November 18th is
Apple Cider Day
Mickey Mouse Birthday *
Occult Day
Push-Button Phone Day
Vichyssoise Day
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MORE! Asa Gray, Margaret Atwood and Fats Domino, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
African Statistics Day *
Bolivia – Beni:
Anniversary of Beni Festival
Haiti – Vertières Battle Day *
Latvia – Republic Proclamation
Morocco & Western Sahara –
Independence Day
Oman – National Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
326 – The old, original St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated in Rome, on the former site of the Circus of Nero
401 – King Alaric I leads the Visigoths across the Alps to invade northern Italy
701 – Itzam K’an Ahk II born, ajaw (ruler) of Piedra Negras, an ancient Mayan settlement in Guatemala
glyph of Itzam K’an Ahk II
1307 (Legend) – William Tell shoots an arrow through an apple on his son’s head
1626 – The new St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican is consecrated
1785 – Sir David Wilkie born, Scottish painter and etcher
The Penny Wedding, by Sir David Wilkie
1786 – Carl Maria von Weber born, German composer
1787 – Louis Daguerre, French physicist and photographer, developed the daguerreotype
1803 – Battle of Vertières, * last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, leads to the Republic of Haiti, first black republic in the Western Hemisphere
1810 – Asa Gray born, leading American botanist; co-author with John Torrey of Flora of North America. He pursued the mystery of a plant discovered and preserved as a specimen by a French botanist on a 1788 trip to America, which Gray saw in 1839 while visiting Paris, labeled only “Hautes montagnes de Carolinie” (High mountains of Carolina). This sent him on an arduous wild goose chase to heights of mountains in the Carolinas. He decided to name the elusive plant Shortia galacifolia, after his friend and fellow botanist, Charles Wilkin Short. The mystery remained unsolved until 1877, when the 17-year-old son of an amateur botanist found an unfamiliar plant, and his father sent a specimen to Asa Gray. For 38 years, Asa Gray and others had been looking in the wrong place. The Shortia galacifolia didn’t grow in the mountains – it was found beside the Catawba River in the lowlands of North Carolina. The French specimen was mislabeled.
Oconee bell – Shortia galicifolia
1825 – Susan Tolman Mills born; with her husband Cyrus, founded Mills Seminary, a boarding school for young women, which became Mills College, the first women’s college in California; in 1890, she became the college’s president, hiring architect Julia Morgan in 1904 to design six buildings to expand the campus; she retired in 1909 at the age of 84
1836 – W. S. Gilbert born, English playwright and lyricist; with composer Arthur Sullivan, wrote 14 operettas, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado
1857 – Rose Markwood Knox born, with her husband Charles Knox, developed the world’s first pre-granulated gelatin, eliminating the difficult process of making gelatin at home; when her husband died in 1908, Rose Knox ran the company for the next 40 years, and died at age 93, still chair of the Knox Board of Directors
Knox Gelatine – 1927
1860 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist, composer, and politician
1865 – Mark Twain’s short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is published in the New York Saturday Press
1872 – Beebe Steven Lynk born, one of the first African-American women chemists and chemistry teachers; she earned a degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of West Tennessee (then a two-year, pre-bachelor degree for teachers) in 1903, and became one of the two women faculty members (out of 10) at UWT’s new medical school, where she taught Latin botany and materia medica (collected knowledge of healing properties of various substances); author of Advice to Colored Women, published in 1896; active in the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, and an advocate for women’s rights
1874 – Clarence Day born, American author of Life with Father
1878 – Soprano Marie Selika Williams becomes the first Black artist to perform at the White House, in Washington D.C.
