November 28th is

French Toast Day

Red Planet Day *

Talking Leaves Day *

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 MORE! Skanderbeg, Gladys Kokorwe and John Lennon, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Albania – Independence Day

Chad – Republic Day

Republic of the Congo –
Jour de la République

East Timor –
Independence Proclamation Day

Georgia – Presidential Election Day

India – Madhya Pradesh: Regional Election Day

Kosovo – Albanian Flag Day *

Mauritania – Independence Day

Norfolk Island – Thanksgiving Day

Panamá – Independencia de Panamá de España

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On This Day in HISTORY

936 – General Shi Jingtang becomes first Emperor Gaozu of the Later Jin (936-943), after rebelling against Li Congke of the Later Tang. In order to overthrow the Later Tang dynasty, he allied himself with the Khitan-ruled Liao state, humiliating himself by becoming the adopted son of Liao Emperor Taizong, who was ten years old than he was, and yielding the strategically crucial Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun to Liao after his rise to power — an event that would shape the Chinese political landscape for the next 200 years

1443 – Albanian Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg, leads his forces in liberating  Krujë in central Albania from the Ottoman Empire, and raises the Albanian flag *

‘Skanderbeg’ by Antonio Crespi ‘il Bustino’ (painted in 17th century)

1520 – An expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan passes through what is now called the Strait of Magellan, between South America and Tierra del Fuego

Map of South America from 1600 by Matthias Quad,
with detail of the Strait of Magellan

1470 – Champa–Đại Việt War: Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Đại Việt formally launches his attack against Champa (now part of the eastern coast of Vietnam)

1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage license

1632 – Jean-Baptiste Lully born, Italian-French composer

1660 – At Gresham College, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray decide to found what is later known as the Royal Society (The President, Council and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge)

1757 – William Blake born, major English poet, mystical philosopher and painter

1785 – Talking Leaves Day * – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed between U.S. representative Benjamin Hawkins and the Cherokee, laying out a western boundary for American settlement. The Cherokee called the white American’s papers ‘Talking Leaves.’ When the treaties written on the ‘leaves’ of paper no longer suited the white Americans, they blew away just like autumn leaves

1805 – John Lloyd Stephens born, American archaeologist and explorer; his book, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, became a best seller. This account of his rediscovery and exploration, accompanied by architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood, of Mesoamerican sites, including Palenque, Quiriguá and  Uxmal, raised public interest in ancient Mayan culture

Palenque, by Frederick Catherwood

1811 – Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig

1814 – The Times of London becomes the first newspaper to be produced on a steam-powered printing press, built by the German team of Koenig & Bauer

1820 – Friedrich Engels born, German-English philosopher, economist, and journalist; co-author with Karl Marx of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

1821 – Panama Independence Day: Panama separates from Spain and joins Gran Colombia

1829 – Anton Rubinstein born, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor

1837 – John Wesley Hyatt born, American inventor; developed commercially successful nitrocellulose, a substitute for ivory, to make billiard balls, piano keys and false teeth

1843 – Hawaiian Independence Day: Ka Lā Hui, the Kingdom of Hawaii, is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation; the kingdom is overthrown by American planters, assisted by U.S. troops sent to “protect” them, in 1893

1853 – Helen Magill White born, American academic; member of the first graduating class of Swarthmore College in 1873, comprised of five women and one man; first woman to earn a PhD in languages in the U.S (in Greek) at Boston University; director of the Howard Collegiate Institute (1883-1887); and taught at Evelyn College for Women, the women’s annex to Princeton University

1861 – Adina De Zavala born, American historian, teacher, author and Texas history preservationist; her History and Legends of the Alamo and Other Missions In and Around San Antonio (1917) highlights the role of women and minorities in the history of both the Alamo and Texas

1866 – Henry Bacon born, American architect; designer of the Lincoln Memorial

One of Henry Bacon’s early sketches for the Lincoln Memorial

1881 – Organizational meeting held to form Association of Collegiate Alumnae, predecessor of American Association of University Women (AAUW)

1891 – Mabel Alvarez born in Hawaii to a Spanish family (her father was a doctor involved in leprosy research), American painter; noted for her contributions to Southern California Modernism and California Impressionism;, she painted a mural for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition, which won a Gold Medal; one of the original members of the ‘Group of Eight’ formed as part of California’s progressive art movement

Silent Places, by Mabel Alvarez

1893 – The first New Zealand general election in which women can vote

1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago’s Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours

1895 – Jose Iturbi born, Spanish pianist

1896 – Dawn Powell born, American author; after her mother’s death when she was seven, she lived with a series of relatives until her father remarried; when her stepmother destroyed her notebooks and diaries, she ran away to live with an aunt who encouraged her writing. Powell later wrote the semiautobiographical novel, My Home is Far Away. She, her husband and their mentally challenged son moved to Greenwich Village in the 1920s. Though she wrote hundreds of short stories, ten plays and a dozen novels, she still had to earn money working a variety of jobs, from book reviewer, freelance writer, and silent film extra to radio personality. Her books include She Walks in Beauty, Dance Night (which was her favorite), Walking Down Broadway, which was made into the 1933 film Hello, Sister!, directed by Eric von Stroheim, and her first commercially successful book, A Time to Be Born, published in 1942

