wyoming ranching operation, Swan Land and Cattle Company.

Swan and other big ranches funded Horn’s reign of terror in Wyoming, where he assassinated many supposed rustlers and other troublemakers. To take only one example, a Wyoming homesteader named William Lewis had stubbornly claimed his right to farm on what had previously been open range for cattle. He openly bragged about stealing and eating the cattle he found there. The big ranchers warned Lewis to leave the territory, but he refused to back down. In August 1895, he was shot to death with three bullets fired from a distance of at least 300 yards. Few doubted that the sharpshooting Horn killed Lewis. Horn’s reign of terror ended in 1903, when he was hanged for killing a 14-year-old boy, according to some, by mistake.

1861 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis names Judah Benjamin the Secretary of War.

1864– From Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood launched the Franklin-Nashville Campaign into Tennessee. Hood led the Army of the Tennessee in its offensive into Tennessee, which was decisively broken in the battles of Franklin and Nashville. Hood, a graduate of West Point, had been in the U.S. Cavalry until the Civil War broke out. He was seriously wounded attacking Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg and later lost a leg at Chickamauga in September of that year.

In 1864, he was appointed a Lieutenant General under Joseph E. Johnston‘s command in defense of Atlanta. In July, Confederate president Jefferson Davis put Hood in command who promptly attacked Sherman‘s Union army and was repulsed. Hood then attempted a long march to the north and west to assault Sherman‘s rear and ran into Union Army of the Cumberland. The November Battle of Franklin and December Battle of Nashville decisively defeated Hood‘s Army which was harassed and almost destroyed in its retreat. Hood‘s own request to end his command was granted the following month. After the war he lived in New Orleans.

November 21st ~ { continued...}

1906– In San Juan, President Theodore Roosevelt pledged citizenship for Puerto Rican people.

1918 – U.S. battleships witness surrender of German High Seas fleet at Rosyth, Firth of Forth, Scotland, to U.S. and British fleets.

1921– The 1st mid-air refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.

1929 – Hoping to pick up the pieces after the stock market’s dramatic free-fall, President Herbert Hoover sat down for two closed-door meetings with the nation’s business leaders, as well as trade union representatives. Each session saw the president and respective groups hash out a broad plan for righting the economy and reassuring the panicked public. Two weeks later, both the business and labor factions gave the green light to a general directive that Hoover hoped would help steer the nation away from fiscal turmoil.

1938– Nazi forces occupied western Czechoslovakia and declared its people German citizens. This annexation of Sudetenland was the first major belligerent action by Hitler. The allies chose to sit still for it in return for a promise of “peace in our time,” which Hitler later broke.

1940 – The Dies report on German and Communist espionage and subversive activities is published. As in the similar investigations which have been made in Britain, the strength of these disruptive elements is wildly overestimated and accompanied with call for preventive measures. The Dies Commission will eventually become the House Un-American Activites Committee.

1943 – On Tarawa Atoll, more American troops (of the 2nd Marine Divison) land on Betio Island. There are heavy casualties initially. However, by noon some progress is being made in successfully landing more troops. Other American units land on Bairiki Island. On Makin Atoll, elements of the US 27th Infantry Division begin to advance on Butaritari Island.

1944 – On Leyte, the US 32nd Division, advancing from the north coast, is held in the Ormoc Valley by Japanese forces. US 7th Division begins attacks north from Baybay toward Ormoc.

1944 – Northeast of Formosa, the US submarine Sealion sinks the Japanese battleship Kongo and a destroyer.

1944 – US 1st and 9th Armies meet firm resistance from German forces west of the Roer River. The US 3rd Army continues the siege of Metz while other elements gain ground near Saarebourg. Metz has never been taken by siege.1945- The last residents of the US Japanese-American internment left their camps.

1945 – When World War II finally ended, business and labor resumed their own struggle over power, profits and better working conditions. The first blow in the renewed battle was struck on this day in 1945, as the United Auto Workers staged the first postwar strike at the General Motors plant in Detroit, Michigan.

1950 – The 17th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division reached the Yalu River near its source at Hyesanjin, “Ghost City of Broken Bridges.” This was the northernmost progress achieved by any U.S. unit operating in the east under X Corps.

1950 – The battleship USS New Jersey was recommissioned and re-entered active service under the command of Captain David M. Tyree.

1952 – The USS New Jersey was relieved in the Korean Theater of operations.

1958– A Soviet-East German commission met in East Berlin to discuss the transfer to East German control of Soviet functions and end its occupation status in Berlin.

1963– President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, began a two-day tour of Texas.

November 21st ~ { continued ... }

1967 – Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, tells U.S. news reporters: “I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.” Having been reassured by the general, most Americans were stunned when the communists launched a massive offensive during the Vietnamese Tet New Year holiday on January 30, 1968. During this offensive, communist forces struck 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 64 of 242 district capitals and about 50 hamlets. At one point during the initial attack on Saigon, Communist troops actually penetrated the ground floor of the U.S. Embassy. The fighting raged all over South Vietnam and lasted almost until the end of February.

Overcoming the initial surprise of the attack, the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces recovered and ultimately inflicted a major military defeat on the communists. Nevertheless, Hanoi won a great psychological victory by launching such a widespread attack after Westmoreland assured the American people that the corner had been turned in South Vietnam. As a result of the unexpected Tet Offensive, many Americans came out forcefully against the war.

1969 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree in Washington, D.C., on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.

1969 – The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.

1970– U.S. planes conduct widespread bombing raids in North Vietnam.

1970 – Two 378-foot cutters, USCGC Sherman and Rush combined with USS Endurance to sink a North Vietnamese trawler attempting to smuggle arms into South Vietnam.

1970 – A combined Air Force and Army team of 40 Americans–led by Army Colonel “Bull” Simons–conducts a raid on the Son Tay prison camp, 23 miles west of Hanoi, in an attempt to free between 70 and 100 Americans suspected of being held there. Unfortunately, the Rangers could not locate any prisoners in the huts. After a sharp firefight with the North Vietnamese troops in the area, the order was given to withdraw–27 minutes after the raid began, the force was in the air headed back to Thailand.

The raid was accomplished in a superb manner and all Americans returned safely, but it was learned later that the prisoners had been moved elsewhere in July. Despite that disappointment, the raid was a tactical success and sent a message to the North Vietnamese that the United States was capable of inserting a combat force undetected only miles from their capital. Stunned by the raid, high Hanoi officials ordered all U.S. POWs moved to several central prison complexes. This was actually a welcome change-the move afforded the prisoners more contact with each other and boosted their morale.

1985- Jonathan Jay Pollard, a civilian U.S. Navy intelligence analyst and Jewish American, is arrested on charges of illegally passing classified U.S. security information about Arab nations to Israel.

1986– National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, begin shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to a rebel Nicaraguan group.

1987– An eight-day siege began at a detention center in Oakdale, La., as Cuban detainees, alarmed over the possibility of being returned to Cuba, seized the facility and took hostages.

1995– Israel granted jailed US spy Jason Pollard, citizenship.

2003– The Air Force conducted a 2nd test of the “Mother of All Bombs,” officially the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, in Florida. It was 1st tested March 11th.

2003– In northern Afghanistan at least 60 suspected Taliban and Taliban sympathizers were released from Shibergan jail in Jawzjan province.

2003– In Bolivia assailants shot and killed Jessica Nicole Borda (22), the daughter of an American consular official, during a carjacking attempt in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

2014 – The United States House of Representatives files a lawsuit against President Barack Obama for executive actions undertaken in relation to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

November 22nd ~

1542– New laws were passed in Spain giving protection against the enslavement of Indians in America.

1718– Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard, is killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia. Believed to be a native of England, Edward Teach likely began his pirating career in 1713, when he became a crewman aboard a Caribbean sloop commanded by pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, after Hornigold accepted an offer of general amnesty by the British crown and retired as a pirate, Teach took over a captured 26-gun French merchantman, increased its armament to 40 guns, and renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge. During the next six months, the Queen Anne’s Revenge served as the flagship of a pirate fleet featuring up to four vessels and more than 200 men. Teach became the most infamous pirate of his day, winning the popular name of Blackbeard for his long, dark beard, which he was said to light on fire during battles to intimidate his enemies. Blackbeard’s pirate forces terrorized the Caribbean and the southern coast of North America and were notorious for their cruelty.

In May 1718, the Queen Anne’s Revenge and another vessel were shipwrecked, forcing Blackbeard to desert a third ship and most of his men because of a lack of supplies. With the single remaining ship, Blackbeard sailed to Bath in North Carolina and met with Governor Charles Eden. Eden agreed to pardon Blackbeard in exchange for a share of his sizable booty. At the request of North Carolina planters, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatched a British naval force under Lieutenant Robert Maynard to North Carolina to deal with Blackbeard. On November 22, Blackbeard’s forces were defeated and he was killed in a bloody battle of Ocracoke Island. Legend has it that Blackbeard, who captured more than 30 ships in his brief pirating career, received five musket-ball wounds and 20 sword lacerations before dying.

1858 – Denver, Colorado, is founded.

1862 – Joint Army–Navy expedition to vicinity of Mathews Court House, Virginia. Raid under Lieutenant Farquhar and Acting Master’s Mate Nathan W. Black of U.S.S. Mahaska destroyed numerous salt works together with hundreds of bushels of salt, burned three schooners and numerous small boats, and captured 24 large canoes.

1864 – Confederate General John Bell Hood invades Tennessee in a desperate attempt to draw General William T. Sherman out of Georgia.

1906– The “S-O-S” (SOS) distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin. Considerable discussion ensued and finally SOS was adopted. The thinking was that three dots, three dashes and three dots could not be misinterpreted. It was to be sent together as one string.

1915 – The Wilson administration rejects a German offer of $1000 for each passenger killed following the torpedoing of the Lusitania on May 7th.

1923– Pres. Coolidge pardoned WW I German spy Lothar Witzke, who was sentenced to death. Witzke, a member of a “fifth column” organization run from Mexico. He was suspected in the “Black Tom” explosion that damaged the Statue of Liberty in 1916 and convicted of the Mare Island explosion the following year.

1935– Pan Am inaugurated the first transpacific airmail service, San Francisco to Manila. The Pan Am China Clipper under Captain Ed Musick took off from Alameda Point bound for the Philippines. It was the company’s first trans-Pacific flight. The plane was a 25-ton Martin M-130 flying boat with a wingspan of 130 feet, and was the largest aircraft in world service.

1948– Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam requested admittance to the UN.

1952 – Captain Cecil G. Foster of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing became the 23rd ace of the Korean War.

