November 16th ~ { continued...}

1933 – The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Soviet leader Maxim Litvinov, expressing hope that U.S.-Soviet relations would “forever remain normal and friendly.”

1940 – New York City’s “Mad Bomber” George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.

1942 – Navy’s first Night Fighter squadron (VMF(N)-531) established at Cherry Point, NC.

1943 – American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.

1945 – Eighty-eight German scientists, holding Nazi secrets, arrived in the U.S. to assist the nation in its production of rocket technology. Most of these men had served under the Nazi regime and critics in the United States questioned the morality of placing them in the service of America. Nevertheless, the U.S. government, desperate to acquire the scientific know-how that had produced the terrifying and destructive V-1 and V-2 rockets for Germany during WWII, and fearful that the Russians were also utilizing captured German scientists for the same end, welcomed the men with open arms. Realizing that the importation of scientists who had so recently worked for the Nazi regime so hated by Americans was a delicate public relations situation, the U.S. military cloaked the operation in secrecy.

1950 – A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the US Coast Guard in World War II.

1961 – President John F. Kennedy decides to increase military aid to South Vietnam without committing U.S. combat troops. Kennedy was concerned at the advances being made by the communist Viet Cong, but did not want to become involved in a land war in Vietnam. He hoped that the military aid would be sufficient to strengthen the Saigon government and its armed forces against the Viet Cong. Ultimately it was not, and Kennedy ended up sending additional support in the form of U.S. military advisors and American helicopter units. By the time of his assassination in 1963, there were 16,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam.

1963 – President John F. Kennedy on USS Observation Island witnesses launch of Polaris A-2 missile by USS Andrew Jackson (SSBN-619).

1965 – In the last day of the fighting at Landing Zone X-Ray, regiments of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division repulsed NVA forces in the Ia Drang Valley. Joe Galloway served at LZ X-ray. He later received the Bronze Star for his actions during the epic battle. Based on that and his subsequent actions in Vietnam, Galloway came to be regarded by the military leadership and the GIs alike as a journalist who was fair, objective, and who could be trusted to get the story right. He co-authored with Lt. General Hal Moore “We Were Soldiers Once…And Young.”

1973 – President Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law. Oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay in 1968. A pipeline was considered the only viable system for transporting the oil to the nearest ice-free port, over 800 miles (1,280 km) away at Valdez.

1973 – Launch of Skylab 4 under command of LTC Gerald P. Carr, USMC. The missions lasted 84 days and included 1,214 Earth orbits. Recovery by USS New Orleans (LPH-11). Last of the Skylab missions.

1982 – The Space Shuttle Columbia completed its first operational flight. STS-5 also carried the largest crew up to that time — four astronauts — and the first two commercial communications satellites to be flown.

1995 – Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic were again indicted for genocide by the UN War Crimes Tribunal for ordering the slaughter of Muslims after the takeover of Srebrenica.

2001 – An anthrax laced letter was found in quarantined congressional mail addressed to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). It was found to contain billions of spores, enough to kill 100,000 people.

2001 – The U.S. began bombing the mountain redoubt of Tora Bora. Around the same time, CIA and Special Forces operatives were at work in the area, enlisting local warlords and planning an attack.
2002 – In an open letter to the Iraqi Parliament, Pres. Saddam Hussein said he had no choice but to accept a tough new UN weapons inspection resolution because the US and Israel had shown their “claws and teeth” and declared unilateral war on the Iraqi people.

2009 – NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 at 1928 UTC (2:28pm EST), bringing supplies and the first two ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the International Space Station.

2011 – Two bullets are found to have been fired at the White House in Washington, DC., one into a window that was stopped by bullet-proof glass.

2014 – ISIL claims to have executed American hostage Peter Kassig.

November 17th ~

1775 – The Continental Congress unanimously elected Henry Knox “Colonel of the Regiment of Artillery.” The Field Artillery regiment formally entered service on January 1, 1776. This is also considered the birth of the Air Defense Artillery branch.

1777 – Articles of Confederation (United States) are submitted to the states for ratification.

1800 – The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convened in Washington, D.C. for the first time. Previously, the federal capital had briefly been in other cities, including New York, Philadelphia, and Annapolis, Maryland. George Washington- a surveyor by profession- had been assigned to find a site for a capital city somewhere along the upper Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia. Apparently expecting to become president, Washington sited the capital at the southernmost possible point, the closest commute from Mount Vernon, despite the fact that this placed the city in a swamp called Foggy Bottom.

1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)

1842 – A grim abolitionist meeting was held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment under the Fugitive Slave Bill (1793) of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts. Four hundred dollars was collected to buy his freedom, and plans to storm the jail were prepared as an alternative to secure his release.

