November 29th is

Electronic Greeting Card Day

National Lemon Cream Pie Day

National Square Dance Day

International Day of Solidarity
with the Palestinian People *

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MORE! Gaetano Donizetti, Essie Parrish and Billy Strayhorn, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Albania – Dita e çlirimit

(Liberation Day)

Liberia – William V. Tubman’s Birthday

Norfolk Island – Thanksgiving Day

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

1862 – Pierre André Latreille born, French zoologist and Catholic priest; imprisoned during the French Revolution, he was released after recognizing a rare beetle species, Necrobia ruficollis, he found in his cell; for his work on arthropod systematic and taxonomy, he was acclaimed as the foremost entomologist of his time

1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga, the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, 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. The insurance company refuses to pay, and the case goes to the British courts, becoming widely publicized, which helps further the cause of eliminating the slave trade

1797 – Gaetano Donizetti born, Italian opera composer

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

1803 – Christian Doppler born, Austrian physicist; discoverer of the Doppler effect

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 born, author, abolitionist and feminist; served as nurse in Civil War; best known for Little Women

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

1873 – Suzan Rose Benedict born, first woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan. Her long academic career was at Smith College: professor (1921-1942), also Dean of Students (1918-1928), Chair of the Mathematics department (1928-1934); member of the American Mathematical Society

1876 – Nellie Tayloe Ross born, first woman U.S. governor (Wyoming) taking over when her husband died (1924-27), also a prohibition and worker’s rights supporter. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her as director of the U.S. Mint (1933-1953)

1890 – The Meiji Constitution goes into effect (1890-1947) in Japan, and the first Diet convenes. 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 – The Ziqiang Institute is founded in Wuhan, Hubei, China, originally offering four courses: Chinese, Mathematics, Nature, and Business. Now called Wuhan University

1895 – Busby Berkeley born, American musical film director and choreographer

1898 – C.S. Lewis born, English writer and scholar

1902 – Essie Parrish born, Kashaya Pomo tribal spiritual and political leader, expert basketweaver, worked with Robert Oswalt to create Kashaya Pomo dictionary, taught language to tribe’s children, advocate for cultural heritage education for Native American children

1908 – Adam Clayton Powell Jr. born, American minister and civil-rights leader; U.S. congressman (D-NY 1945-1970)

1910 – Elizabeth Choy born as Yong Su-Moi, Singaporean WWII hero who served in the Singapore Volunteer Corps, where she was nicknamed “Gunner Choy” and also volunteered as a Medical Auxiliary Service nurse; with her husband, she smuggled money, clothing, medicine and messages to British POWs interned by the Japanese in Changi Prison; they were both arrested, imprisoned and tortured, but survive

1915 – Billy Strayhorn born, American pianist and composer

1918 – Madeleine L’Engle born, American Yong Adult author and poet; best known for A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels; 2004 National Humanities Medal

1919 – Pearl Primus born, choreographer, dancer, fused modern dance with African dance. Her debut in 1943 created public demand for African American women in dance; also increased interest in anthropology, which helped preserve African dance tradition

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

1926 – Michi Weglyn born, wrote Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of American Concentration Camps, about WWII internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry

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

1942 – Ann Dunham born, American anthropologist who studied the economic and rural development of Indonesia; as a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development, she created microcredit programs to address the poverty in rural villages; mother of Barak Obama

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 a plan for the partition of Palestine

1947 – Petra Kelly born, German activist, one of the founders of Die Grünen, the German Green Party; campaigned against nuclear weapons, and for peace, protecting the environment and women’s rights; elected to the Bundestag representing Bavaria (1983-1991); murdered in 1992

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

1953 – Jackie French born, prolific Australian author of fiction and nonfiction books, primarily for young readers, including her eight-book nonfiction series Fair Dinkum, which covers over 60,000 years of Australian history

1956 – The musical Bells Are Ringing opens on Broadway

https://youtu.be/ZEuzz5WhsM8

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

https://youtu.be/fiShX2pTz9A

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

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

1977 –On the anniversary of the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews, the UN General Assembly calls for an annual observance of an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People *

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

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

1989 – In response to a growing pro-democracy movement in Czechoslovakia, the Communist-run parliament ends the party’s 40-year monopoly on power

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

1999 – Protestant and Catholic adversaries form a Northern Ireland government.

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

2008 – In China, construction on the Shanghai Tower begins

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

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