November 9th is

Benjamin Banneker Day *

Chaos Never Dies Day

Microtia Awareness Day *

National Greek Yogurt Day

National Scrapple Day

World Freedom Day *

International Tempranillo Grape Day *

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MORE! Theodore Roosevelt, Florence R. Sabin and Garry Kasparov, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Azerbaijan – State Flag Day

Cambodia – Independence Day

Germany – Berlin Wall Opening Day

Pakistan – Allama Muhammad Iqbal Day

Peru – Día de Camaná
(Camaná province anniversary)

Spain – Madrid: Virgen de la Almudena
(Virgin Mary celebration, Madrid’s patron)

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On This Day in HISTORY

694 – Egica, Visigoth King of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims, and sentences all Jews to slavery.

1620 – Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod MA

1731 – Benjamin Banneker is born, a free black American farmer, surveyor, and self-taught astronomer, who built a clock entirely out of wood, the first clock built in the American colonies, which kept perfect time for 40 years – Benjamin Banneker Day*

1851 – Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from  Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape, where he was convicted, and served 15 years in prison

1857 – The Atlantic Monthly is founded in Boston MA

1871 – Florence R. Sabin is born, pioneering woman in medical science; first female full professor at John Hopkins School of Medicine; first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences; first female department head at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research; Chaired the Colorado Governors’s Committee on Health, spear-heading campaign to pass health reform laws, named the ‘Sabin Health Laws’ in her honor, which drastically reduced tuberculosis cases in the state, expanded and improved hospital care, and became a blueprint for health reform in other states.

1872 – The Great Fire of Boston begins, which would burn 65 acres of the city

1877 – Allama Muhammad Iqbal * is born, Pakistani poet, philosopher and politician

1880 – Giles Gilbert Scott born, English architect, designed the red telephone box

1887 – The U.S. gets rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

1906 – Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting U.S. President to make an official trip outside the country, going to Panama to inspect progress on the Panama Canal

1907 – The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday

1911 – George Claude of Paris, France, applies for a patent on neon signs

1913 – The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 destroys 19 ships and kills over 250 people

1921 – The Italian National Fascist Party is founded

1934 – Carl Sagan is born, American astrophysicist, cosmologist and popular author of Cosmos, and the TV series based on the book

1935 – The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) is founded in Atlantic City NJ, by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor (AFL)

1936 – Mary Travers is born, singer-songwriter of Peter, Paul and Mary

1940 – The city of Warsaw is awarded Poland’s highest military honor, Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari, for heorism and courage in the face of the enemy

1953 – Cambodia gains independence from France

1960 –  Robert McNamara becomes the first non-Ford family member to be named president of Ford Motor Company, but he resigns to join the Kennedy administration

1962 – The Miracles release “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”

1965 – A series of blackouts leave the U.S. Northeast and parts of Canada in the dark

1967 – The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine is published

1970 – The U.S. Supreme Courts votes 6–3 against hearing a case to allow enforcement of a Massachusetts law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war

1973 – Billy Joe’s song “Piano Man” is released

1979 – NORAD computers detect a purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After raw date is reviewed from satellites and early-warning radar is checked, alert is cancelled

1985 – Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating fellow Soviet Anatoly Karpov

1989 – East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel to West Berlin

1994 – The chemical element darmstadtium is discovered

1998 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences

2001 – First World Freedom Day * to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall

2005 – The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

2011 – TAPAS, the Tempranillo Advocates, Producers and Amigos Society, holds its first International Tempranillo Grape Day * to celebrate this Spanish wine grape used in making the great Spanish reds, like Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

2016 – The Ear Community Organization starts Microtia Awareness Day, * to bring attention to this birth defect that effects about 1 in every 9,000 children born, which causes deafness and ear deformity. The cause has not been discovered, and research is underfunded, but advancements in bio-ear technology can improve ear appearance.

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Visuals

• World Freedom Day – East and West Berliners on the Berlin Wall in front of  the Brandenburg Gate
• International flags
• Mayflower in riptide off Monomoy point, painted by Mike Haywood
• Cover page of first issue of The Atlantic Monthly
• Florence R Sabin in her Rockefeller Institute lab 1956
• British red telephone box, Big Ben in the background
• Teddy Roosevelt & Panama Canal cartoon – Corbis
• Carl Sagan with “star stuff” quote
• First Rolling Stone magazine cover
• East Berliners streaming through Checkpoint Charlie after end of a divided Berlin

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