1856 – The United States buttresses its control over the Gadsden Purchase with the establishment of Fort Buchanan. Named for recently elected President James Buchanan, Fort Buchanan was located on the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona. The U.S. acquired the bulk of the southwestern corner of the nation from Mexico in 1848 as victors’ spoil after the Mexican War. However, congressional leaders, eager to begin construction of a southern railroad, wished to push the border farther to the south.
The government directed the American minister to Mexico, James Gadsden, to negotiate the purchase of an additional 29,000 square miles. Despite having been badly beaten in war only five years earlier and forced to cede huge tracts of land to the victorious Americans, the Mexican ruler Santa Ana was eager to do business with the U.S.
Having only recently regained power, Santa Ana was in danger of losing office unless he could quickly find funds to replenish his nearly bankrupt nation. Gadsden and Santa Ana agreed that the narrow strip of southwestern desert land was worth $10 million. When the treaty was signed on December 30, 1853, it became the last addition of territory (aside from the purchase of Alaska in 1867) to the continental United States. The purchase completed the modern-day boundaries of the American West.
The government established Fort Buchanan to protect emigrants traveling through the new territory from the Apache Indians, who were strongly resisting Anglo incursions. However, the government was never able to fulfill its original purpose for buying the land and establishing the fort-a southern transcontinental railroad. With the outbreak of the Civil War four years later, northern politicians abandoned the idea of a southern line in favor of a northern route that eventually became the Union Pacific line.

1913 – The first ship sailed through the Panama Canal.

1914 – US declared Panama Canal Zone neutral.

1917 – USS Fanning (DD-37) and USS Nicholson (DD-52) sink first enemy submarine, U-58, off Milford Haven, Wales. U-58 had been responsible for sinking 21 ships for a total of 30.901 tons in commercial shipping.

1918 – Influenza deaths reported in the U.S. far exceeded World War I casualties.

1918 – The 4th Marine Brigade, as part of the 2d Division, American Expeditionary Force, began its march to the Rhine River, passing through Belgium and Luxembourg, as part of the American forces occupying a defeated Germany.

1924 – USS Langley, first aircraft carrier, reports for duty. USS Langley, a 11,500-ton aircraft carrier, was converted from the collier USS Jupiter (Collier # 3) beginning in 1920.

1933 – US recognized USSR and opened trade. The United States had refused to recognize the USSR because of Communist propaganda which promoted Communist revolutions around the world. However, the U.S. recognized the USSR in 1933 in order to limit Japanese expansion in the Far East. The Soviet Union promised to discuss debts with the U.S., end propaganda efforts in the U.S., and protect the rights of Americans in the USSR. None of the terms of the deal were followed as the U.S. did not provide a large loan that the USSR had expected.

1944 – The USS Spadefish sinks the Japanese fleet carrier Junyo in the China Sea.

1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.

November 17th ~ { continued...}

1951 – At Panmunjom, the U.N. negotiators proposed acceptance of the current line of contact, provided other issues outstanding at the truce talks were settled within 30 days. U.N. ground action was permitted to continue.

1952 – Colonel Royal N. Baker, commander of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing shot down his fifth enemy aircraft to become the Korean War’s 21st ace.

1955 – Navy sets up Special Projects Office under Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, USN, to develop a solid propellant ballistic missile for use in submarines.

1967 – Surveyor 6 made a six-second flight on moon, the first lift off on lunar surface. This spacecraft was the fourth of the Surveyor series to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon, obtain post landing television pictures, determine the abundance of the chemical elements in the lunar soil, obtain touchdown dynamics data, obtain thermal and radar reflectivity data, and conduct a Vernier engine erosion experiment. Virtually identical to Surveyor 5, this spacecraft carried a television camera, a small bar magnet attached to one footpad, and an alpha-scattering instrument as well as the necessary engineering equipment. It first landed on November 10, 1967, in Sinus Medii, the center of the moon’s visible hemisphere.

1969 – Soviet and U.S. negotiators meet in Helsinki to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The meeting was the climax of years of discussions between the two nations concerning the means to curb the Cold War arms race. Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Gerard Smith was put in charge of the U.S. delegation. At the same time, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger began negotiations with the Soviet ambassador in America. The negotiations continued for nearly three years, until the signing of the SALT I agreement in May 1972.

1970 – The court-martial of 1st Lt. William Calley begins. Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4 on March 16, 1968.

1973 – The “Largest Icebreaker in the Western World,” CGC Polar Star, is launched.

1979 – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

1994 – Francisco Martin Duran, the Colorado man accused of an assault-rifle attack on the White House, was indicted on a new charge of trying to assassinate President Clinton.

2001 – Two US sailors, Benjamin Johnson and Vincent Parker, were missing after the oil tanker Samra sank in the northern Persian Gulf. The ship was suspected of smuggling Iraqi oil. Naval personnel had boarded the ship to inspect it.

2001 – The Taliban confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden’s military chief Mohammed Atef in an airstrike three days earlier.

2002 – Tawfiq Fukra (23), an Israeli Arab accused of trying to hijack an El Al Airlines flight, wanted to copy the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States and fly the aircraft into a public building in Tel Aviv.

