November 10th is
Area Code Day *
Forget-Me-Not Day
Sesame Street Day *
Vanilla Cupcake Day
U.S. Marine Corps Birthday *
World Science Day for Peace and Development *
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MORE! Ninon de l’Enclos, Neil Gaiman and Nikki Karimi, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Mozambique – Maputo: Maputo City Day
Panama – Los Santos Cry of Independence *
Poland – Katowice:
MAYDAY Poland Music Festival
Russia – Police Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
937 – Li Bian becomes the first emperor of the South Tang dynasty, after deposing Emperor Yang Pu, last Wu ruler of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era
Pottery Dancers from tomb of Li Bian, Southern Tang Dynasty
1202 – Fourth Crusade: The Siege of Zara is the first major action of the crusade – an attack on a Catholic city by Catholic crusaders, who need the transport that the city of Venice could provide, but the city’s price is beyond what they can pay. They strike a deal to help the Venetians capture Zara, a constant battleground between Venice and Croatia/Hungary; Pope Innocent III forbids the attack, threatening excommunication, but the Crusader-Venetian coalition takes, then sacks, Zara by November 24
1483 – Martin Luther born, German leader of the Protestant Reformation
1565 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; in 1601, he led an abortive coup d’état against the Crown, and was executed for treason, the last person to be beheaded in the Tower of London
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
1620 – Ninon de l’Enclos born, French author, freethinker and arts patron; her salon attracted the literati of Paris, including a young Molière; she had a series of love affairs with prominent and wealthy men, but they did not support her; however, her lack of discretion and outspoken opinions on religion got her in trouble, and she was imprisoned in the Madelonnettes Convent in 1656, but released when Queen Christina of Sweden interceded on her behalf; in her will, she left money for the 9-year-old son of her accountant so he could buy books – he grew up to be known as Voltaire
1668 – François Couperin born, French organist and composer
1697 – William Hogarth born, English painter and illustrator
The Bench, 1758, by William Hogarth
1728 – Oliver Goldsmith born, Irish-English playwright, poet and novelist; noted for play, She Stoops to Conquer, and novel, The Vicar of Wakefield
1759 – Friedrich Schiller born, major German poet, playwright, and historian
1766 – William Franklin, last colonial governor of New Jersey, signs the charter for Queen’s College (renamed Rutgers University in 1825, after Henry Rutgers whose bond donation got the school out of financial difficulties)
1775 – The U.S. Continental Marines (predecessor to the U.S. Marine Corps) is founded by Samuel Nicolas, who had just been commissioned by the Second Continental Congress as a “Captain of Marines” – he set up a recruiting headquarters at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, and had enough recruits by January 1776 to make up two battalions of Marines, enough to man the vessels of the Continental Navy
1793 – A ‘Goddess of Reason’ is proclaimed by the French Convention at the urging of Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, a radical enragés of the French Revolution who wanted to replace Roman Catholicism with the Cult of Reason
1821 – Cry of Independence * by Rufina Alfaro at La Villa de Los Santos, Panama, setting into motion a revolt which led to Panama’s independence from Spain, becoming part of Colombia
1865 – Major Henry Wirz, superintendent of the infamous Andersonville prison camp in Georgia, is hanged, one of three American Civil War soldiers executed for war crimes
1871 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika, greeting him, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
1874 – Idabelle Smith Firestone born, American composer and songwriter
1879 – Vachel Lindsay born, American poet; his poem “The Congo” caused a stir in its day, but seems really racist now
1884 – Zofia Nałkowska born, Polish novelist, dramatist, and essayist; executive member of the Polish Academy of Literature (1933-1939); known for Medaliony (Medallions), a collection of eight stories published in Warsaw in 1946 describing the fate of people who survived the Nazi persecution, based on materials she collected while working at the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland
1887 – Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu born, Romanian who was one of the first female engineers; at the Geological Institute of Romania, she started as an assistant, but later led several geology laboratories and participated in various field studies, including some that identified new resources of coal, shale, natural gas, chromium, bauxite and copper. She also taught physics and chemistry
1893 – John P. Marquand born, American author of the Mr. Moto spy stories; won the Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley
1899 – Kate Seredy born in Hungary, Hungarian-American children’s book author and illustrator; she wrote most of her books in English, which was not her first language; noted for The Good Master, a 1936 Newbery Honor Book; The White Stag, winner of the 1938 Newbery Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award; and The Singing Tree, a 1940 Newbery Honor Book
1904 – The Vaccine Revolt: in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, civic disorder sparks over efforts since 1902 to rapidly modernize the city’s water and sewer systems, garbage collection and overcrowded tenements to end epidemics of smallpox, bubonic plague and especially Yellow Fever, and high numbers of patients suffering from tuberculosis, measles, typhus and leprosy. Older buildings and tenements were demolished, to make way for wider streets, gardens and upscale homes and business, while thousands of displaced poor and working-class people were forced into peripheral neighborhoods. Then their lives were further disrupted by invasions of police and sanitary workers to exterminate mosquitos, distribute rat poison, and give all residents mandatory vaccinations, by force if necessary. On November 5, the opposition formed Liga Contra a Vacina Obrigatória (League Against Mandatory Vaccination), and began holding meetings. When a group of young attendees leaving a meeting began arguing with a police officer, they were arrested. Other league members besieged the police station where the arrestees were taken, and refused to disperse when cavalry officers came in to break up the protest. From November 10 through the 14, Rio de Janeiro was besieged by looting, overturned trams and pulled up track, fires, broken streetlights and poles, and attacks on the federal troops brought in to restore order. The government suspended mandatory vaccinations, and declared a state of siege. The troops succeeded in driving most of the rebels from their strongholds on November 15, but there was still close-quarters fighting in the predominately Afro-Brazilian Saude district until November 18
1908 – Noemi Gerstein born, Argentine sculptor, illustrator and plastic artist; won the 1982 Konex Foundation Platinum Award, for non-figurative sculpture
Noemi Gerstein – Los amantes (The Lovers) – 1961 obra (work)
1911 – California Proposition 4, the most elaborate campaign ever mounted for woman suffrage, succeeds by just 3,587 votes
1916 – Billy May born, American trumpet player, band leader, TV/film composer
1918 – The North Sydney Nova Scotia Western Union Cable Office receives a top-secret coded message from Europe (forwarded to Ottawa and Washington, D.C.) saying on November 11, 1918, all fighting would cease on land, sea and in the air.
1919 – The American Legion’s first national convention is held in Minneapolis
1928 – Ennio Morricone born, Italian composer noted for film scores; winner of 2016 Best Original Score Oscar for The Hateful Eight, after he was nominated five previous times in the category
1929 – Marilyn Bergman born, lyricist and songwriter with her husband Alan Bergman, they have three Academy Awards for Best Song
1931 – Lilly Pulitzer born, American fashion designer
1942 – James Hood born; African American civil rights activist; on the morning of June 11, 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked Hood and Vivian Malone from entering the Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to pay their fees and register for classes; President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to escort Hood and Malone back in the afternoon, and they were eventually allowed to register at the university
1944 – Tim Rice born, award-winning English lyricist, best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber on Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, and his songs for the Disney movies Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King
1947 – The North American Numbering Plan assigns telephone area codes *– large cities are assigned lower numbers for the first and third numbers because with rotary dialers, the higher the number, the longer it takes to dial – giving direct-dial, coast-to-coast service to the U.S.
1950 – Debra Hill born, American film producer and screenwriter whose best-known films are in the horror and action genres; The Fog, Halloween II and Halloween III
1951 – Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service begins with a call between the mayors of Englewood NJ, and Alameda CA
1954 – U.S. President Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery
1958 – New York diamond merchant Harry Winston donates the Hope Diamond the Smithsonian Institution
1958 – Deborah Cameron born, British linguist, professor in Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford; her interests are in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and the relationship of language to gender and sexuality; author of Verbal hygiene, and The Myth of Mars And Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?