1963– President John F. Kennedy is assassinated during a visit to Dallas, Texas. His death caused intense mourning in the United States and brought Vice President Lyndon Johnson to the presidency. Kennedy’s untimely death also left future generations with a great many “what if” questions concerning the subsequent history of the Cold War. In the years since Kennedy’s death, a number of supporters argued that had he lived he would have done much to bring the Cold War to a close. Some have suggested that he would have sharply curtailed military spending and brought the arms race under control.

During his brief presidency, Kennedy consistently requested higher military spending, asking for billions in increased funding. After the humiliating defeat at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, his administration approved Operation Mongoose, a CIA program that involved plots to destabilize the communist government in Cuba. There was even discussion about assassinating Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In Vietnam, Kennedy increased the number of U.S. advisers from around 1,500 when he took office, to more than 16,000 by the time of his death. His administration also participated in the planning of the coup that ultimately overthrew South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was murdered by his own military just three weeks prior to Kennedy’s assassination. If Kennedy was going to become less of a cold warrior after 1964, there was little to suggest this change prior to November 22, 1963.

November 22nd ~ { continued... }

1963– Two amateur films recorded the assassination of President Kennedy. A 24 ½ sec. video by Orville Nix Sr. and Abraham Zapruder, a dress manufacturer, captured the assassination on video tape.

1963– Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit was slain by Oswald 45 minutes after Kennedy was shot when he called Oswald over for questioning.

1964– 40,000 paid tribute to John F Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death.

1967– The U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

1972– US ended a 22 year travel ban to China.

1972 – The United States loses its first B-52 of the war. The eight-engine bomber was brought down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile near Vinh on the day when B-52s flew their heaviest raids of the war over North Vietnam. The Communists claimed 19 B-52s shot down to date.

1974– UN General Assembly recognized Palestine’s right to sovereignty and national independence.

1982– President Reagan called for defense-pact deployment of the MX missile.

1988 – In the presence of members of Congress and the media, the Northrop B-2 “stealth” bomber is shown publicly for the first time at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The aircraft, which was developed in great secrecy for nearly a decade, was designed with stealth characteristics that would allow it to penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defenses unnoticed.

At the time of its public unveiling, the B-2 had not even been flown on a test flight. It rapidly came under fire for its massive cost-more than $40 billion for development and a $1 billion price tag for each unit. In 1989, the B-2 was successfully flown, performing favorably. Although the aircraft had a wingspan of nearly half a football field, its radar signal was as negligible as that of a bird. The B-2 also successfully evaded infrared, sound detectors, and the visible eye. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the original order for the production of 132 stealth bombers was reduced to 21 aircraft. The B-2 has won a prominent place in the modern U.S. Air Force fleet, serving well in bombing missions during the 1990s.

1986– Justice Department found a memo in Lt. Col. Oliver North’s office on the transfer of $12 million to contras from Iran arms sale.

1994– A gunman opened fire inside the District of Columbia’s police headquarters; the ensuing gun battle left two FBI agents, a city detective and the gunman dead.

2000– Yemen identified the bombers of the US Cole as 2 Saudi Arabian citizens with Yemeni family roots. One was named Abdul Mohsen al-Taifi and both had suspected to Osama bin Laden.

2002– At the NATO summit in Prague, Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush the United States should not wage war alone against Iraq, and questioned whether Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were doing enough to fight terrorism.

2003– Five Pakistani prisoners arrived home after being freed by American authorities from the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2008 – Saudi Arabia’s Royal Navy joins NATO’s mission in combating piracy in Somalia.

November 23rd ~

1765 – Frederick County, Md., repudiated the British Stamp Act.

1783 – Annapolis, Md., became the US capital until June 1784.

1785 – John Hancock was elected President of the Continental Congress for the second time.

1835 – Henry Burden invented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. He then made most of the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War. Burden patented a horseshoe manufacturing machine in Troy, NY.

1862 – Landing party from U.S.S. Ellis, Lieutenant Cushing, captured arms, mail, and two schooners at Jacksonville North Carolina. While under attack from Confederate artillery, Ellis grounded on 24 November. After very effort to float the ship failed, Lieutenant Cushing ordered her set afire on 25 November to avoid capture. Cushing reported: “I fired the Ellis in five places and having seen that the battle flag was still flying, trained the gun on the enemy so that the vessel might fight herself after we had left her.”

1863 – From the last days of September through October 1863, Gen. Braxton Bragg’s army laid siege to the Union army under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at Chattanooga, cutting off its supplies. On October 17, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant received command of the Western armies; he moved to reinforce Chattanooga and replaced Rosecrans with Maj. Gen. George Thomas. A new supply line was soon established. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman arrived with his four divisions in mid-November, and the Federals began offensive operations. On November 23-24, Union forces struck out and captured Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain. On November 25, Union soldiers assaulted and carried the seemingly impregnable Confederate position on Missionary Ridge. One of the Confederacy’s two major armies was routed. The Federals held Chattanooga, the “Gateway to the Lower South,” which became the supply and logistics base for Sherman’s 1864 Atlanta Campaign.

1863 – The threat of Confederate torpedoes (mines) in the rivers and coastal areas became an increasing menace as the war progressed. The necessity of taking proper precautions against this innovation in naval warfare slowed Northern operations and tied up ships on picket duty that might otherwise have been utilized more positively.

1874 – Farmer Joseph Glidden’s patent for barbed wire was granted. Glidden designed a simple wire barb that attached to a double-strand wire, as well as a machine to mass-produce the wire. The invention was a welcome alternative to other types of fencing for farming on the arid Great Plains–wood fences and stone walls were difficult to construct because of the lack of sufficient rocks and trees, and the existing wire fences were easily broken when cattle leaned against them. The use of barbed-wire fences changed ranching and farming life. Farmers could keep roaming cattle and sheep off their land, but open-range cowboys and Native American farmers were restricted to the land and resources not claimed and marked by the new fences. As more settlers moved onto the plains, the amount of public, shared land decreased and open-range farming became obsolete.

1902 – Dr. Walter Reed (51) died from a ruptured appendix in Washington DC. His experiments in Cuba had helped prove that yellow fever was transmitted by a mosquitoes. Walter Reed, an American medical doctor had received his medical degree by the time he was 18 years old. He joined the Army and became a captain. He and some other doctors studied typhoid fever and discovered that it was carried by flies. Yellow fever was a dreaded disease. 90,000 people in the United States had died of the disease. Many American soldiers in Cuba had died also. Reed noticed that people who cared for the patients with yellow fever didn’t usually get the disease. So he concluded that people didn’t catch it from each other. Reed began looking for answers. He remembered the research they had done on typhoid fever. He wondered if maybe mosquitos might be spreading it.

Some of the doctors and soldiers volunteered to take part in the experiment. The mosquitos were put in test tubes. First they bit the arms of men who already had yellow fever. Then they were allowed to bite the arms of people who didn’t have the disease. After many tests, they decided that the mosquito did carry the disease from one person to another. The next step was to get rid of the mosquitos. They sprayed the areas of water where the mosquitos were hatching, with chemicals. This stopped the spread of the disease. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. is named in honor of him.

1903 – Determined to crush the union of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the mining town of Cripple Creek. The strike in the gold mines of Cripple Creek began that summer. William “Big Bill” Haywood’s Western Federation of Miners called for a sympathy strike among the underground miners to support a smelter workers’ strike for an eight-hour day. The WFM, which was founded in 1893 in Montana, had already been involved in several violent strikes in Colorado and Idaho.

By the end of October, the call for action at Cripple Creek had worked, and a majority of mine and smelter workers were idle; Cripple Creek operations ground to a halt. Eager to resume mining and break the union, the mine owners turned to Governor Peabody, who agreed to provide state militia protection for replacement workers. Outraged, the miners barricaded roads and railways, but by the end of September more than a thousand armed men were in Cripple Creek to undermine the strike. Soldiers began to round up union members and their sympathizers-including the entire staff of a pro-union newspaper-and imprison them without any charges or evidence of wrongdoing. When miners complained that the imprisonment was a violation of their constitutional rights, one anti-union judge replied, “To hell with the Constitution; we’re not following the Constitution!”

Such tyrannical tactics swung control of the strike to the more radical elements in the WFM, and in June 1904, Harry Orchard, a professional terrorist employed by the union, blew up a railroad station, which killed 13 strikebreakers. This recourse to terrorism proved a serious tactical mistake. The bombing turned public opinion against the union, and the mine owners were able to freely arrest and deport the majority of the WFM leaders. By midsummer, the strike was over and the WFM never again regained the power it had previously enjoyed in the Colorado mining districts.

November 23rd ~ { continued... }

1934 – Japan declares its intention to withdraw from the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Conference. That treaty stipulated that the U.S. and Britain would be allowed to build five million tons of naval ships while Japan can only build three. Japan’s withdrawal will take effect in two years by the terms of the treaty for withdrawal.

1936 – U.S. abandoned the American embassy in Madrid, Spain, which was engulfed by civil war.

1939 – Franklin D. Roosevelt had proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a week earlier–on the fourth, not the last, Thursday of November–in an effort to encourage more holiday shopping.

1940 – U.S. troops moved into Dutch Guiana [Surinam] to guard the bauxite mines. Bauxite is the ore that is used to produce aluminum.

1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Admiral William D. Leahy as U.S. Ambassador to Vichy France to try to prevent the French fleet and naval bases from falling into German hands.

1942 – US Coast Guard Woman’s Auxiliary (SPARS) was authorized.

1943 – On Tarawa Atoll, the battle ends by noon. The US marines have suffered 1000 killed and 2000 wounded. The Japanese garrison of 4800 troops has been annihilated. A total of 17 wound Japanese troops and 129 Korean laborers are the only survivors. On Makin Atoll, the battle is also completed. American infantry have suffered about 200 dead and wounded. The Japanese have lost about 600 killed, wounded or captured. Meanwhile, the escort carrier Liscomb Bay is sunk offshore by a Japanese resulting in the loss of 600 sailors.

1945 – Most U.S. wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ended.

1950 – A battalion from the Netherlands joined the U.N. forces in Korea. Better known as the “Dutch Battalion,” it was attached to the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and first saw action on Feb. 12, 1951, in the major battle at Wonju, suffering more than 100 casualties and losing its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Marinus P. A. den Ouden. The battalion received the U.S. Distinguished Unit Citation for its action at Wonju. Lieutenant Colonel W. D. H. Eekhout, the new commander, was also killed in action in May 1951.

1963 – President Johnson proclaimed November 25th a day of national mourning as JFK’s body lay in repose in East Room of White House.

1970 – Simas I. Kudirka, a Soviet fisherman, attempted to defect from his Soviet fishing vessel to the CGC Vigilant, during a meeting between the Soviets and the U.S. on fishing rights. The cutter’s commanding officer allowed other Soviets to board the cutter and forcibly remove Mr. Kudirka.