2003 – In Greece riot squads fired tear gas to disperse groups protesters throwing gasoline bombs and rocks at police guarding the US Embassy as thousands marched during a rally held to mark the anniversary of a student-led uprising in 1973.

2003 – Mexico dismissed UN Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar following his comments that the US regards Mexico as a 2nd-class country.

November 18th ~

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

1820 – U.S. Navy Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer discovered the frozen continent of Antarctica.

1861 – Poet and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe writes the lyrics for the Battle Hymn of hte Republic. She had accompanied her husband, Dr. Samuel Howe, to Fort Griffin, Virginia, to review Union troops defending the capital. The ceremony was cut short when the Federals were forced to give chase to a nearby party of Confederates. Dr. and Mrs. Howe returned to their Washington hotel, but Mrs. Howe awoke in the early morning hours with “long lines” of a poem in her mind. She rose in darkness and wrote six stanzas of The Battle Hymn of the Republic on her husband’s stationery based on chapter 63 of the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah. In February 1862, The Atlantic Monthly printed the poem for a $5 payment.

1863 – President Lincoln boards a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech at the dedication for the cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to 3, 1863. The address he gave became perhaps the most famous speech in American history. Lincoln had given much thought to what he wanted to say at Gettysburg, but he nearly missed his chance to say it.
On November 18, Lincoln’s son, Tad, became ill with a fever. Abraham and Mary Lincoln were, sadly, no strangers to juvenile illness: they had already lost two sons. Prone to fits of hysteria, Mary Lincoln panicked when the president prepared to leave for Pennsylvania. Lincoln felt that the opportunity to speak at Gettysburg and present his defense of the war was too important to miss, though.
He boarded a train at noon and headed for Gettysburg. Despite his son’s illness, Lincoln was in good spirits on the journey. When Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, he was handed a telegram that lifted his spirits: Tad was feeling much better. Lincoln enjoyed an evening dinner and a serenade by Fifth New York Artillery Band before he retired to finalize his famous Gettysburg Address.

1883 – At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and freight over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America by the 1880s. Since human beings had first begun keeping track of time, they set their clocks to the local movement of the sun. Even as late as the 1880s, most towns in the U.S. had their own local time, generally based on “high noon,” or the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. As railroads began to shrink the travel time between cities from days or months to mere hours, however, these local times became a scheduling nightmare. Railroad timetables in major cities listed dozens of different arrival and departure times for the same train, each linked to a different local time zone. Efficient rail transportation demanded a more uniform time-keeping system. Rather than turning to the federal governments of the United States and Canada to create a North American system of time zones, the powerful railroad companies took it upon themselves to create a new time code system. The companies agreed to divide the continent into four time zones; the dividing lines adopted were very close to the ones we still use today. Most Americans and Canadians quickly embraced their new time zones, since railroads were often their lifeblood and main link with the rest of the world. However, it was not until 1918 that Congress officially adopted the railroad time zones and put them under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

1890 – USS Maine, first American battleship, is launched. The first Maine, a second-class armored battleship, was laid down at the New York Navy Yard 17 October 1888; sponsored by Miss Alice Tracy Wllinerding, granddaughter of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Tracy; and commissioned 17 September 1895, Capt. Arent S. Crowninshield in command. Maine departed the New York Navy Yard 5 November 1895 for Newport, R.I., via Gardiner’s Bay, N.Y., to fit out 16 to 23 November, and then proceeded on the 25th to Portland, Me. , to visit her namesake. The battlewagon then put to sea on the 29th on trials and inspection, being as signed to the North Atlantic Squadron 16 December, and sailing via Newport to Tompkinsvllle, N.Y., arriving 23 December. The ship sailed the next day for Fort Monroe, Va., arriving on Christmas Day. She operated out of that place and Newport News through June 1896 and then on the 4th sailed for Key West on a 2-month training cruise, returning to Norfolk 3 August. Maine continued extensive east coast operations until late 1897. Then the ship prepared for a voyage to Havana, Cuba, to show the flag and to protect American citizens in event of violence in the Spanish struggle with the revolutionary forces in Cuba. On 11 December Maine stood out of Hampton Roads bound for Key West, arriving on the 15th. She was joined there by ships of the North Atlantic Squadron on maneuvers, then left Key West 24 January 1898 for Havana. Arriving 25 January, Maine anchored in the center of the port, remained on vigilant watch, allowed no liberty, and took extra precautions against sabotage.

Shortly after 2140, 15 February, the battleship was torn apart by a tremendous explosion that shattered the entire forward part of the ship. Out of 350 officers and men on board that night (4 officers were ashore), 252 were dead or missing. Eight more were to die in Havana hospitals during the next few days. The survivors of the disaster were taken on board Ward Line steamer City of Washington and Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII. The Spanish officials at Havana showed every attention to the survivors of the disaster and great respect for those killed. The Court of Inquiry convened in March was unable to obtain evidence associating the destruction of the battleship with any person or persons. The destruction of Maine did not cause the U.S. to declare war on Spain, but it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse. In addition, the sinking and deaths of U.S. sailors rallied American opinion more strongly behind armed intervention.

