November 11th is

World Origami Day *

Pocky Day *

National Sundae Day

National Numbered Highways Day *

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MORE! Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, and Barbara Boxer, click 

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

In many countries:  Armistice /Remembrance Day/Death-Duty Day – honoring soldiers, especially those who died in WWI

Angola – Independence Day

Denmark – Mortens Day

India – Guru Nanak Birthday

Latvia –  Lāčplēša Day *

Poland – Independence Day *

Switzerland –
Sursee: Cutting of the Goose *
Gansabhauet: Saint Martin’s Day *

Sint Maarten – Sint Maarten Day *

Tuvalu – Prince of Wales Birthday

United States of America – Veteran’s Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

397 –St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, dies on November 8. November 11 is his feast day* Many eat goose on this date, because a honking goose revealed where he was hiding from clergy who wanted to make him Bishop. Old folklore holds that one can stand in the back of a church on Martinmas and see auras around the heads of congregants who will not be living by the next Martinmas.

1215 – 4th Lateran Council defines the doctrine of transubstantiation, the belief that bread and wine used in Communion transforms into the body and blood of Christ

1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed by the male passengers of the Mayflower in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, establishing government based on male majority vote and allegiance to the crown.

1634 – Pressured by Anglican Bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes ‘An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.’ In 1640, Bishop Atherton and his steward are tried and executed for buggery.

1675 – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German polymath, demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y=f (x)

1750 – Qing dynasty Ambans, commissioners sent to govern Tibet, are killed in a riot, along with the majority of Han Chinese and Manchus living in Lhasa, after the Tibetan regent is murdered. Qing Troops are sent, and quickly quell the rebellion.

1831 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged for inciting a violent slave uprising

1839 – The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is founded in Lexington, Virginia

1851 – Alvan Clark patents a telescope

1865 – Bhutan cedes areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company in the Treaty of Sinchula

1869 – The colony of Victoria, Australia passes the ‘Aborginal Protection Act’ giving extensive powers to its Board of Protection of Aborigines, including regulation of where they could live and work, and who they could marry.  While the Board did provide institutional care for some children fathered by white men and abandoned by their mothers (often the victims of sexual trafficking or rape), they also removed “half-caste” children, especially girls, from their Aboriginal families, creating the ‘Stolen Generation’

1887 – Four anarchist labor activists are executed for conspiracy to commit murder, even though there was no evidence that any of them were involved in the bombing at Haymarket Square. The ‘Haymarket Riot’ in Chicago’s Haymarket Square began as a peaceful rally supporting workers striking for an 8-hour day and mourning the police killing of six strikers. An unknown person threw a bomb at the policemen trying to disperse the public meeting, and the blast, combined with gunfire, resulted in the death of 7 police officers and at least 4 civilians, while scores of others were wounded.

1889 – The state of Washington is admitted as the 42^nd U.S. state

1918 – Józef Piłsudski is appointed Commander-in-Chief of Polish forces by the Regency Council – he proclaims an independent Polish state, celebrated as Poland’s Independence Day,* and in Austria, Emperor Charles I relinquishes power over both Austria and Hungary without abdicating, hoping the people would vote to recall him, but after the election, he and his wife eventually go into exile

1919 – Latvians defeat the Freikorps (mostly German mercenaries) at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence, celebrated as Lāčplēša Day *

1921 – U.S. President Harding dedicates the ‘Tomb of the Unknowns’ at Arlington National Cemetery

1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System * is established, coordinated by the American Association of State Highways and Transportation Officials

1930 – Albert Einstein and Leó Sziláed patent their invention, the Einstein refrigerator

1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened

1938 – Kate Smith first sings Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on network radio

1940 – Barbara Boxer, D-CA (1983-93) in U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. senator (1993 – will be retiring after 2016)

1960 – A military coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam is crushed

1961 – Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force are killed by a mob in Kindu

1962 – Kuwait’s National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait

1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence

1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12, and Japan’s Ezaki Glico launches the Pocky * a chocolate-coated biscuit stick

1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to “new left” antiwar activist Tom Hayden

1975 – Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December

1975 – Independence of Angola

1980 – The Friends of The Origami Center of America (now OrigamiUSA) is founded, sponsors of World Origami Day

1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations

1984 – The USS Ohio, the first Trident class submarine, is commissioned

1987 – Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises is sold for a record $53.9 million

1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to ordain women priests

1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1997 – Metallica releases its single “The Memory Remains”

1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.

2006 – Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London UK, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army

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Visuals

• Celebrate Origami Day
• International flags
• Saint Martin with geese
• Map of Tibet 1747
• Haymarket Riots – drawn by H. Jeannerette
• Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises – Dafenonline

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