1971 – The People’s Republic of China was seated in the U.N. Security Council.

1981 – President Ronald Reagan signs off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gives the Central Intelligence Agency the power to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

1985 – Retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin was arrested and accused of spying for China. He committed suicide a year after his conviction. Chin, a CIA translator, analyst, and document control officer, may have been the most damaging anti-U.S. spy ever; he sold bushels of U.S. secrets to China, altering the course of history. The Chinese government knew about President Richard Nixon’s secret decision to re-establish diplomatic relations two years before Nixon’s historic visit to China, and it leveraged key concessions.

1987 – Two days after a riot by Cuban inmates erupted at a detention center in Oakdale, La., Cuban detainees at a federal prison in Atlanta also rioted, seizing hostages in a drama that was not resolved until December 4th.

1992 – Iran added a Russian-built submarine to its navy, becoming the first Gulf nation to field a submarine.

1992 – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.

2001 – In Belgium the UN war crimes tribunal announced that Slobodan Milosevic, former Yugoslav president, would stand trial on charges of genocide in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

2003 – In Iraq the Governing Council named Rend Rahim Francke, an Iraqi-American woman and veteran lobbyist who has criticized Washington as being shortsighted in Iraq, as its ambassador to the United States.

2011 – The United States announces that it will stop observing the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. The decision comes four years after Russia withdrew compliance from the treaty.

November 24th ~

1784– Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States (1849-1850), was born at Montebello, Orange County, Va. Embarking on a military career in 1808, Taylor fought in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Seminole War, meanwhile holding garrison jobs on the frontier or desk jobs in Washington. A brigadier general as a result of his victory over the Seminoles at Lake Okeechobee (1837), Taylor held a succession of Southwestern commands and in 1846 established a base on the Rio Grande, where his forces engaged in hostilities that precipitated the war with Mexico. He captured Monterrey in Sept. 1846 and, disregarding Polk’s orders to stay on the defensive, defeated Santa Anna at Buena Vista in Feb. 1847, ending the war in the northern provinces. Though Taylor had never cast a vote for president, his party affiliations were Whiggish and his availability was increased by his difficulties with Polk. He was elected president over the Democrat Lewis Cass. During the revival of the slavery controversy, which was to result in the Compromise of 1850, Taylor began to take an increasingly firm stand against appeasing the South; but he died in Washington on July 9, 1850, during the fight over the Compromise. He married Margaret Mackall Smith in 1810. His bluff and simple soldierly qualities won him the name Old Rough and Ready.

1832– South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification. The US government had enacted a tariff. South Carolina nullified it and threatened to secede. Pres. Jackson threatened armed force on his home state but a compromise was devised by Henry Clay that ducked the central problem. South Carolina and other southern states were upset when Congress passed the Tariff of 1828 which Southerners dubbed the “Tariff of Abominations.” Southerners saw the tariff as protecting Northern industry at the expense of the South, and as unconstitutionally expanding the powers of the federal government. Many Southerners was not satisfied when Congress lowered tariffs slightly in 1832. In response, South CarolinaÌs state legislature passed laws nullifying the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and forbidding the collection of the tariffs in South Carolina. South Carolina also threatened to secede ­ to withdraw from the United States ­ if its stance on the tariff was not respected.

1835– The Texas Rangers, a mounted police force, was authorized by the Texas Provisional Government. Rangers served primarily as volunteers since government offers of payment rarely materialized. In 1835, as the movement for Texas independence was about to boil over, a council of colonial Texas representatives created a “Corps of Rangers” to protect the frontier from hostile Indians. For the first time, their pay was officially set at $1.25 a day and they were to elect their own officers. They were also required to furnish their own arms, mounts, and equipment.
When settlers rebelled against the Mexican government in 1836 over violations of their rights and the suspension of immigration from the U.S and Europe. The Texas Rangers played an important but little known role in this conflict. They covered the retreat of civilians from dictator Santa Ana’s army in the famous “Runaway Scrape,” harassed columns of Mexican troops and provided valuable intelligence to the Texas Army. The only men to ride in response to Col. William B. Travis’ last minute plea to defend the Alamo were Rangers who fought, and died, in the cause of Texas freedom.

1852 – Commodore Matthew Perry sails from Norfolk, VA, to negotiate a treaty with Japan for friendship and commerce.

1863– Union troops capture Lookout Mountain southwest of Chattanooga as they begin to break the Confederate siege of the city. In the “battle above the clouds,” the Yankees scaled the slopes of the mountain on the periphery of the Chattanooga lines. For nearly two months since the Battle of Chickamauga, the Confederates, commanded by General Braxton Bragg, had pinned the Union army inside Chattanooga. They were not able to surround the city, though, and occupied Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge to the south and east of the city instead. In late October, arriving to take command, General Ulysses S. Grant immediately began to form an offensive.

1871– The National Rifle Association was incorporated in NYC, and its first president named: Major General Ambrose E. Burnside. Dismayed by the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops, Union veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association in 1871. The primary goal of the association would be to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” according to a magazine editorial written by Church.

1932 – The FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens in Washington, D.C. The lab, which was chosen because it had the necessary sink, operated out of a single room and had only one full-time employee, Agent Charles Appel. Agent Appel began with a borrowed microscope and a pseudo-scientific device called a helixometer. The helixometer purportedly assisted investigators with gun barrel examinations, but it was actually more for show than function. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, provided the lab with very few resources and used the “cutting-edge lab” primarily as a public relations tool. But by 1938, the FBI lab added polygraph machines and started conducting controversial lie detection tests as part of its investigations. In its early days, the FBI Crime Lab worked on about 200 pieces of evidence a year. By the 1990s, that number multiplied to approximately 200,000. Currently, the FBI Crime Lab obtains 600 new pieces of criminal evidence everyday.

1941 – The United States extends Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces.

1943 – Japanese forces mount a small attack on the American divisions on Bougainville. The US marines hold.

1943 – The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.

November 24th ~ { continued...}

1944– 111 U.S. B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Tokyo for the first time since Capt. Jimmy Doolittle’s raid in 1942. Their target: the Nakajima aircraft engine works. Fall 1944 saw the sustained strategic bombing of Japan. It began with a reconnaissance flight over Tokyo by Tokyo Rose, a Superfortress B-29 bomber piloted by Capt. Ralph D. Steakley, who grabbed over 700 photographs of the bomb sites in 35 minutes. Next, starting the first week of November, came a string of B-29 raids, dropping hundreds of tons of high explosives on Iwo Jima, in order to keep the Japanese fighters stationed there on the ground and useless for a counteroffensive.

Then came Tokyo. The awesome raid, composed of 111 Superfortress four-engine bombers, was led by General Emmett O’Donnell, piloting Dauntless Dotty. Press cameramen on site captured the takeoffs of the first mass raid on the Japanese capital ever for posterity. Unfortunately, even with the use of radar, overcast skies and bad weather proved an insurmountable obstacle at 30,000 feet: Despite the barrage of bombs that were dropped, fewer than 50 hit the main target, the Nakajima Aircraft Works, doing little damage. The upside was that at such a great height, the B-29s were protected from counter-attack; only one was shot down.

1950– UN troops began an assault with the intent to end the Korean War by Christmas.

1961– The UN adopted bans on nuclear arms over American protest.

1963 – At 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas strip club owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit. On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder. Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy.

In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the “murder with malice” of Oswald and sentenced him to die. In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital. The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

1963 – Two days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms the U.S. intention to continue military and economic support to South Vietnam. He instructed Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in Washington for consultations following South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem’s assassination, to communicate his intention to the new South Vietnamese leadership. Johnson’s first decision about Vietnam was effectively to continue Kennedy’s policy.

1967– Cambodian triple agent Inchin Lam was murdered. Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy was accused and later tried for the murder in a court in Vietnam.

1969– U.S. Army officials announce 1st Lt. William Calley will be court-martialed for the premeditated murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.
During a sweep of a cluster of hamlets, the U.S. soldiers, particularly those from Calley’s first platoon, indiscriminately shot people as they ran from their huts. They then systematically rounded up the survivors, allegedly leading them to a ditch where Calley gave the order to “finish them off.” After an investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division, 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 sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced twice and he was paroled in November 1974.

1969– HS-4 from USS Hornet (CVS-12) recovers Apollo 12’s all-Navy crew of astronauts, Commanders Richard Gordon, Charles Conrad, and Alan Bean, after moon landing by Conrad and Bean.

1979– U.S. admitted that thousands of troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange.

1985– The hijacking of an EgyptAir jetliner parked on the ground in Malta ended violently as Egyptian commandos stormed the plane. Fifty-eight people died in the raid, in addition to two others killed by the hijackers. Ali Rezaq of the Abu Nidal terrorist group was imprisoned in Malta for 7 years and then released. The US FBI apprehended him in Nigeria in 1993 and he was convicted by a US federal jury in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison.

1991– The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral with six astronauts and a military satellite.

1992– Marines lowered the flag at Subic Bay, U.S. Naval Facility, Republic of the Philippines, for the last time during ceremonies to turn over the facility to the government of the Philippines. The withdrawal ended almost a century of U.S. presence in that nation.

2003– A Virginia jury decided that John Allen Muhammad, convicted of masterminding the 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington DC region, should be executed.

2003– The US-appointed government raided the offices of Al-Arabiya television, banned its broadcasts from Iraq for broadcasting an audiotape a week ago of a voice it said belonged to Saddam Hussein.

2014 – Chuck Hagel resigned as US defense secretary after less than two years in the top post.

November 25th ~

1758 – In the French and Indian War, the British captured Fort Duquesne in present-day Pittsburgh. On November 24, the French commander recognized that he faced total disaster if he were to resist. Under the cover of night, the French withdrew from Fort Duquesne, set it afire and floated down the Ohio River to safety. The British claimed the smoldering remains on November 25 and were horrified to finds the heads of some of Grant’s Highlanders impaled on stakes with their kilts displayed below.

1783 – Nearly three months after the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolution, the last British soldiers withdraw from New York City, their last military position in the United States. After the last Red Coat departed New York, Patriot General George Washington entered the city in triumph to the cheers of New Yorkers. The city was captured by the British in September 1776 and remained in their hands until 1783. Four months after New York was returned to the victorious Patriots, the city was declared to be the capital of the United States. It was the site in 1789 of Washington’s inauguration as the first U.S. president and remained the nation’s capital until 1790, when Philadelphia became the second capital of the United States under the U.S. Constitution.