The United States declared war on Spain 21 April. On 5 August 1910, Congress authorized the raising of Maine and directed Army engineers to supervise the work. A second board of inquiry appointed to inspect the wreck after it was raised reported that injuries to the ship’s bottom were caused by an external explosion of low magnitude that set off the forward magazine, completing destruction of the ship. It has never been determined who placed the explosive. Technical experts at the time of both investigations disagreed with the findings, believing that spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker adjacent to the reserve six-inch magazine was the most likely cause of the explosion on board the ship. In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover published his book, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. The admiral became interested in the disaster and wondered if the application of modern scientific knowledge could determine the cause. He called on two experts on explosions and their effects on ship hulls. Using documentation gathered from the two official inquiries, as well as information on the construction and ammunition of Maine, the experts concluded that the damage caused to the ship was inconsistent with the external explosion of a mine. The most likely cause, they speculated, was spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker next to the magazine.

Some historians have disputed the findings in Rickover’s book, maintaining that failure to detect spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker was highly unlikely. Yet evidence of a mine remains thin and such theories are based primarily on conjecture. Despite the best efforts of experts and historians in investigating this complex and technical subject, a definitive explanation for the destruction of Maine remains one of the continuing enigmas of American history. Maine’s hulk was finally floated 2 February 1912 and towed out to sea where it was sunk in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico with appropriate ceremony and military honors 16 March.

November 18th ~ { continued... }

1903 – The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed, granting the United States a strip of land across the Isthmus of Panama and the right to build and fortify the Panama Canal. Panama declared her independence. A jubilant President Theodore Roosevelt, at a Panama Canal construction site, recognized the new republic three days later. The Panama Canal, a cornerstone of Roosevelt’s aggressive foreign policy, was completed in 10 years.

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

1915 – Marines participated in the Battle of Fort Riviere during the occupation of Haiti.

1916 – Ten JN-4 “Jennies” bi-wing aircraft lift off to undertake a historic flight, becoming the first multi-plane organization to fly a cross-country course totaling about 200 miles. They land in Princeton, NJ, and then return to Mineola the next morning, arriving to find fog and low clouds, however all the planes land safely. Starting just six years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, in 1903 several Guardsmen in different states started bringing their personal airplanes to drill to teach flying to their comrades.

1922 – CDR Kenneth Whiting in a PT seaplane, makes first catapult launching from aircraft carrier, USS Langley, at anchor in the York River.

1941 – 11 Japanese submarines are launched to take up station keeping off Hawaii and scouting mission. A further nine Japanese vessels sail for Hawaii from Kwajalein.

1951 – For the first time in the Korean War, MiG jet fighters are destroyed on the ground in North Korea by two F-86 Sabres in a strafing run.

1952 – Captain Leonard W. Lilley of the 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 22nd ace of the Korean War.

1952 – F9F Panthers from the USS Oriskany shot down two Russian MiG jet fighters and damaged a third over North Korea. The Russian MiGs had been operating from a base near Vladivostok.

1955 – Bell X-2 rocket plane was taken up for its 1st powered flight. The Bell X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft designed to investigate the structural effects of aerodynamic heating as well as stability and control effectiveness at high speeds and altitudes. Two X-2 airframes, nicknamed “Starbuster,” were built at Bell’s plant in Wheatfield, N.Y., using stainless steel and K-monel (a copper-nickel alloy). The vehicles were designed to employ a two-chamber Curtiss-Wright XLR25 throttleable liquid-fueled rocket engine. It had a variable thrust rating from 2,500 to 15,000 pounds. The X-2 was equipped with an escape capsule for the pilot. In an emergency, the entire nose assembly would jettison and deploy a stabilizing parachute. Once at a safe altitude, the pilot would then manually open the canopy and bail out.
The first attempt at a powered flight took place on Oct. 25, 1955, but a nitrogen leak resulted in a decision to change the flight plan. Everest completed the mission as a glide flight. An aborted second attempt ended as a captive flight. Everest finally made the first powered X-2 flight on Nov. 18, igniting only the 5,000-pound-thrust chamber. His maximum speed during the mission was Mach 0.95. Following several aborted attempts, Everest completed a second powered flight on March 24, 1956, this time only igniting the 10,000-pound-thrust rocket chamber.

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

1978 – People’s Temple leader Jim Jones leads hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in remote northwestern Guyana. The few cult members who refused to take the cyanide-laced fruit-flavored concoction were either forced to do so at gunpoint or shot as they fled. The final death toll was 913, including 276 children. Jim Jones was a charismatic churchman who founded the People’s Temple, a Christian sect, in Indianapolis in the 1950s.