1878 – Georgia Bullock born, first woman member of the Los Angeles Bar Association; first woman attorney to defend a client charged with murder; founder of the Women Lawyer’s Club of Los Angeles; first woman on the bench of the Los Angeles Women’s Court; first woman California Superior Court judge (1931-1955)
1882 –Wyndham Lewis born, British Vorticist painter, writer-editor and art critic
Wyndam Lewis as The Tyro – self-portrait
1882 – Frances Gertrude McGill born, pioneering Canadian forensic pathologist, pathologist, criminologist, and allergist; earned her medical degree at the University of Manitoba in 1915, then became the provincial bacteriologist (1918) and pathologist (1920) of Saskatchewan, working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and local law enforcement for over 30 years. She traveled across the province conducting forensic examinations, and was an active supporter for establishing the first RCMP forensic laboratory (1937). A newspaper dubbed her the “Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan.” She became the forensic lab’s second director (1943-1946), as well as training new Mounties in forensic methods of detection, and medical jurisprudence. After she left the director position, she was appointed as Honorary Surgeon, and continued as a consultant until her death in 1959
1883 – American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times
1888 – Frances Marion born as Marion Owens, author, film director and screenwriter; first writer to win two Academy Awards, Best Adaptation for The Big House and Best Story for The Champ; also wrote the scenarios for silent classics starring Lillian Gish: The Scarlet Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928)
Mary Pickford, star of the United Artists war drama Straight is the Way,
with director Frances Marion, on the set in 1920
1891 – Gio Ponti born, Italian architect and designer
La Quinta El Cerrito, designed by Gio Ponti
1899 – Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian-American violinist and conductor
1901 – George Gallup born, American statistician and pioneer in opinion polling
1903 – Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty between the U. S. and Panama gives the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone
1905 – Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway
1909 – Johnny Mercer born, American lyricist, songwriter and composer
1914 – Bettie Cilliers-Barnard born, South African painter and teacher, noted for her symbolic and non-figurative art
Bettie Cilliers-Barnard: Title not listed and Wash Day
1918 – Latvia declares its independence from Russia
1923 – Alan B. Shepherd born, first American astronaut to travel in space
1924 – “Lise” Østergaard born, Danish psychologist and Social-Democratic politician; Minister of Culture (1980-1982), and chaired the 1980 UN World Conference on Women in Copenhagen; Minister without Portfolio (1977-1980); member of the Folketing (Danish Parliament – 1979-1984); spokesperson for the Danish Refugee Council (1974-1977); first woman to become professor of clinical psychology at Copenhagen University (1963); head of psychology at Copenhagen’s Rigshospitalet (State Hospital – 1958); published Den psykologiske testmetode og dens relation til klinisk psykiatri (The Psychological Test Method and its Relationship to Clinical Psychiatry) in 1961
1928 – Sheila Jordan born, American Jazz singer-songwriter
1928 – Mickey Mouse is ‘born’ when the animated short Steamboat Willie is released, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
1932 – Amy Johnson, British aviator, who already held several solo flying records, arrives in Cape Town, South Africa, from England, breaking her previous record by over ten hours
1936 – Germany and Italy recognize the Spanish government of Dictator Francisco Franco
1938 – Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
1939 – Margaret Atwood, Canadian author, poet, and critic; among her 16 novels to date, particularly notable for her iconic novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award; and The Blind Assassin, winner of the Man Booker Prize
1939 – Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington born, English BBC television journalist and politician, Minister for Women (1998-2001) Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (1988-2001)
1944 – Edwin C. Krupp born, American astronomer, Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles CA
1945 – Wilma Mankiller born, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985-1995), community organizer
1946 – Alan Dean Foster born, American scifi-fantasy writer
1948 –Ana Mendieta born in Cuba, American performance artist and sculptor
1949 – The Iva Valley Shooting occurs after the coal miners of Enugu in Nigeria strike over withheld wages; 21 miners are shot dead and 51 are wounded by police under the British colonial administration of Nigeria
1955 – Carter Burwell born, American composer, film scores for Fargo, Being John Malkovich, and The Blind Side among many others
1956 – Fats Domino performs “Blueberry Hill” on the Ed Sullivan Show
1960 – Yeşim Ustaoğlu born, Turkish producer-director-screenwriter, who made several award-winning shorts before her feature film debut in 1994, Iz (The Trace). Her 1999 film, Günese Yolculuk (Journey to the Sun) won the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film at Berlinale. Other films: Bulutlari Beklerken (Waiting for the Clouds), Pandora’nin Kutusu (Pandora’s Box), Araf (Somewhere in Between), and Tereddut (Clair Obscur)
1961 – U.S. President Kennedy orders 18,000 military advisers to South Vietnam
1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service
1964 – Rita Cosby born, American television news anchor and correspondent; CBS Inside Edition (2007 to present); author of a biography of Anna Nicole Smith, Blonde Ambition and a memoir, Quiet Hero: Secrets From My Father’s Past
1966 – Roman Catholics are no longer required to abstain from eating meat on Fridays
1970 – U.S. President Richard Nixon asks Congress for $155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government
1976 – Spain’s parliament approves a bill establishing a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship, and a brief period of constitutional monarchy
1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple to mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan, on a fact-finding mission to Jonestown, is murdered hours earlier by the Peoples Temple members who are escorting him
1981 – Maggie Stiefvater born, American author of Young Adult fantasy fiction; noted for her two series, The Wolves of Mercy Falls and The Raven Cycle
1987 – The congressional Iran-Contra committees issued their final report, saying President Ronald Reagan bore “ultimate responsibility” for wrongdoing by his aides
1988 – U.S. President Reagan signs a bill allowing death penalty for drug traffickers
1990 – African Statistics Day * is adopted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers on Planning and Development to ‘increase public awareness about the important role which statistics play in all aspects of social and economic life”
1991 – Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon release Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland
1993 – U.S. House of Representatives approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), while in South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule
1993 – In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule
2002 – U.N. arms inspectors return to Iraq after a four-year hiatus, calling on Saddam Hussein’s government to cooperate with their search for weapons of mass destruction
2003 – The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules 4–3 in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, giving the state legislature 180 days to change the law, making Massachusetts the first U.S. state to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples
2009 – Two days before turning 92, Senator Robert C. Byrd (Democrat-West Virginia), becomes the longest-serving lawmaker in congressional history, at 56 years, 320 days
2013 – NASA launches the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) probe to Mars. Mission goals include determining how the planet’s atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time. The probe reached Mars and went into an aerocentric orbit on September 22, 2014
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