1960 – Neil Gaiman born, English author of fantasy and science fiction, often with a darkly comic edge; he has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, and the Newbery and Carnegie medals; noted for American Gods, Stardust, Coraline and The Ocean at the End of the Lane
1960 – Maeve Sherlock born, Baroness Sherlock, British Labour Party Life Peer; Member of the House of Lords since 2010; Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2007-2010); Chief Executive of the Refugee Council (2003-2006)
1961 – The satirical anti-war novel, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, is published
1967 – The Moody Blues release “Knights in White Satin”
1969 – National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts Sesame Street *
1971 – Holly Black born, American author and editor; noted for the children’s fantasy series, The Spiderwick Chronicles
1971 – Nikki Karimi born, Iranian director, screenwriter and actress; best known for writing and directing To Have or Not to Have, and as director of One Night, screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard section
1975 – The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks a Lake Superior storm, killing all 29 crew on board
1982 – The newly completed Vietnam Veterans Memorial opens to visitors
Designer Maya Lin and the Vietnam Memorial Wall
1983 – Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0
1989 – Germans begin tearing down the Berlin Wall
1995 – In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), are hanged by government forces
1997 – WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time)
2001 – The UNESCO General Conference proclaims World Science Day for Peace and Development * to stress responsible use of science and raise awareness of its importance
2005 – Two mass graves were found by construction workers at the former South African Defence Force base, Eehana, in northern Namibia. The bones are suspected to belong to South West African People’s Organisation fighters, possibly killed in the so-called ‘Nine Day War’ in 1990, near the end of South Africa’s occupation of Namibia
2006 – The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia is dedicated by U.S. President George W. Bush, who announces that Marine Corporal Jason Dunham will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor
2008 – Over five months after landing on Mars, NASA declares the Phoenix mission concluded after communications with the lander are lost
2009 – The first Sesame Street Day * celebrates the 40th anniversary of its original broadcast in 1969
2013 – The Hawaiian House of Representatives passes a bill granting same-sex marriage, 30-19. The Hawaiian Senate had already passed an earlier version of the bill, and Governor Neil Abercrombie indicated he would sign the measure into law
2014 – The film The Hunger Games premieres in London
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Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
I remember in grade school (fourth or fifth grade) that I memorized “The Congo” and was dazzled by the poem (although I added several syllables to various lines that I believed really needed it). I cannot remember whether I memorized it for a class or not; memorizing poems was a part of grade school for me, and possibly even high school (I can’t remember). I never studied the poem. I never understood the poem. Parts of it puzzled me, because I had never heard of Leopold and didn’t know Belgium was a colonizing force (or anything else, really, about world history). These were days when you went to the library to look up subjects; only rich families owned their own encyclopedias in my town. I looked up four or five things I read in that poem but frankly can’t remember being very enlightened. I remember looking up “apostles” in the dictionary at home. I had no idea what an apostle was, and it surprised me. “Negro” was not just an acceptable word then; it was the only appropriate word. We had never heard “African American” and “Black” was about as unacceptable as “colored.” I remember revisiting the poem (only having remembered the first few stanzas) as an adult and being shocked by it. Then I did a little research on Vachel Lindsay and learned (1) that he was not a woman (don’t know why I assumed he was); (2) that in his milieu he was able to consider himself very “liberal” and was taken aback at being thought of as racist (which we then called “prejudiced”); and (3) that his version of how the religion had saved the “Negro Race” was a widely accepted idea. Still, he had the demons cutting off Leopold’s hands down in Hell. It really confused me and certain things about it still do. I should probably go back and delve into the study of that poem again, in a revised context.
The poem didn’t come my way until I was an adult, so it’s hard for me to see it as people must have when it was published, and for a number of years afterwards.
I had a stellar teacher for World History class in high school – we not only learned about Leopold and the Congo, and the Banana Republics, but it was also the first place I learned about Apartheid – this was in 1963-64, before most Americans had ever heard the word. Also where I first heard the Danish word hygge. Looking back, the amount of history we covered in two semesters, from the cave paintings of Lascaux right up to the 1960s is staggering. Our supplemental reading list would put some college courses to shame – it covered major movements in art, music and literature as well as forms of government, politics and the causes of major wars.
He really made us think, and look at history as a lot more than just dates and battles. No question he’s a big part of why I’m doing an ON THIS DAY series here, 55 years later.