1996 – Harold James Nicholson, former CIA station chief, was arrested for espionage. He was said to have started passing information to Russia from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June of 1994 and collected [more than $120,000] as much as $180,000. He was the highest-ranking CIA official ever arrested for espionage. Nicholson was arrested at a Washington, D. C., airport en route to a clandestine meeting in Europe with his Russian intelligence handlers. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying rolls of exposed film which contained Secret and Top Secret information. In March 1997, Nicholson pleaded guilty to the charges, and he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

2000 – In Florida the absentee ballot count raised Gov. Bush’s lead over Al Gore to 930 votes.

2002 – UN inspectors returned to Iraq after a 4-year hiatus to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction.

2003 – President Bush brought a forceful defense of the Iraq invasion to skeptical Britons, arguing that history proves war is sometimes necessary when certain values are threatened.

2013 – NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars. Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN) is a space probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. Mission goals include determining how the Martian atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time. MAVEN was successfully launched aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle. Following the first engine burn of the Centaur second stage, the vehicle coasted in low Earth orbit for 27 minutes before a second Centaur burn of five minutes to insert it into a heliocentric Mars transit orbit. On September 22, 2014, MAVEN reached Mars and was inserted into an areocentric elliptic orbit 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above the planet’s surface. NASA reported that MAVEN, as well as the Mars Odyssey Orbiter and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, were healthy after the Comet Siding Spring flyby on October 19, 2014.

November 19th ~

1493 – Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico on his 2nd voyage. Populated for centuries by aboriginal peoples, the island was claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1493 following Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas. In 1898, after 400 years of colonial rule that saw the indigenous population nearly exterminated and African slave labor introduced, Puerto Rico was ceded to the US as a result of the Spanish-American War. Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917. Popularly-elected governors have served since 1948. In 1952, a constitution was enacted providing for internal self government. In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose to retain commonwealth status.

1620 – The Pilgrims reached Cape Cod. Mariner Bartholomew Gosnold (1572-1607) sailed the New England coast in 1602, naming things as he went. He gave the name ‘Cape Cod’ to the sandy, 65mile-long peninsula that juts eastward from mainland Massachusetts into the Atlantic. When the Pilgrims first set foot in the New World in November 1620, it was at the site of Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. They rested only long enough to draw up rules of governance (the Mayflower Compact) before setting sail westward in search of a more congenial place for their settlement, which they found at Plymouth. Later settlers stayed on the Cape, founding fishing villages along the coasts. The fishing industry drew boat builders and salt makers. Soon there were farmers working the cranberry bogs as well, and whaling ships bringing home rich cargoes of oil and whalebone.

1794 – The United States and Britain signed the Jay Treaty, which resolved some issues left over from the Revolutionary War. This was the 1st US extradition treaty.

1813 – Capt. David Porter took formal possession of Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands, but this act was not recognized by the U.S. government.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most famous speeches in American history at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Using just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly articulated the meaning of the conflict for a war-weary public. For some time, Lincoln had been planning to make a public statement on the significance of the war and the struggle against slavery. In early November, he received an invitation to speak at the dedication of part of the Gettysburg battlefield, which was being transformed into a cemetery for the soldiers who had died in battle there from July 1 to 3, 1863. A popular myth suggests that Lincoln hastily scribbled his speech on the back of an envelope during his trip to Gettysburg, but he had actually begun crafting his words well before the trip. At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Edward Everett before Lincoln approached the podium. His address lasted just two minutes, and many in the audience were still making themselves comfortable when he finished;

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

1911 – New York received the first Marconi wireless transmission from Italy.

1919 – The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 55 in favor to 39 against, short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.

1923 – Oklahoma Governor Walton was ousted by state senate for anti-Ku Klux Klan measures. The conflict between the Klan and the Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League/Democratic Governor John “Our Jack ” Walton is near legendary in Oklahoma history. Between 1923 and 1925 the Klan’s rise dominated politics in Oklahoma. Outraged by Walton’s use of martial law to quell racial violence in Tulsa, putting down a riot in May 1921, Klansman and other reactionaries urged Walton’s impeachment, and were successful in obtaining it. Socialists increasingly became the objects of Klan scorn, spurred by conservative newspapers, which would publish the names of “undesirables”; giving the Klan a clue as to who to accost. Socialist-leaning papers put up valiant resistance and attacked the Klan and won a few skirmishes but ultimately lost the war when unprecedented social change would force them to migrate elsewhere.

November 19th ~ { continued...}

1942 – French forces at Medjez el Bab, Tunisia hold off the German attacks and are reinforced by British and American troops. The German are now led by General Nehring. French General Barre as planned turns his forces over to the Allies. Meanwhile in Libya, The British 8th Army enters Benghazi.

1943 – Carrier aircraft of US Task Force 50 (Admiral Pownall) raid Mili, Tarawa, Makin and Nauru as a prelude to landings. Four carrier groups are engaged in the operation. There are 11 carriers, 5 battleships and 6 cruisers in the American task force.

1943 – USS Nautilus (SS-168) enters Tarawa lagoon in first submarine photograph reconnaissance mission.

1944 – It is estimated that the cost of the war is now about $250 million per day. Looking for ways to fund World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the 6th War Loan Drive on this day. The Loan Drive flooded the market with war bonds intended to meet Roosevelt’s goals of “immediately” raising $14 billion for the war.