1841 – The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, two years earlier were freed by the US Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition. John Quincy Adams (74), former US president, defended “the Mendi people,” a group of Africans who rebelled and killed the crew aboard the slave ship Amistad, while en route to Cuba. They faced mutiny charges upon landing in New York but Adams won their acquittal before the Supreme Court. In thanks they bestowed to him an 1838 English Bible. In 1996 the Bible was stolen from the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, Mass.

1863 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant breaks the siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in stunning fashion by routing the Confederates under General Braxton Bragg at Missionary Ridge. For two months since the Battle of Chattanooga, the Confederates had kept the Union army bottled up inside of a tight semicircle around Chattanooga. When Grant arrived in October, however, he immediately reversed the defensive posture of his army. After opening a supply line by driving the Confederates away from the Tennessee River in late October, Grant prepared for a major offensive in late November. It was launched on November 23 when Grant sent General George Thomas to probe the center of the Confederate line. Stunningly, this simple plan turned into a complete victory, and the Rebels retreated higher up Missionary Ridge.

On November 24, the Yankees captured Lookout Mountain on the extreme right of the Union lines, and this set the stage for the Battle of Missionary Ridge.The attack took place in three parts. On the Union left, General William T. Sherman attacked troops under Patrick Cleburne at Tunnel Hill, an extension of Missionary Ridge. In difficult fighting, Cleburne managed to hold the hill. On the other end of the Union lines, General Joseph Hooker was advancing slowly from Lookout Mountain, and his force had little impact on the battle. It was at the center that the Union achieved its greatest success. The soldiers on both sides received confusing orders. Some Union troops thought they were only supposed to take the rifle pits at the base of the ridge, while others understood that they were to advance to the top. Some of the Confederates heard that they were to hold the pits, while others thought that they were to retreat to the top of Missionary Ridge. Furthermore, poor placement of Confederate trenches on the top of the ridge made it difficult to fire at the advancing Union troops without hitting their own men, who were retreating from the rifle pits. The result was that the attack on the Confederate center turned into a major Union victory. After the center collapsed, the Confederate troops retreated on November 26, and Bragg pulled his troops away from Chattanooga. He resigned shortly thereafter, having lost the confidence of his army.

The Confederates suffered 6,687 men killed, wounded, and missing, and the Union lost 5,824. Grant missed an opportunity to destroy the Confederate army when he chose not to pursue the retreating Rebels, but Chattanooga was secured. Sherman resumed the attack in the spring after Grant was promoted to general in chief of all Federal forces.

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1864 – A Confederate plot to burn NYC failed. The leader of the “fire brigade” was a Confederate by the name of Robert Kennedy. Kennedy and the rest of his group met at the St. Dennis Hotel like planned. At that time final coordinates were made. Over the next few days his men were to each register for a weeks stay in several assigned hotels each — using assumed names and towns of course. This was to gain them access to rooms in the hotels. Arrangements had been previously made with a chemist residing in New York, but a Southern Sympathizer, to pick up a load of “Greek fire.” This was a special chemical combination that looked like water but, when exposed to air, after a delay, would ignite in flames. When Kennedy picked up the valise, he found it contained dozens of small bottles of the liquid and each bottle was sealed with plaster of Paris. Instructions were to use the bed in each room, pile it with clothing, rugs, drapes, newspapers, and anything else that would burn, Next, they were to empty two bottles of the “Greek fire” on top of the pile. In about five minutes, flames would ignite the pile. This delay gave them plenty of time to escape unnoticed before the fire started. After starting one fire, the man would then proceed to the next location and do the same. Each man would thus be capable of setting off several fires blocks from each other.

Still making final arrangements on November 2 to finish the deed, a disturbing telegram was sent by Secretary of State William Seward to the Mayor of New York. It read: This Department has received information from British Provinces to the effect that there is a conspiracy on foot to set fire to the principle cities in the Northern States on the day of – the Presidential election. It is my duty to communicate this information to you.” Later that afternoon the telegram was made public. (The same telegram was also sent to the mayors of other major Northern cities like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.) At this time most of the Order members decided to abandon the plan and get out of the city in an attempt to save their own lives — all that is except for Kennedy and five of the seven members of his band. After several meetings, it was decided by Kennedy and the rest of his gang to go ahead with the plan and set New York City on fire. They wouldn’t be in a position to capture New York after all but at least they could retaliate for Sherman’s March to the Sea. On the evening of November 25, 1864 the fires began.

Before the night was over almost every hotel in New York City had been set ablaze. These hotels included the St. Nicholas, St. James, Fifth Avenue, La Farge, Metropolitan, Tammany, Hudson River Park, Astor House, Howard, United States, Lovejoy’s, New England, and the Belmont. There were also fires on the Hudson River docks and a lumber yard. As a last minute thought, Kennedy decided to go into Barnum’s museum and up to the fifth floor where he could obtain a good view of Broadway and several of the fires. After watching for several minutes, Kennedy started going down the stairs. The remaining bottle of “Greek fire” dropped from his coat pocket and broke in the stairwell. Wasting no time, Kennedy ran from the museum, out the front door and on down Broadway. Meeting his band of men the next morning at the Exchange Hotel, one of the few that they hadn’t set fire to, Kennedy and his men read the morning papers. While there were some reports of the fires, the news didn’t fill the front page like they hoped it would. Both the Times and the Herald however headed the news of the fires as a “Rebel Plot.”

Kennedy and his men managed to get out of New York City on November 28. Soon a $25,000 reward was offered. This, combined with Kennedy’s boasting of his role in setting the fires, led to his capture three months later. After a short trial, Kennedy was found guilty on all counts. At this time, Kennedy signed a confession but refused to name anyone else involved in the plot. On March 25, 1865, — just three weeks prior the Lincoln’s assassination — Kennedy was hung.

1864 – Confederate Cavalry under “Fighting Joe” Wheeler retreated at Sandersville, Georgia.

1867 – Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. In 1863, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel invented the Nobel patent detonator (later used with dynamite) which detonated nitroglycerin (invented by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero in 1846) using a strong shock rather than heat combustion. In 1865, the Nobel Company built the first factory for producing nitroglycerin and later dynamite. Nitroglycerin in its natural liquid state is very volatile. Albert Nobel recognized this, and in 1866 he discovered that mixing nitroglycerine with silica would turn the liquid into a malleable paste (dynamite), which could be cylinder shaped for insertion into the drilling holes used for mining. In 1867, Albert Nobel patented this material under the name of dynamite – U.S. patent 78,317. To be able to detonate the dynamite rods he also invented a detonator or blasting cap that was ignited by lighting a fuse.

1940 – First flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder. The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe. After entering service with the U.S. Army, the aircraft received the reputation of a “Widowmaker” due to the early models’ high rate of accidents during takeoff and landings. The Marauder had to be flown at exact airspeeds, particularly on final runway approach and when one engine was out. The 150 mph (241 km/h) speed on short final runway approach was intimidating to pilots who were used to much slower speeds, and whenever they slowed down below what the manual stated, the aircraft would stall and crash.

The B-26 became a safer aircraft once crews were re-trained, and after aerodynamics modifications (an increase of wingspan and wing angle-of-incidence to give better takeoff performance, and a larger vertical stabilizer and rudder). After aerodynamic and design changes, the aircraft distinguished itself as “the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front” according to a United States Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946. The Marauder ended World War II with the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber. A total of 5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945; 522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force. By the time the United States Air Force was created as an independent service separate from the Army in 1947, all Martin B-26s had been retired from US service. The Douglas A-26 Invader then assumed the B-26 designation — before officially returning to the earlier “A for Attack” designation in May 1966.

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1941 – Adm. Harold R. Stark, U.S. chief of naval operations, tells Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, that both President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull think a Japanese surprise attack is a distinct possibility. “We are likely to be attacked next Monday, for the Japs are notorious for attacking without warning,” Roosevelt had informed his Cabinet. “We must all prepare for trouble, possibly soon,” he telegraphed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Kimmel’s command was specifically at the mid-Pacific base at Oahu, which comprised, in part, Pearl Harbor.

At the time he received the “warning” from Stark, he was negotiating with Army Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of all U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, about sending U.S. warships out from Pearl Harbor in order to reinforce Wake and Midway Islands, which, along with the Philippines, were possible Japanese targets. But the Army had no antiaircraft artillery to spare. War worries had struck because of an intercepted Japanese diplomatic message, which gave November 25 as a deadline of sorts.

If Japanese diplomacy had failed to convince the Americans to revoke the economic sanctions against Japan, “things will automatically begin to happen,” the message related. Those “things” were becoming obvious, in the form of Japanese troop movements off Formosa (Taiwan) apparently toward Malaya. In fact, they were headed for Pearl Harbor, as was the Japanese First Air Fleet. Despite the fact that so many in positions of command anticipated a Japanese attack, especially given the failure of diplomacy (Japan refused U.S. demands to withdraw from both the Axis pact and occupied territories in China and Indochina), no one expected Hawaii as the target.

1941 – The US Navy begins to establish compulsory convoying for merchant ships in the Pacific.

1943 – In Battle of Cape St. George, 5 destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 23 (Captain Arleigh Burke) intercept 5 Japanese destroyers and sink 3 and damage one without suffering any damage.

1943 – Bombers of the US 14th Air Force, based in China, raid the Japanes held island of Formosa for the first time. An estimated 42 Japanese aircraft are destroyed on the ground at Shinchiku airfield.

1944 – Bombers of the US 8th Air Force raid the oil plant at Leuna and the Bingen railroad marshalling yards.

1946 – Supreme Court granted Oregon Indians land payment rights from the U.S. government.

1947 – Meeting in what a newspaper report called “an atmosphere of utter gloom,” representatives from the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union come together to discuss the fate of postwar Europe.

1950 – The Chinese released 57 U.S. prisoners in a propaganda move.

1950 – The Chinese Communist Forces launched their second-phase offensive.

1951 – A truce line between U.N. troops and North Korea was mapped out at the peace talks in Panmunjom, Korea.

1952 – After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ends as American and South Korean units abandon their attempt to capture the “Iron Triangle”. The Battle of Triangle Hill, also known as Operation Showdown or the Shangganling Campaign was a protracted military engagement during the Korean War. The main combatants were two United Nations infantry divisions, with additional support from the United States Air Force, against elements of the 15th and 12th Corps of the People’s Republic of China.

1956 – Fidel Castro and his 81 rebel exiles departed Mexico to liberate Cuba from the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista. Che Guevara had recently joined Fidel and his band of Cuban rebel exiles as their doctor.

1957 – President Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.

1961 – Commissioning of USS Enterprise (CVA(N)-65), the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, at Newport News, VA.

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1963 – Three days after his assassination in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy is laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was shot to death while riding in an open-car motorcade with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally through the streets of downtown Dallas. Ex-Marine and communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald was the alleged assassin. Kennedy was rushed to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. He was 46.

Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States less than two hours later. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband’s blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington.

The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that day, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy’s body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral. Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave.

1973 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, President Richard M. Nixon called for a Sunday ban on the sale of gasoline to consumers. The proposal was part of a larger plan announced by Nixon earlier in the month to achieve energy self-sufficiency in the United States by 1980. The 1973 oil crisis began in mid-October, when 11 Arab oil producers increased oil prices and cut back production in response to the support of the United States and other nations for Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

Almost overnight, gasoline prices quadrupled, and the U.S. economy, especially its automakers, suffered greatly as a result. The Sunday gasoline ban lasted until the crisis was resolved in March of the next year, but other government legislation, such as the imposing of a national speed limit of 55mph, was extended indefinitely. Experts maintained that the reduction of speed on America’s highways would prevent an estimated 9,000 traffic fatalities per year. Although many motorists resented the new legislation, one long-lasting benefit for impatient travelers was the ability to make right turns at a red light, a change that the authorities estimated would conserve a significant amount of gasoline. In 1995, the national 55mph speed limit was repealed, and legislation relating to highway speeds now rests in state hands.

1997 – In Russia Richard Bliss (29), an employee of Qualcomm Comm., was arrested for spying while performing land surveys using satellite receivers in Rostov-on-Don. Qualcomm was under contract to install a cellular phone system. Bliss was later released for a Christmas holiday with some assurance that he would return for trial.

2001 – US marines landed near Kandahar marking the 1st major use of US ground troops in Afghanistan.

2001 – Taliban fighters in the vicinity of Tora Bora surrendered to Northern Alliance forces. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived to evacuate intelligence and military personnel who had been aiding the Taliban’s fight against the Northern Alliance. The airlift is alleged to have evacuated up to five thousand people, including Taliban and al-Qaeda troops.

2002 – President Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security and named Tom Ridge as head of the Cabinet-level office.

2002 – Space shuttle Endeavour arrived at the international space station, delivering one American and two Russians, and another girder for the orbiting outpost.

2003 – In Yemen security forces arrested Saudi-born Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal (32), the alleged mastermind of the attacks on the USS Cole, at a hide-out west of the capital, San’a.

November 26th ~

1774 – A congress of colonial leaders criticized British influence in the colonies and affirmed their right to “Life, liberty and property.”

1778 – Captain Cook discovered Maui in the Sandwich Islands, later named Hawaii.

1783 – The city of Annapolis, Maryland, was the first peacetime U.S. capital. The U.S. Congress met at Annapolis November 26, 1783-June 3, 1784, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, formally ending hostilities between Great Britain and her former colony. New York was the capital from 1785 until 1790, followed by Philadelphia until 1800 and then Washington, D.C.

1789 – George Washington proclaimed this a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new Constitution. He made it clear that the day should be one of prayer and giving thanks to God, to be celebrated by all the religious denominations. This date was later used to set the date for Thanksgiving.

1847 – Navy LT William Lynch in Supply sails from New York to Haifa for an expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. His group charted the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and compiled reports of the flora and fauna of the area.

1861 – West Virginia was created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virginia.

1863 – The first of our modern annual Thanksgivings was held following the Oct 3 proclamation of Pres. Lincoln to assign the last Thursday in Nov for this purpose.

1863 – Union General George Meade moves against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia after months of inaction following the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade’s troops found no weaknesses in Lee’s lines, and the offensive was abandoned after only five days. Meade was under pressure from the Lincoln administration to act before the end of 1863. For months after Gettysburg, the two battered armies nursed their wounds and gazed warily at one another across the Rappahannock River.
In October 1863, Lee attempted to move his army between the Union force and Washington, D.C., but his offensive failed at Bristoe Station. Now, Meade hoped to attack part of Lee’s army.

On November 26, Meade sent three corps against Lee’s right flank around a small valley called Mine Run. Unfortunately for the Union, William French’s Third Corps took the wrong road and did not cross the Rapidan River (just south of the Rappahannock) on time. Lee moved part of his army east to meet the threat. While French’s corps wandered in the Virginia wilderness, Confederate General Edward Johnson moved to block their advance. French’s men fought Johnson’s at Payne’s Farm; French suffered 950 men killed and wounded to Johnson’s 545. The blunder cost the Union heavily. Lee’s men took up strong positions along Mine Run, and Meade realized that to attack head on would be foolish. By December 1, Meade began pulling his men back across the Rappahannock River and into winter quarters. There would be no further activity between the two great armies until spring.

1864 – Colonel Kit Carson led the attack in the First Battle of Adobe Walls. Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson, commanding the First Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, was ordered to lead an expedition against the winter campgrounds of the Comanches and Kiowas, believed to be somewhere on the south side of the Canadian. On November 10 he arrived at Fort Bascom with fourteen officers, 321 enlisted men, and seventy-five Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts and fighters he had recruited from Lucien Maxwell’s ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. Two days later the column, supplied with two mountain howitzers under the command of Lt. George H. Pettis, twenty-seven wagons, an ambulance, and forty-five days’ rations, marched down the Canadian into the Panhandle of Texas. Carson’s destination was Adobe Walls, where he had been employed by Bent nearly twenty years earlier.

After a delay caused by snowstorms the column set up camp for the night of November 25 at Mule Springs, in what is now Moore County, thirty miles west of Adobe Walls. Two of Carson’s scouts reported the presence of a large group of Indians, who had recently moved into and around Adobe Walls with many horses and cattle. Carson immediately ordered all cavalry units and the two howitzers to move forward, leaving the infantry under Lt. Col. Francisco P. Abreau to follow later with the supply train. After covering fifteen miles Carson halted to await the dawn. No loud talking or fires were permitted, and a late-night frost added to the men’s discomfort. At about 8:30 A.M. Carson’s cavalry attacked Dohäsan’s Kiowa village of 150 lodges, routing the old chief and most of the other inhabitants, who spread the alarm to several Comanche groups. Pushing on to Adobe Walls, Carson forted up about 10 A.M., using one corner of the ruins for a hospital. One of the several Indian encampments in the vicinity, a Comanche village of 500 lodges, was within a mile of Adobe Walls. The Indians numbered between 3,000 and 7,000, far greater opposition than Carson had anticipated. Sporadic attacks and counterattacks continued during the day, but the Indians were disconcerted by the howitzers, which had been strategically positioned atop a small rise. Dohäsan led many charges, ably assisted by Stumbling Bear and Satanta; indeed, Satanta was said to have sounded bugle calls back to Carson’s bugler.

With supplies and ammunition running low by late afternoon, Carson ordered his troops to withdraw to protect his rear and keep the way open to his supply train. Seeing this, the Indians tried to block his retreat by torching the tall bottomland grass near the river, but Carson set his own fires and withdrew to higher ground, where the battery continued to hold off the attacking warriors. At dusk Carson ordered a force to burn the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache lodges, which the soldiers had attacked that morning. The Kiowa-Apache chief, Iron Shirt, was killed when he refused to leave his tepee. Concerned with protecting the supply wagons and Abreau’s infantry column moving up from Mule Springs, Carson decided to retreat.

The reunited forces encamped for the night, and on the morning of November 27 Carson ordered a general withdrawal from the area. In all, Carson’s troops and Indian scouts lost three killed and twenty-five wounded, three of whom later died. Indian casualties were estimated at 100 to 150. In addition 176 lodges, along with numerous buffalo robes and winter provisions, as well as Dohäsan’s army ambulance wagon, had been destroyed. One Comanche scalp was reported taken by a young Mexican volunteer in Carson’s expedition, which disbanded after returning to Fort Bascom without further incident.

General Carleton lauded Carson’s retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as an outstanding military accomplishment; though the former mountain man was unable to strike a killing blow, he is generally credited with a decisive victory. Carson afterward contended that if Adobe Walls was to be reoccupied, at least 1,000 fully equipped troops would be required. The first eyewitness account of the battle other than Carson’s military correspondence was published in 1877 by George Pettis, who had served as the expedition’s artillery officer.

November 26th ~ { continued... }

1917 – Bolsheviks offered armistice between Russian and the Central Powers.

1933 – Fifteen thousand people in San Jose, California, storm the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for pictures. On November 9, Brooke Hart was abducted by men in a Studebaker. His family received a $40,000 ransom demand and, soon after, Hart’s wallet was found on a tanker ship in a nearby bay. The investigative trail led to Holmes and Thurmond, who implicated each other in separate confessions. Both acknowledged, though, that Hart had been pistol-whipped and then thrown off the San Mateo Bridge.

After Hart’s body washed ashore on November 25, a vigilante mob began to form. Newspapers reported the possibility of a lynching and local radio stations broadcast the plan. Not only did Governor James Rolph reject the National Guard’s offer to send assistance, he reportedly said he would pardon those involved in the lynching. On November 26, the angry mob converged at the jail and beat the guards, using a battering ram to break into the cells. Thurmond and Holmes were dragged out and hanged from large trees in a nearby park. The public seemed to welcome the gruesome act of vigilante violence. After the incident, pieces of the lynching ropes were sold to the public.

Though the San Jose News declined to publish pictures of the lynching, it condoned the act in an editorial. Eighteen-year-old Anthony Cataldi bragged that he had been the leader of the mob but he was not held accountable for his participation. At Stanford University, a professor asked his students to stand and applaud the lynching. Perhaps most disturbing, Governor Rolph publicly praised the mob. “The best lesson ever given the country,” said Governor Rolph. “I would like to parole all kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose.”

1940 – Sixth and last group of ships involved in Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement transferred to British at Nova Scotia.

1941 – President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull decide to present a 10 point note to the Japanese Government requiring their withdrawal from Indochina and China, and their recognition of the Chinese Nationalist Government. The tone of the note is uncompromising on these points, but promises to negotiate new trade and raw material agreements.

1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

1941 – Admiral Chuichi Nagumo leads the Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force, toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should “negotiations with the United States reach a successful conclusion, the task force will immediately put about and return to the homeland.” Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia-and to repudiate the Tripartite “Axis” Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation-they just didn’t know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway-all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina.

As a result of this “bad faith” action, President Roosevelt ordered that a conciliatory gesture of resuming monthly oil supplies for Japanese civilian needs canceled. Hull also rejected Tokyo’s “Plan B,” a temporary relaxation of the crisis, and of sanctions, but without any concessions on Japan’s part. Prime Minister Tojo considered this an ultimatum, and more or less gave up on diplomatic channels as the means of resolving the impasse. Nagumo had no experience with naval aviation, having never commanded a fleet of aircraft carriers in his life. This role was a reward for a lifetime of faithful service.

