November 29th is

National Chocolates Day

Electronic Greetings Day

Giving Tuesday *

National Lemon Cream Pie Day

Square Dance Day

International Day of Solidarity
with the Palestinian People *

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MORE! Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott and Cary Grant, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Albania – Dita e çlirimit (Liberation)

Liberia – William V. Tubman’s Birthday

Vanuatu – National Unity Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1394 – The Korean monarch Yi Seong-gye moves the capital from Kaesŏng ton Hanyang, today called Seoul

1530 – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, former adviser to England’s King Henry VIII, dies

1729 – The Natchez Revolt: French commander Sieur de Chépart orders the White Apple Natchez to vacate their village so he can use the land for a new tobacco plantation. This was the last of a series of insults to the White Apple Natchez, so their chiefs sent emissaries to the Yazoom, Koroa, Illinois, Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes to join them in driving out the French. Messages were also sent inviting African slaves on nearby French plantations to join the rebellion. On November 29, the Natchez forces attacked, destroying the entire French colony at Natchez, including Fort Rosalie. They held the fort against the French until January 1730, when a Choctaw force attacked and captured the fort, surprising the French when they demanded ransoms for the French who had been held captive by the Natchez

1777 – San Jose CA founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga, the first civilian settlement in Alta California

1781 – Aboard the British slave ship Zong, water supplies run low due to extreme overloading of the ship. The crew murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea, so a claim can be made for cargo insurance under the “general average” provision that a captain who jettisons part of his cargo in order to save the rest can claim for the loss from his insurers. When insurance company refuses to pay, the case goes to the British courts, becoming widely publicized, which helps further the cause of eliminating the slave trade

1797 – Gaetano Donizetti is born, Italian composer

1799 – A. Bronson Alcott is born, American philosopher and educational theorist, father of Louisa May Alcott

1807 – John VI of Portugal flees with his court from Lisbon as Napoleonic forces advance toward the city during the Peninsular War, moving Portugal’s court to Brazil

1832 – Louisa May Alcott, American author – Little Women, Eight Cousins

1864 – The Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado: a militia led by Colonel John Chivington, kills at least 400 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who had surrendered and were given permission to camp

1890 – The Meiji Constitution goes into effect (1890-1947) in Japan. The Emperor remains the supreme ruler, but the Prime Minister is the actual head of government

1892 –  Almon Brown Strowger patents the rotary dial, making it possible for callers to dial a telephone number themselves instead of depending on an operator

1893 – Ziqiang Institute founded in WuHan, Hubei, China, offers 4 courses: Chinese, Mathematics, Nature, and Business – now WuHan University

1924 – Italian composer Giacomo Puccini dies before completing his final opera, Turandot, which is finished by Franco Alfano

1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole

1944 – The first surgery on a human to correct ‘blue baby’ syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock, assisted by Vivien Theodore Thomas

1945 – Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia is declared, abolishing the monarchy

1947 – The UN General Assembly approves partition plan for  Palestine

1952 – U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict

1956 – The musical Bells Are Ringing opens on Broadway

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

1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

1965 – The Canadian Space Agency launches the satellite Alouette 2

1967 – U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation

1972 – Atari announces release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game

1974 – A British bill outlawing the Irish Republican Army becomes law

1975 – Bill Gates adopts ‘Microsoft’ as the name of his company

1977 –The UN General Assembly calls for an annual observance of November 29 as International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People *

1981 – Actress Natalie Wood drowns in accident off Catalina Island, CA

1982 – In an Emergency Special Session, the U.N. General Assembly adopts resolutions deploring armed intervention in Afghanistan, and calling for the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops

1986 – Actor Cary Grant dies at the age of 82

1988 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that rights of criminal defendants are not violated when police unintentionally fail to preserve potentially vital evidence

1994 – The U.S. House passes the revised General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which will implement in U.S. law the Marrakech Agreement, transforming the GATT into the World Trade Organization (WTO)

1996 – A U.N. court sentences Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims, the first international war crimes sentence since World War II

1998 – Swiss voters overwhelmingly reject legalizing heroin and other narcotics

2004 – The French government announces plans to build a ‘Louvre II’ in Lens, in northern France – a 236,808 square foot museum planned as home for 500-600 works from the Louvre’s reserves – called Louvre-Lens

2008 – In China, construction on the Shanghai Tower begins

2012 – UN General Assembly votes to accord non-member observer status to Palestine

2012 – First Giving Tuesday * a reminder to help others through the gift of your time, donations, goods or your voice

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Visuals

• Giving Tuesday poster
• International flags
• Cardinal Wolsey with Henry VIII
• A. Brown Alcott quote
• Louisa May Alcott, with quote
• Ziqiang Institute, now called WuHan University, old library
• Map of United Nations 1947 partition plan for Palestine
• Atari’s Pong screen
• Newspaper story of Natalie Wood’s accidental drowning

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