1950 – US General Eisenhower became supreme commander of NATO.

1950 – X Corps First Marine Division commander, Major General O.P. Smith moved his units carefully northward toward the Chosin Reservoir.

1962 – Fidel Castro accepted the removal of Soviet weapons.

1969 – Navy astronauts CDR Charles Conrad Jr. and CDR Alan L. Bean are 3rd and 4th men to walk on the moon. They were part of Apollo 12 mission. CDR Richard F. Gordon, Jr., the Command Module Pilot, remained in lunar orbit. During the mission lasting 19 days, 4 hours, and 36 minutes, the astronauts recovered 243 lbs of lunar material. Recovery by HS-4 helicopters from USS Hornet (CVS-12).

1984 – The Coast Guard accepts the new HH-65A Dolphin helicopter for service. The HH-65A is used to perform search and rescue; enforcement of laws and treaties (including drug interdiction), polar ice-breaking, marine environmental protection including pollution control, and military readiness missions. Though normally stationed ashore, the HH-65A can land and take-off from 210-foot WMEC, 270-foot WMEC, and 378-foot WHEC Coast Guard Cutters. These cutters are capable of refueling and supporting the helicopter for the duration of a cutter patrol.

1985 – For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship.

1996 – The space shuttle Columbia lifted off with the oldest crew member to date, 61-year-old Story Musgrave. STS-80 marked the third flight of the WSF that flew on STS-60 and STS-69 and the third flight to use the German-built Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph-Shuttle Pallet Satellite II (ORFEUS-SPAS II).

1998 – The US Air Force tested the Centurion flying wing, a 206-foot battery powered robotic craft. Solar panels were planned to replace the batteries. Centurion was a unique remotely piloted, solar-powered airplane developed under NASA’s Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor (ERAST) Program at the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California.

1998 – The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.

2001 – The United States accused Iraq and North Korea of developing germ warfare programs.

2003 – An American guided missile frigate sailed into Ho Chi Minh City flying the US and Vietnamese flags, becoming the first US warship to dock in the communist country since the Vietnam War.

2008 – NASA successfully tests the first deep-space communications protocol to pave the way for Interplanetary Internet.

2011 – The United States successfully tests a new hypersonic weapon system, capable of striking targets 3,700 kilometres (2,300 mi) away in under 30 minutes, as part of its Prompt Global Strike program.

November 20th ~

1620 – Peregrine White was the first child born to the Pilgrims in the New World. His parents, William and Susanna White, had boarded the Mayflower with their young son Resolved. Susanna gave birth to Peregrine while the Mayflower was anchored in Provincetown Harbor. Peregrine had his first military experience at age 16 and continued to serve in the militia, first as a lieutenant and then a captain. Like most of the settlers, Peregrine was a farmer. He also served his community as a representative to the General Court. Peregrine married Sarah Basset about 1648. Sarah’s parents, William and Elizabeth Bassett, had been members of the Leiden Separatist community. They arrived in Plymouth in 1621 in the Fortune. Sarah was born after their arrival in Plymouth, sometime before 1627. The Bassets had considerable land in Marshfield and Peregrine moved onto his in-laws land, buying several adjacent pieces of property as the years progressed. Peregrine and Sarah had 7 children. At age 78, Peregrine officially joined the Marshfield church. He lived until July of 1704, dying at Marshfield.

1776 – British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.

1780 – Bloody Banastre Tarleton is defeated at the Battle of Blackstock’s in his first defeat at the hands of Americans. The battle followed in the wake of another American victory at Fishdam Ford. British General Charles Cornwallis was frustrated by the outcome at Fishdam Ford. The American victor, Brigadier General Thomas Sumter, was a constant thorn in Cornwallis’s side. He wanted Sumter caught, and he decided to send the much-feared Tarleton to accomplish this task. Fortunately, Sumter received a stroke of good luck: One of the British deserted and told Sumter what he knew about Tarleton’s plans and the size of his force. Sumter and his officers decided not to run. They would make a stand. The decision was not an easy one. Sumter had more men than Tarleton, but the British commander led a force of British regulars with a reputation for cruelty. By contrast, Sumter was leading a motley crew of militia. Nevertheless, Sumter prepared for battle.

The spot chosen was a plantation owned by Captain William Blackstock. It was situated on a steep hill, with many sturdy buildings, railed fences, and wooded areas for posting riflemen. The men would be protected by a river at their back, and a ford behind the house was available if the men needed an escape route. Sumter placed his main force on the hill, while riflemen hid in plantation buildings. Militia hid in trees along the road. Tarleton arrived late on November 20. His initial attack went well at first. Americans shot their volleys too soon, and Tarleton’s men pursued the militia with bayonets. But as the Americans retreated, the British made the mistake of following them too far up the hill. They came in sight of the American riflemen, who began shooting at officers. Sumter soon noticed some British dragoons sitting on their horses, watching the fighting. Before they could join the fray, he sent Colonel Edward Lacey through the woods toward them. Lacey and his men were within roughly 50 yards of the dragoons and were able to begin taking shots before they were noticed.