Nagumo, while a man of action, did not like taking unnecessary risks-which he considered an attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor to be. But Chief of Staff Rear Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto thought differently; while also opposing war with the United States, he believed the only hope for a Japanese victory was a swift surprise attack, via carrier warfare, against the U.S. fleet. And as far as the Roosevelt War Department was concerned, if war was inevitable, it desired “that Japan commit the first overt act.”

1942 – President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December 1st.

1942 – The German held airfield at Djedeida, Tunisia is raided by a US tank battalion.

1942 – Despite the lose of a destroyer to air attack, the Japanese provide reinforcement of their troops at Buna, New Guinea.

1943 – During World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed, including 1,015 American troops.

1943 – Edward H “Butch” O’Hare, US pilot,(Chicago Airport named for him), died in battle.

1944 – Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of Auschwitz and Birkenau crematoriums.

1944 – The US 8th Air Force attacks Hanover (nominally the Misburg oil plant), Hamm (nominally the marshalling yards) and Bielefeld (nominally the railway viaduct). The Americans claim to have destroyed 138 German fighters for the loss of 36 bombers and 7 fighters.

November 26th ~ { continued... }

1968 – While returning to base from another mission, Air Force 1st Lt. James P. Fleming and four other Bell UH-1F helicopter pilots get an urgent message from an Army Special Forces team pinned down by enemy fire. Although several of the other helicopters had to leave the area because of low fuel, Lieutenant Fleming and another pilot pressed on with the rescue effort. The first attempt failed because of intense ground fire, but refusing to abandon the Army green berets, Fleming managed to land and pick up the team. When he safely arrived at his base near Duc Co, it was discovered that his aircraft was nearly out of fuel. Lieutenant Fleming was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

1969 – Lottery for Selective Service draftees bill was signed by President Nixon.

1973 – President Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

1975 – A federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., found Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Ford.

1985 – Movie-star-turned-conservative-hero President Ronald Reagan added the title of record-setting author to his resume, as Random House handed the president an unprecedented $3 million for the rights to publish his autobiography.

1986 – President Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Sen. John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 – Cuban detainees concerned about the possibility of being sent back to Cuba continued to hold hostages at a prison in Atlanta and a detention center in Oakdale, La.

1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight. Delta II is an American space launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989. Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and two Delta 7000 variants (“Light” and “Heavy”).

1991 – The Stars and Stripes were lowered for the last time at Clark Air Base in Angeles City, Philippines, as the United States abandoned one of its oldest and largest overseas installations, which was damaged by a volcano.

1993 – A U.S. diplomat was kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen. Government officials negotiate for his release in the first known kidnapping of a diplomat in faction-ridden Yemen.

1997 – In a small but symbolic step, the United States and North Korea held high-level discussions at the State Department for the first time.

1997 – In Iraq Sadam Hussein invited foreign diplomats but not weapons inspectors to examine his presidential palaces. Under heavy international pressure Saddam Hussein said he would allow visits to presidential palaces where U.N. weapons experts suspected he might be hiding chemical and biological weapons.

2001 – After nine days of heavy fighting and American aerial bombardment, Taliban fighters surrendered to Northern Alliance forces. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived ostensibly to evacuate a few hundred intelligence and military personnel who had been in Afghanistan previous to the U.S. invasion for the purpose of aiding the Taliban’s ongoing fight against the Northern Alliance.

2002 – President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that created the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization of the federal government in fifty years. The Coast Guard was one of a number of agencies that transferred to the new Department; the transfer is scheduled to go into effect on 1 March 2003.

2003 – The UN nuclear watchdog agency, IAEA, condemned Iran over an 18-year cover-up of its nuclear energy program and said future violations of non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.

2005 – In Baghdad, Iraq, assailants kidnapped four humanitarian aid workers (one US national, one UK national, and two Canadian nationals). On 7 March 2006, a video of the hostages was shown by al-Jazeera TV, dated 28 February 2006, showing only the UK and Canadian hostages.

2005 – At about 11:00 AM, in Baghdad, Iraq, assailants detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) as a US military patrol passed, killing four civilians, wounding four others and one US contractor, and damaging two civilian vehicles and several nearby homes, but leaving the patrol unharmed. No group claimed responsibility.

2011 – NASA launches the robotic Mars Science Laboratory, the largest rover yet sent to Mars, with the aim of finding evidence for past or present life on Mars.

November 27th ~

1826 – Jedediah Smith’s expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the south-western part of the continent. He crossed the Mohave Desert and the San Bernadino Mountains from Utah. In 1826 at the Cache Valley summer rendezvous, in what is now northern Utah, but at that time a part of Mexico, General William H. Ashley sold out his interests in the fur trade to Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and William Sublette. Following the purchase, Smith and seventeen fellow trappers began the famous South West Expedition, which proved to be instumental in combating the pretensions of Mexico, Great Britain, France, and even Russia, to a vast domain, which would become (in large part) the western United States. Those eighteen men became the first Anglo-Americans to traverse the harsh Mojave Desert, before reaching California in November 1826. They had also been the first of their race to cross the high Sierra Nevada range of the Rockies and the Great Basin, the latter encompassing most of Nevada, along with parts of Utah, California, Oregon, and Idaho. In the process the expedition disproved the existence of a river, which it had been thought could be found, with an unobstructed flow from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco.

1863 – Battle of Payne’s Farm, Va. Payne’s Farm and New Hope Church were the first and heaviest clashes of the Mine Run Campaign. In late November 1863, Meade attempted to steal a march through the Wilderness and strike the right flank of the Confederate army south of the Rapidan River. Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in command of Ewell’s Corps marched east on the Orange Turnpike to meet the advance of William French’s III Corps near Payne’s Farm. Carr’s division (US) attacked twice. Johnson’s division (CS) counterattacked but was scattered by heavy fire and broken terrain. After dark, Lee withdrew to prepared field fortifications along Mine Run. The next day the Union army closed on the Confederate position. Skirmishing was heavy, but a major attack did not materialize. Meade concluded that the Confederate line was too strong to attack and retired during the night of December 1-2, ending the winter campaign.

1863 – Confederate cavalry raider John Hunt Morgan and several of his men break out of the Ohio state prison and escape safely to the South. Morgan was raised in Kentucky and served in the Mexican War under General Zachary Taylor. He was a successful hemp manufacturer before the war, but he moved to Alabama when Kentucky did not secede with the rest of the South. Morgan became a hero in the South when he made four daring raids on northern-held territory in 1862 and 1863. Though these raids were of limited strategic value, they boosted Southern morale and kept thousands of Federal troops occupied trying to hunt down Morgan. On his last raid, however, his reach exceeded his grasp. He took a large band and headed into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. After riding past Cincinnati, Morgan and his men tried to cross the Ohio River back into Kentucky, but they were surprised and routed by a larger Federal force at Buffington Island, Ohio.

With his escape blocked, Morgan turned into northeastern Ohio but was finally surrounded by pursuing Yankee cavalry at Salineville on July 26, 1863. Morgan and several of his top officers were incarcerated in the newly constructed Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus while the rest of his men were sent to various Northern prisoner of war camps. Morgan and his men burrowed out of the prison by cutting a hole in the cell of one of the inmates. Below the cell was a crawl space for ventilation and they tunneled to the outside and journeyed safely to Confederate territory. Morgan returned to his cavalry activities in Tennessee after his escape. At Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1864, Morgan fell victim to the same kind of raid that he so often conducted and Yankee cavalry killed him.

1864 – An explosion and fire destroyed General Butler’s headquarters steamer Greyhound, on the James River, Virginia, and narrowly missed killing Butler, Major General Schenck, and Rear Admiral Porter, on board for a conference on the forthcoming Fort Fisher expedition. Because of the nature of the explosion, it is likely that one of the deadly Confederate coal torpedoes had been planted in Greyhound’s boiler. “The furnace door blew open,” recalled Butler, “and scattered coals throughout the room.” The so-called “coal torpedo” was a finely turned piece of cast iron containing ten pounds of powder and made to resemble closely a lump of coal, and was capable of being used with devastating effect.

1864 – Ram U.S.S. Vindicator, Acting Lieutenant Gorringe, and small stern-wheeler U.S.S. Prairie Bird, Acting Master Burns, transported and covered a successful Union cavalry attack on Confederate communications in western Mississippi. Thirty miles of track and the important railroad bridge over the Big Black River, east of Vicksburg, were destroyed. Major General Dana praised the part of the gunboats in the expedition: ”The assistance of the vessels of the Sixth Division Mississippi Squadron rendered the expedition a complete success.

1868 – Without bothering to identify the village or do any reconnaissance, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an early morning attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle. Convicted of desertion and mistreatment of soldiers earlier that year in a military court, the government had suspended Custer from rank and command for one year. Ten months into his punishment, in September 1868, General Philip Sheridan reinstated Custer to lead a campaign against Cheyenne Indians who had been making raids in Kansas and Oklahoma that summer. Sheridan was frustrated by the inability of his other officers to find and engage the enemy, and despite his poor record and unpopularity with the men of the 7th Cavalry, Custer was a good fighter. Sheridan determined that a campaign in winter might prove more effective, since the Indians could be caught off guard while in their permanent camps.

On November 26, Custer located a large village of Cheyenne encamped near the Washita River, just outside of present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Custer did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne was in the village, or to make even a cursory reconnaissance of the situation. Had he done so, Custer would have discovered that they were peaceful people and the village was on reservation soil, where the commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. There was even a white flag flying from one of the main dwellings, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict. Having surrounded the village the night before, at dawn Custer called for the regimental band to play “Garry Owen,” which signaled for four columns of soldiers to charge into the sleeping village. Outnumbered and caught unaware, scores of Cheyenne were killed in the first 15 minutes of the “battle,” though a small number of the warriors managed to escape to the trees and return fire. Within a few hours, the village was destroyed–the soldiers had killed 103 Cheyenne, including the peaceful Black Kettle and many women and children.

Hailed as the first substantial American victory in the Indian wars, the Battle of the Washita helped to restore Custer’s reputation and succeeded in persuading many Cheyenne to move to the reservation. However, Custer’s habit of boldly charging Indian encampments of unknown strength would eventually lead him to his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

November 27th ~ { continued...}

1901 – The Army War College was established in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Army War College was established by General Order 155. Our founding father was Secretary of War Elihu Root, one of the great visionaries of the era. As he laid the cornerstone for the War College building at Washington Barracks (now Fort McNair) on 21 February 1903, Secretary Root made the following statement about why the College was founded: “Not to promote war, but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate preparation to repel aggression….” It endures today as the U.S. Army War College motto. At the same time, he charged the College: “To study and confer on the great problems of national defense, or military science, and of responsible command.”

