November 25th is

StoryCorps National Day of Listening

Native American Heritage Day *

‘Black Friday’/Shopping Day

Buy Nothing Day *

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women *

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MORE! Alfred Nobel, Chief Dull Knife and Agatha Christie, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bosnia-Herzegovina – National Statehood Day

France – St. Catherine’s Day

Haiti– Fête de la Moisson
(Feast of the Harvest)

India – Guru Nanak Jayanti
(first Sikh Guru)

Peru – Anniversary of Moquegua
(city founding in 1541)

Suriname – Republic Day

Turks and Caicos – National Day of Thanksgiving

USA –Phoenix AZ Desert Botanical Gardens:
Las Noches de Las Luminarias

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On This Day in HISTORY

885 – A fleet of 300 Viking longships sail the Seine River to Paris to lay siege to the city

1120 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, only legitimate son and heir of King Henry I of England, and his half-siblings Matilda and Richard. William Adelin’s death leads to a succession crisis and civil war in England known as the Anarchy

1487 – Elizabeth of York is crowned Queen consort of England

1491 – The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ends with the Treaty of Granada, which provided a shirt truce, and guaranteed a set of rights to the Moors, including religious tolerance and fair treatment in return for their surrender and capitulation – but the subsequent Catholic policy inviting them to convert or be expelled triggered the Moorish uprising of 1500

1562 –Lope de Vega is born, Spanish playwright and poet

1666 – Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri is born, Italian violin maker

1715 – Sybilla Thomas Masters is granted an English patent for cleaning and curing maize (Indian corn)

1783 – The last British troops leave from New York, three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War

1835 – Andrew Carnegie born, Scottish-American 19th century ‘Robber Baron’ turned philanthropist

1844 – Karl Benz born, German engineer, founder of Mercedes-Benz

1864 – Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan start fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City

1865 – Kate Gleason is born, first woman enrolled to study engineering at Cornell University, first woman elected to full membership in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, philanthropist and suffragist, friend of Susan B. Anthony

1867 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite

1874 – The U.S. Greenback Party, an anti-monopoly party (1874-1889), is established by farmers and others affected by the Panic of 1873

1876 – In retaliation for the U.S. Army defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, troops sent by General George Crook sack the sleeping Cheyenne village of  ‘Morning Star’ (Chief Dull Knife) at the headwaters of the Powder River, scattering their horses,  burning everything in the village, and killing 40 Cheyenne. That night, when the temperature plunges to 30 below zero, 11 babies freeze to death

1882 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe premieres at the Savoy Theatre in London

1884 – Swiss-born  J.B. Meyenberg patents a sterilization process for condensed milk

1896 – Virgil Thompson born, one of the pioneers of the ‘American Sound’ in orchestral music, awarded a National Medal of Arts (1988)

1928 – Etta Jones, American jazz singer, is born

1936 – In Berlin, Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures “to safeguard their common interests” in event of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation

1940 – First flight of the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder

1947 – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom

1947 – Movie studio executives meeting in New York agree to blacklist the “Hollywood 10,” cited a day earlier and jailed for contempt of Congress when they failed to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee

1952 – Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at London’s Ambassadors Theatre, beginning longest continuous run of a play in theatre history

1955 – The U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission bans racial segregation on interstate trains and buses

1957 – U.S. President Eisenhower suffers a stroke

1958 – French Sudan gains becomes a self-governing member of the French Community

1960 – “Las Mariposas” (the butterflies) – three of the four Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa, leaders of the Movement of the 14^th of June opposing Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo’s regime are assassinated, making them martyrs to both the populist and feminist causes. (See 1999 entry below)

1984 – Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia

1986 – U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. National Security Advisor John Poindexter resigns and Oliver North is fired

1990 – Poland holds its first popular presidential election

1992 – Canadian Artist Ted Dave starts “Buy Nothing Day” to protest ‘Black Friday’ madness and the overall obsession with consumerism.  Over 65 countries now have participants in this protest

1996 – Metallica release their single, “Mama Said”

1997 – Garth Brooks releases his album, Sevens

1998 – Britain’s highest court rules that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose extradition is being sought by Spain, cannot claim immunity from prosecution for the crimes he committed during his rule

1999 – The U.N. General Assembly recognizes and supports a campaign started in the Dominican Republic to honor the three Mirabal sisters, who were political activists  ordered killed by dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1960, which has grown into an international campaign to stop violence against women, designating this date as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, *  the first of the U.N. campaign “16 Days of Activism” leading up to Human Rights Day

2000 – First Flossing Day *

2008 – First Native American Heritage Day * supported by 184 recognized tribes, annually on the Friday after Thanksgiving

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Visuals

• International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women logo
• International flags
• Medieval manuscript illustration of the White Ship sinking
• Lope Félix de Vega, attributed to Eugenio Cajés. circa 1627 (Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid)
• 1732 Guarneri del Gesu Ferni violin
• Andrew Carnegie autobiography book cover
• ‘Paper Jackass’ Greenbacks cartoon
• Martin B-26 Marauder
• Native American Day celebration banner

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