In the end, Tarleton was forced into retreat. As the British were leaving, Sumter made a mistake. He and a group of officers came too close and exposed themselves. The British fired, seriously wounding Sumter. Acting unfazed, Sumter rode away, still sitting erect in his saddle. He didn’t want his men to realize that he’d been wounded. He made it back to his command post, despite the fact that he couldn’t move one arm. He was eventually evacuated from the scene, leaving Colonel John Twiggs in charge. Tarleton was determined to return the next day, after his reinforcements arrived. But Twiggs fooled him. Decoy campfires were left behind as the American militia crossed the river and left. Tarleton decided that, since he had the field of battle the next day, he could tell Cornwallis that the British had won. By contrast, Americans knew that they had achieved an important feat: Bloody Tarleton, with his British regulars, had been beaten by a band of American militia.

1789 – New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1817 – 1st Seminole War began in Florida. After the American Revolution (1776-1783), Spain regained control of Florida from Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris. When the British evacuated Florida, Spanish colonists as well as settlers from the newly formed United States came pouring in. Many of these new residents were lured by favorable Spanish terms for acquiring property, called land grants. Even Seminoles were encouraged to set up farms, because they provided a buffer between Spanish Florida and the United States. Escaped slaves also entered Florida, trying to reach a place where their U.S. masters had no authority over them.

Instead of becoming more Spanish, Florida increasingly became more “American.” The British often incited Seminoles against American settlers who were migrating south into Seminole territory. These old conflicts, combined with the safe-haven Seminoles provided black slaves, caused the U.S. army to attack the tribe in the First Seminole War (1817-1818), which took place in Florida and southern Georgia. Forces under Gen. Andrew Jackson quickly defeated the Seminoles.

November 20th ~ { continued... }

1864 –Nearly a week into the famous March to the Sea, the army of Union General William T. Sherman moves toward central Georgia, destroying property and routing small militia units it its path. Advanced units of the army skirmished with scattered Rebel forces at Clinton, Walnut Creek, East Macon, and Griswoldville, all in the vicinity of Macon. The march began on November 15 and ended on December 21, 1864. Sherman led 62,000 troops for 285 miles across Georgia and cut a path of destruction more than fifty miles wide. He divided his force into two columns and widened the swath of destruction. The Yankees cut away from their supply lines at Atlanta and generally lived off the land. What they did not consume, they destroyed.

More than 13,000 cattle fell into Union hands, as well as 90,000 bales of cotton and numerous sawmills, foundries, cotton gins, and warehouses. Sherman’s superiors, President Lincoln and General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant, endorsed his controversial tactic. Sherman planned, in his words, to “make Georgia howl.” Sherman argued that, although it would be brutal, destroying the resources of the South could bring the war to a speedy end. Though, officially, he did not permit violence against civilians or the wanton destruction of property, there seemed to be little enforcement of that policy. The Union troops moved nearly unopposed across the region until they reached Savannah on December 21. The March to the Sea devastated Southern morale and earned Sherman the lasting hatred of many Southerners.

1856 – CDR Andrew H. Foote lands at Canton, China, with 287 Sailors and Marines to stop attacks by Chinese on U.S. military and civilians. A fort at Canton had fired upon Footes ship during the Sino-British war in 1856. He demanded an apology; the incident may have been because the US ship had been taken for a British one. Receiving none, he attacked the four Chinese forts in the region, storming the largest when its walls had been breached and attacking in the face of gunfire across a rice paddy carrying — according to legend — a parasol over his head for protection from the hot Asian sun.

1861 – A secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky’s Confederate government.

1889 – Edwin Hubble (d.1953), American astronomer, was born. He proved that there are other galaxies far from our own.

1917 – USS Kanawha, Noma and Wakiva sink German sub off France.1933 – Navy crew (LCDR Thomas G. W. Settle, USN, and MAJ Chester I. Fordney, USMC) sets a world altitude record in balloon (62,237 ft.) in flight into stratosphere.

1941 – The Japanese government offer proposals for an interim settlement with the United States. American Secretary Hull rejects the proposals, but prepares a reply which will enable negotiations to continue. This response is not sent after Dutch and British authorities express concerns over the concessions offered to the Japanese in China. The British and Dutch are seen to be acting on concerns expressed by Chiang Kai-shek’s government in China.

1944 – The 1st Japanese suicide submarine attack was at Ulithi Atoll, Carolines. A Japanese Kaiten attack sinks the US naval tanker Mississinewa. The kaiten was aptly described by Theodore Cook as “not so much a ship as an insertion of a human being into a very large torpedo.” The guts of the beast was a standard Type-93 24″ torpedo, with the mid-section elongated to create the pilot’s space. He sat in a canvas chair practically on the deck of the kaiten, a crude periscope directly in front of him, and the necessary controls close to hand in the cockpit. Access to the kaiten was through hatches leading up from the sub and into the belly of the weapon. The nose assembly was packed with 3000+ pounds of high explosive; the tail section contained the propulsion unit.