1942 – During World War II, the French navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.

1942 – Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is born in Seattle. Hendrix grew up playing guitar, imitating blues greats like Muddy Waters as well as early rockers. He joined the army in 1959 and became a paratrooper but was honorably discharged in 1961 after an injury that exempted him from duty in Vietnam. Hendrix died in London in September 1970, following a drug overdose. He was 28 years old.

1944 – The second B-29 Superfortress bombing raid on Tokyo nominally targets the Musashi aircraft engine plant.

1950 – East of the Chosin River, Chinese forces annihilated an American task force. Col. Barber and 220 soldiers in Fox Company withstood a 5-day assault to protect an escape pass.

1951 – 1st rocket to intercept an airplane was fired at White Sands, NM.

1951 – Cease-fire and demarcation zone accord was signed in Panmunjom, Korea.

1954 – After 44 months in prison, former government official Alger Hiss is released and proclaims once again that he is innocent of the charges that led to his incarceration. One of the most famous figures of the Cold War period, Hiss was convicted in 1950 of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury. Specifically, Hiss was judged to have lied about his complicity in passing secret government documents to Whittaker Chambers, who thereupon passed the papers along to agents of the Soviet Union.

1961 – Navy reports first use of its cyclotron at Harvard University to treat a human brain tumor. After three treatments, the tumor of the 2-year old patient shrank by eighty percent.

1965 – The Pentagon informs President Johnson that if General Westmoreland is to conduct the major sweep operations necessary to destroy enemy forces during the coming year, U.S. troop strength should be increased from 120,000 to 400,000 men.

1965 – The Viet Cong release two U.S. special forces soldiers captured two years earlier during a battle of Hiep Hoa, 40 miles southwest of Saigon. At a news conference in Phnom Penh three days later, the two Americans, Sgt. George Smith and Specialist 5th Class Claude McClure, declared that they opposed U.S. actions in Vietnam and would campaign for the withdrawal of American troops. Although Smith later denied making the statement, U.S. authorities announced that the two men would face trial for cooperating with the enemy.

1973 – The Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned due to corruption charges.

November 27th ~ { continued... }

1996 – Evan C. Hunziker, an American jailed by North Korea on spy charges, was set free, ending a three-month ordeal.

1996 – In Bosnia Gen’l. Ratko Mladic agreed to resign. He passed authority to his deputy Gen’l. Manojlo Milovanovich. Mladic is still at large and wanted for war crimes.

1997 – A day after saying it would open its presidential palaces to international observers, Iraq declared that U.N. weapons monitors were not included in the invitation.

2002 – President Bush selected Henry Kissinger to lead an investigation into intelligence lapses before the Sept. 11 attacks. Report deadline was mid-2004. The following month Kissinger stepped down, citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his business clients.

2002 – International arms monitors searched a military missile-testing range and a state factory outside Baghdad, starting a new round of inspections that could determine the future of peace in the Middle East.

2003 – President Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with US troops.

2009 – Space Shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth following the completion of its STS-129 mission. STS-129 (ISS assembly flight ULF3) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis was launched on November 16, 2009 at 14:28 EST, and landed at 09:44 EST on November 27, 2009 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. STS-129 focused on staging spare components outside the station.

The 11-day flight included three spacewalks. The payload bay carried two large ExPRESS Logistics Carriers holding two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly, a spare latching end effector for the station’s robotic arm, a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter, and a high-pressure gas tank. STS-129 was the first flight of an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier. The completion of this mission left six space shuttle flights remaining until the end of the Space Shuttle program, after STS-135 was approved in February 2011.

November 28th ~

1729 – Natchez Indians massacred most of the 300 French settlers and soldiers at Fort Rosalie, Louisiana.

1745 – French troops attacked Indians at Saratoga, NY. The Saratoga of 1745 was on the site of the present Schuylerville, NY, on the west bank of the Hudson River about eleven miles east of the present Saratoga Springs NY, and only about thirty miles north of Albany. The raiders were four hundred French troops and two hundred and twenty Indians of the Abnaki and Caughnawaga tribes. The Caughnawagas were a breakaway group from the Mohawk tribe. The Mohawks – eastern most among the six nations of the Iroquois League – were constrained by their proximity if nothing else to prefer the English, but at the time the official Iroquois position was one of neutrality. The Caughnawagas were a group of Mohawks who preferrred the French and had moved north and adopted the Caughnawaga name, but the Mohawks still considered them as wayward brothers. Thus it was unthinkable that the Mohawks would stop these raiders as they came through Mohawk territory on this raid.

There was no serious opposition to the attack on Saratoga, which came at dawn. The town was burned so completely that the only structure left standing was a sawmill somewhat apart from the main part of town. The raiders killed or captured one hundred and one individuals, incluging the salves of the residents. The terrified citizens had helped the raiders by burning their own fort and fleeing down the Hudson. The Iroquois, no fools, had given a promise of alliance to the English, when the massive English Army they had been told was coming to crush the French appeared – of course there was never a plan to send any such English Army to NY. The debacle of Saratoga was further proof to the Iroquois that the English were not committed to fighting the French but were instead trying to get the Iroquois to do it for them.

1775 – The 2nd Continental Congress adopts first rules for regulation of the “Navy of the United Colonies.”

1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed. The Treaty of Hopewell is the title of any of three different treaties signed at Hopewell Plantation. The plantation was owned by Andrew Pickens, and was located on the Seneca River in northwestern South Carolina. The first treaty was signed between the Confederation Congress of the United States of America and the Cherokee people. The historic site of the ‘Treaty Oak’, where the signings took place, is on Old Cherry Road in Pickens County, South Carolina.

1795 – US paid $800,000 and a frigate as tribute to Algiers and Tunis.

1861 – The Confederate Congress admitted Missouri to the Confederacy, although Missouri had not yet seceded from the Union.

1862 – Union troops under General John Blunt drive Confederates under General John Marmaduke back into the Boston Mountains in northwestern Arkansas. The Battle of Cane Hill was part of a Confederate attempt to drive the Yankees back into Missouri and recapture ground lost during the Pea Ridge campaign of early 1862, when Union forces secured parts of northern Arkansas. Marmaduke was not prepared to meet Blunt, who was 35 miles further south than expected.

Marmaduke’s troops were surprised and outnumbered when Blunt suddenly attacked on November 28. Marmaduke began a hasty retreat and ordered General Joseph Shelby to fight a delaying action while the rest of the Confederates headed for the mountains. Blunt pursued Marmaduke’s forces for 12 miles before the Confederates reached the safety of the hills. Though the conflict lasted for nine hours, casualties were light. The Yankees suffered 41 men killed or wounded, while the Confederates lost 45. This small engagement was a prelude to a much larger clash at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, nine days later. Blunt’s advance left him dangerously isolated from Union forces in Springfield, Missouri, but when Hindman attacked again on December 7, he still failed to expel Blunt from northwestern Arkansas.

1871 – Ku Klux Klan trials began in Federal District Court in SC.

1872 – The Modoc War of 1872-73 began in Siskiyou County, northern California when fighting broke out between Modoc Chief Captain Jack and a cavalry detail led by Captain James Jackson. Brutally harsh conduct characterized white-Indian struggles in the Northwest, such as the 1,000-mile saga of the 1877 Nez Percé War and the Modoc War.

In 1870 Chief Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack, directed some of his band to California. When the group subsequently refused to return to the reservation, attempts were made to force the Modocs’ return, which precipitated the war of 1872-1873. U.S. soldiers pursued the Indians to Tule Lake. There, lava beds and caves furnished nearly perfect fortifications for the quarry. The small band of about 150 poorly armed Indians held out for six months. Repeatedly repulsed, the soldiers enlarged their ranks to 1,000 by March 1873. In the course of peace talks, negotiators General E. R. S. Canby and Eleazer Thomas were killed. The soldiers grimly stepped up their struggle to overpower the Modoc. In 1873 Captain Jack and his whittled-down band of approximately 30 surrendered; he and three others were hanged. A number of the rebellious group were returned to Klamath Reservation, and the rest were sent to Quapaw Reservation in Oklahoma. The Klamath Reservation was disbanded in 1963, and the Native Americans on the Quapaw Reservation merged with other tribes.

November 28th ~ { continued... }

1914 – Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.

1929 – Commander Richard E. Byrd completed the first South Pole flight.

1941 – The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departed Pearl Harbor to deliver F4F Wildcat fighters to Wake Island. This mission saved the carrier from destruction when the Japanese attacked.

1942 – Coffee rationing went into effect in the U.S., lasting through World War II.

1942 – The first production Ford bomber, the B-24 Liberator, rolled off the assembly line at Ford’s massive Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Two years before, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had urged an isolationist America to prepare for its inevitable involvement in the war, declaring that U.S. industry must become “the great arsenal of democracy.” Roosevelt established the Office of Production Management (OPM) to organize the war effort, and named a former automotive executive co-director of the OPM. Most Detroit automobile executives opposed the OAW during its first year, and were dubious of the advantages of devoting their entire production to war material.

However, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and American citizens mobilized behind the U.S. declaration of war against the Axis powers. Since profit ruled Detroit, the government made Ford and America’s other automakers an economic offer they could not refuse. For their participation in the war effort, automakers would be guaranteed profits regardless of production costs, and $11 billion would be allocated to the building of war plants–factories that would be sold to private industry at a substantial discount after the war.

In February of 1942, the last Ford automobile rolled off the assembly line for the duration of the war, and soon afterward the Willow Run plant was completed in Michigan. Built specifically for Ford’s war production, Willow Run was the largest factory in the world. Using the type of assembly line production that had made Ford an industrial giant, Ford hoped to produce 500 B-24 Liberator bombers a month. After a gradual start, that figure was reached in time for the Allied invasion of Western Europe, and by July of 1944, the Willow Plant was producing one B-24 every hour. By the end of the war, the 43,000 men and women who had worked at Ford’s Willow Run plant had produced over 8,500 bombers, which unquestionably had a significant impact on the course of the war.

1943 – The Teheran Conference begins. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin and their staffs meet for the first time. The Americans appear to be attempting to distance themselves from the British during the discussions.

1944 – The first Allied convoy reaches Antwerp which is now operational after extensive repairs and mine clearing. Distribution of supplies to the Allied armies in the field remains a difficulty.

1954 – Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, the first man to create and control a nuclear chain reaction, and one of the Manhattan Project scientists, dies in Chicago at the age of 53. After studying in Germany under physicist Max Born, famous for his work on quantum mechanics, which would prove vital to Fermi’s later work, he returned to Italy to teach mathematics at the University of Florence.

Fermi and others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the result. It fell to Fermi to produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory, complete with his own “atomic pile,” in a squash court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. It was there that Fermi, with other physicists looking on, produced the first controlled chain reaction on December 2, 1942. The nuclear age was born.

1958 – The US reported the first full-range firing of an ICBM.

1963 – Just six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson announced that the Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, would be renamed “The John F. Kennedy Space Center.” Residents voted in 1973 to change the name back to Cape Canaveral.

1964 – The US Mariner IV space probe was launched from Cape Kennedy on a course to Mars. It later flew by Mars in Jul 1965 and saw craters but no canals.

November 28th ~ { continued... }

1964 – President Lyndon Johnson’s top advisers–Maxwell Taylor, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, and other members of the National Security Council–agree to recommend that the president adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam.

1965 – President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines states that he will send troops to South Vietnam, in response to President Lyndon Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam.

1983 – The space shuttle Columbia blasted into orbit, carrying six astronauts who conducted experiments using the $1 billion Spacelab in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

1985 – Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner of irradiated turkey and freeze-dried vegetables, and launched a satellite from the cargo bay.

1986 – The United States under the Reagan administration violated ceilings in the unratified SALT II nuclear arms treaty for the first time as another Air Force B-52 bomber capable of carrying atomic-tipped cruise missiles became operational.

1995 – President Clinton continued to press his case for sending 20,000 US ground troops to Bosnia. President Clinton signed a $6 billion road bill that ended the federal 55 mile-an-hour speed limit.

1996 – A stuck hatch on the space shuttle Columbia prevented two astronauts from going on a spacewalk. A second planned spacewalk also had to be canceled; engineers later discovered a loose screw had jammed the hatch mechanism.

2001 – Officials recovered the body of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann from a prison compound in Mazar-e-Sharif after northern alliance rebels backed by U.S. airstrikes and special forces quelled an uprising by Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners.

2001 – Ahmed Abdel-Rahman , a top al Qaeda operative and son of the blind sheik linked to the 1993 WTC bombing, was captured by anti-Taliban forces. The Taliban said some 600 people including 450 prisoners were killed in the uprising at Qala Jangi. US bombing continued with intermittent strikes.

2013 – The US offers to destroy Syria chemical weapons at sea using the US Navy auxiliary vessel MV Cape Ray (T-AKR-9679).

November 29th ~

1760 – Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers took possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain. French commandant Belotre surrendered Detroit. General James Amherst selected Rogers for the honor of receiving the surrender of the western French posts——Detroit, Michilimackinac, Ouiatenon, and others. This was the first British expedition into the French held Great Lakes region in almost a hundred years. It would have been a challenge at any time, but winter was drawing near, adding the dimension of a race to an already difficult task. Although not all of the posts were reached before the winter of 1760-61 set in, the mission is still regarded as a success.

1775 – Captain John Manley in schooner Lee captures British ordnance ship Nancy with large quantity of munitions.

1776 – The Battle of Fort Cumberland, Nova Scotia, comes to an end with the arrival of British reinforcements. The Battle of Fort Cumberland (also known as the Eddy Rebellion) was an attempt by a small number of militia commanded by Jonathan Eddy to bring the American Revolutionary War to Nova Scotia in late 1776. With minimal logistical support from Massachusetts and four to five hundred volunteer militia and Natives, Eddy attempted to besiege and storm Fort Cumberland in central Nova Scotia (near the present-day border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in November 1776. The fort’s defenders, the Royal Fencible American Regiment led by Joseph Goreham, a veteran of the French and Indian War, successfully repelled several attempts by Eddy’s militia to storm the fort, and the siege was ultimately relieved when the RFA plus Royal Marine reinforcements drove off the besiegers on November 29.

In retaliation for the role of locals who supported the siege, numerous homes and farms were destroyed, and Patriot sympathizers were driven out of the area. The successful defense of Fort Cumberland preserved the territorial integrity of the British Maritime possessions, and Nova Scotia remained loyal throughout the war.

1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

1804 – Lt Presley O’Bannon and seven Marines landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The group will gather 500 mercenaries and in January 1805 begin an overland march to Tripoli.

1808 – Secretary of Treasury Gallatin requested 12 new cutters at a cost of $120,000 to enforce “laws which prohibit exportation and restrain importations” to support the embargo ordered by President Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson had ordered an embargo against most European imports and exports to protest the harassment of U.S. sailors by warring European powers. The embargo did not work. War began with England in 1812 but the ships were purchased.

1863 – The Battle of Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ended in Confederate withdrawal. In attempting to take Knoxville, the Confederates decided that Fort Sanders was the only vulnerable place where they could penetrate Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s fortifications, which enclosed the city, and successfully conclude the siege, already a week long.

1864 – Double-turret monitor U.S.S. Onondaga, Commander William A Parker, and single-turret monitor U.S.S. Mahopac, Lieutenant Commander Edward E. Potter, engaged Howlett’s Battery, on the James River, Virginia, for three hours. This was part of the continuing action below Richmond.

1864 – Peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians are massacred by a band of Colonel John Chivington’s Colorado volunteers at Sand Creek, Colorado. The causes of Sand Creek massacre were rooted in the decades-long conflict for control of the Great Plains of eastern Colorado. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 guaranteed ownership of the area north of the Arkansas River to the Nebraska border to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe. By the end of the decade, however, waves of Euro-American miners flooded across the region in search of gold in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. That placed extreme pressure on the resources of the arid plains, and by 1861 tensions between new settlers and Native Americans were rising.

1890 – The first Army-Navy football game was played, at West Point, New York. Navy defeated Army by a score of 24-0.

1916 – US declared martial law in Dominican Republic. Most Dominican laws and institutions remained intact under military rule, although the shortage of Dominicans willing to serve in the cabinet forced the military governor, Rear Admiral Harry S. Knapp, to fill a number of portfolios with United States naval officers. The press and radio were censored for most of the occupation, and public speech was limited. The surface effects of the occupation were largely positive.

The Marines restored order throughout most of the republic (with the exception of the eastern region); the country’s budget was balanced, its debt was diminished, and economic growth resumed; infrastructure projects produced new roads that linked all the country’s regions for the first time in its history; a professional military organization, the Dominican Constabulary Guard, replaced the partisan forces that had waged a seemingly endless struggle for power.

November 29th ~ { continued... }

1927– In California troops battled 1,200 inmates after Folsom prisoners revolted. On Thanksgiving Day there was a prison break at Folsom. One prisoner was shot in the ensuing uprising and five others were later hung. Units of the 184th Infantry and 143rd Field Artillery under the direction of Colonel Wallace Mason, Commanding the 184th Infantry played a large part in bringing to an end the riot at Folsom Penitentiary. When, shortly before eleven o’clock Thursday morning, November 29th, Governor Young was notified by telephone message from Warden Court Smith of the outbreak of 1,400 rioting convicts, he gave orders that the National Guard units of the nearby cities be called by telephone, “mobilized at their respective armories and with or without uniforms be transported to Folsom as rapidly as possible”. Ten companies comprising 450 men were mobilized from five cities.

In addition, two airplanes of the 40th Division Air Service came from Los Angeles to “stand by” for any emergency. General R. E. Mittelstaedt, The Adjutant General, who was at the San Francisco Armory at the time, arrived by airplane from Crissy Field, San Francisco. Two tanks from the 40th Tank Company at Salinas, were sent to the Prison. The planes from Los Angeles as well as that carrying General Mittelstaedt, were equipped with machine guns.

1929 – American explorer Richard Byrd and three companions make the first flight over the South Pole, flying from their base on the Ross Ice Shelf to the pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes. Richard Evelyn Byrd learned how to fly in the U.S. Navy and served as a pilot in World War I. An excellent navigator, he was deployed by the navy to Greenland in 1924 to help explore the Arctic region by air. Enamored with the experience of flying over glaciers and sea ice, he decided to attempt the first flight over the North Pole.

1939 – The German freighter Idarwild is sunk by the British warship Diomede off the coast of the United States. The USS Broome had been following the Idarwild until the British warship arrived. The Broome does not intervene in the destruction of the freighter. American behavior in this incident goes unchallenged by Berlin.

1939 – Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund, is found guilty of grand larceny and forgery. As head of the Bund he claimed to be the “American Führer”. In 1939, seeking to cripple the Bund, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia had the city investigate the Bund’s taxes. It found that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund, spending part of that money on a mistress. Although the Bund did not seek prosecution, District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey pressed charges and won a conviction. This seriously crippled the Bund. During World War II, Kuhn was held by the federal government at an internment camp in Texas. In 1946 he was released and deported to Germany.

1941 – The passenger ship Lurline sent a radio signal of sighting Japanese war fleet steaming east across the northern Pacific.

1941 – The Japanese government liaison conference decides that the final terms from the United States are unacceptable and that Japan must go to war.

1943 – US aircraft carrier Hornet was commissioned. Hornet conducted shakedown training off Bermuda before departing Norfolk 14 February 1944 to join the Fast Carrier Task Force 20 March at Majuro Atoll in the Marshalls.

1943 – Four American destroyers bombard Japanese positions on the south coast of New Britain Island, near Gasmata.

1944 – USS Archerfish (SS-311) sinks Japanese carrier Shinano, world’s largest warship sunk by any submarine during World War II .

1944 – Japanese attacks on Kilay Ridge, on Leyte, continue. American forces successfully counterattack. At sea, the battleship USS Maryland and 2 destroyers are seriously damaged by Kamikaze attacks.

November 29th ~ { continued... }

1947 – Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state. The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory. The Jews were Zionists, recent emigrants from Europe and Russia who came to the ancient homeland of the Jews to establish a Jewish national state. The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine. The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, though they made up less than half of Palestine’s population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but the Jews secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory.

On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded. The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territories, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem.

In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of those conquered areas. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority.

1949 – U.S. announced it would conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.

1949 – Nationalist regime of China left for Formosa (Taiwan).

1950 – Three weeks after U.S. General Douglas MacArthur first reported Chinese communist troops in action in North Korea, U.S.-led U.N. troops begin a desperate retreat out of North Korea under heavy fire from the Chinese.

1952 – John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau , CIA spies, were shot down over Jilin province and captured by the Chinese. The 2 men spent 20 years in a Chinese prison. Another 2 pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz, died and in 2002 plans were made to find their remains.

1961 – NASA launched Enos the chimp from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

1961 – Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbits the Earth twice and splashes down off the coast of Puerto Rico.

1963 – One week after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, President Lyndon Johnson establishes a special commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. After 10 months of gathering evidence and questioning witnesses in public hearings, the Warren Commission report was released, concluding that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, in the assassination and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone. The presidential commission also found that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on live national television, had no prior contact with Oswald.

According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald’s life, including his visit to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives.

Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.