1948 – In what begins as a fairly minor incident, the American consul and his staff in Mukden, China, are made virtual hostages by communist forces in China. Mukden was one of the first major trade centers in China to be occupied by Mao’s communist forces in October 1948 during the revolution against the Nationalist Chinese government. In November, American Consul Angus Ward refused to surrender the consulate’s radio transmitter to the communists. In response, armed troops surrounded the consulate, trapping Ward and 21 staff members. The Chinese cut off all communication, as well as water and electricity. For months, almost nothing was heard from Ward and the other Americans.

The U.S. response to the situation was to first order the consulate closed and call for the withdrawal of Ward and his staff. However, Ward was prevented from doing so after the Chinese communists, in June 1949, charged the consulate with being a headquarters for spies. With the situation worsening, the United States tried to exert diplomatic pressure by calling upon its allies to withhold recognition of the new communist Chinese government. Chinese forces thereupon arrested Ward, charging him and some of his staff with inciting a riot outside the consulate in October 1949. President Harry Truman was incensed at this action and met with his military advisors to discuss the feasibility of military action.

On November 24, 1949, Ward and his staff were allowed to leave the consulate. Ward and four other Americans had actually been found guilty of the inciting-to-riot charge and were ordered deported. Together with the other Americans, they left China in December. The Chinese actions, which are still difficult to explain or understand, no doubt damaged any possibilities that might have existed for U.S. recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Truman, already under heavy attacks at home for not “saving” the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, could ill-afford to show weakness in dealing with the Chinese communists, particularly after the arrest of Ward and the other Americans so angered the American public.

November 20th ~ { continued... }

1950 – In Korea, U.S. troops pushed to Yalu River within five miles of Manchuria.

1955 – The Maryland National Guard was ordered desegregated.

1962 – In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

1969 – A group of 80 Native Americans, all college students, seized Alcatraz Island in the name of “Indians of All Tribes.” The occupation lasted 19 months. They offered $24 in beads and cloth to buy the island, demanded an American Indian Univ., museum and cultural center, and listed reasons why the island was a suitable Indian reservation.

1970 – UN General Assembly accepted membership of the People’s Republic of China.

1979 – Surprising many who believed fundamentalism was not a strong force in Saudi Arabia, Sunni Islamic dissidents seized control of the Grand Mosque at Mecca, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The (200) armed dissidents charged that the Al Saud regime had lost its legitimacy due to corruption and its closer ties to Western nations. The standoff lasted for several weeks before the Saudi military succeeded in removing the dissidents. More than 200 troops and dissidents were killed at the mosque, and subsequently over 60 dissidents were publicly beheaded.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

1990 – The space shuttle “Atlantis” landed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after completing a secret military mission.

1994 – The most heavily mined country in the world was Afghanistan, with between 10 and 15 million deadly mines. In Angola, one third of the countryside was strewn with mines and the toll of nearly 25 people a day who were injured or killed by land mines has left 20,000 amputees. Cambodia’s 7 million mines amount to two for every single Cambodian child, and between 200 and 250 people became victims every month. In Somalia, the laying of mines rose to new heights of terror as civilian areas were deliberately targeted. Truck loads of mines were scattered in houses, wells, river-crossings, markets, and even cemeteries. Presently, the area being mined most heavily is the war zone of the former Yugoslavia, where 3 million mines have been laid in just a few years.

The US State Dept. estimated that 25,000 people are killed or maimed each year by mines. About 1.5 to 2 million new mines go into the ground each year. There is a British Rapid Antipersonnel Minefield Breaching System (RAMBS) manufactured by Pains-Wessex Schermuly that is fired from a rifle and clears a path 60 meters long and one meter wide in less than a minute.

1998 – Iraq balked at handing over documents on chemical and biological weapons and missile systems.

1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden “a man without a sin” in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

2008– NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovers evidence of enormous underground deposits of water ice on Mars; one such deposit, under Hellas Planitia, is estimated to be the size of Los Angeles.

2008 – Five Guantánamo Bay detainees who successfully argued Boumediene v. Bush before the Supreme Court are ordered freed by Judge Richard J. Leon of the District Court for Washington, D.C.
On June 12, 2008, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority, holding that the prisoners had a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of that right. The Court applied the Insular Cases, by the fact that the United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains “de facto” sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, to hold that the aliens detained as enemy combatants on that territory were entitled to the writ of habeas corpus protected in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The lower court had expressly indicated that no constitutional rights (not merely the right to habeas) extend to the Guantanamo detainees, rejecting petitioners’ arguments, but the Supreme Court held that fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution extend to the Guantanamo detainees as well.

2014 – The President of the United States Barack Obama announces executive orders to defer the deportations of a certain group of illegal immigrants: parents whose children are already U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have lived in the United States for five years or more.

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.