1903 – Alice Cook born, labor educator, increased union representation of textile workers and CIO, taught at Cornell University 1952-72, established Cornell’s Department of Women’s Studies

1904 – Nancy Mitford born, English satiric novelist, essayist, and social commentator

1905 – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland

1908 – Claude Lévi-Strauss is born, Belgian-French anthropologist and ethnologist

1909 – Sergei Rachmaninoff makes the debut performance of his Piano Concerto No. 3, considered one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire

1910 – Elsie Quarterman born, American botanist and plant ecologist, noted for her work on the ecology of Tennessee cedar glades, a rare habitat dominated by herbs on shallow soils and limestone outcrops, containing many unique plant species; in 1969 she rediscovered the native Tennessee coneflower,  Echinacea tennesseensis, which was thought to be extinct. Conservation efforts led to the coneflower being removed from the endangered species list in 2011. She was the first woman head of a department at Vanderbilt University when she became chair of the Biology Department in 1964

1912 – Albania declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire

1917 – The Estonian Provincial Assembly declares itself the sovereign power of Estonia

1919 – American-born Lady Nancy Astor elected as the first woman to take her seat in the British House of Commons (Countess Markievics was elected earlier, but as a member of the Irish Sinn Féin, she did not take her seat)

1924 – Johanna Döbereiner born a German-Czech, became a Brazilian citizen in 1956; agronomist and microbiologist who studied how Azospirillum and other bacteria could improve the soil, which played an important role in Brazil’s soybean production because the bacteria reduced the need for fertilizer; honored with the 1989 UNESCO Science Prize and the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit in 1992

1924 – Dennis Brutus born, South African poet, professor, anti-apartheid activist and journalist; his was classified as “coloured” under South Africa’s racial code, because some of his heritage was Khoi and Malaysian. Noted as co-founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC), campaigning for the banning of South Africa from the Olympics, which began in 1964, and continued until 1992 because though the South African regime said they would field ‘multi-racial’ teams, the teams would have been chosen under segregated conditions. Brutus was banned from meeting with more than two people outside his family for his SANROC activities, then arrested in 1963 for breaking the terms of his banning by trying to meet with an IOC official, and sentenced to 18 months in jail, but while still on bail tried to leave the country to go to an IOC meeting. He was arrested by the Portuguese secret police in Mozambique and returned to South Africa, where he was shot in the back while trying to escape, then sent to Robben Island for 16 months, five of them in solitary. His cell was next door to Nelson Mandela’s. Brutus was forbidden to teach, write or publish in South Africa. His first book of poetry, Sirens, Knuckles and Boots, was published in Nigeria while he was in prison. Released from prison in 1965, he left South Africa on an exit visa, banned from returning, and went into exile, first in Britain, and then in 1967 in the U.S. In 1983, he was granted political refugee status after a lengthy legal battle. He was “unbanned” by the South African government in 1990. In 1991 he became one of the sponsors of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa, and returned to South Africa

1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting from Nashville as the WSM Barn Dance

1927 – Abdul Halim born, Yang di-Pertuan Agong (monarch) of Malaysia (1970-1975 and 2011-2016); Sultan of Kedah (1958-2017)

1929 – Berry Gordy, Jr. born, American songwriter and producer, the founder of Motown Records

1943 – Randy Newman born, American singer-songwriter and pianist

1944 – Rita Mae Brown, American novelist, screenwriter, feminist and LGBT rights activist; known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle, and Mrs. Murphy mystery series

1944 – The movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis opens in New York City

1947 –  Maria Farantouri born, Greek singer, activist and politician; recorded protest songs during the Greek military junta (1967-1974); elected to the Greek Parliament representing the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK – 1989-1993)

1947 – Gladys Kokorwe born, Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) politician and stateswoman; Speaker of the National Assembly of Botswana since 2014; elected to the National Assembly in 1994, also serving in various ministries in the government between 1999 and 2009, and as Deputy Speaker (2004-2008). Notably she was the author and sponsor of the Domestic Violence Act, which became law in 2008. She left the assembly to become Botswana’s ambassador to Zimbabwe (2009-2014), then was returned to the assembly as its speaker in the 2014 elections

1948 – Agnieszka Holland born, Polish film and television director and screenwriter; best known for Europa Europa, her drama In Darkness, which was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, and Spoor, which won the 2017 Alfred Bauer Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival

1949 – Alexander Godunov born, Russian Bolshoi Premier danseur who defected to the U.S. in 1979; danced with the American Ballet Theatre (1979-1982)

1950 – Russell Alan Hulse born, American physicist and astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate

1951 – Barbara Morgan born, American schoolteacher and NASA Astronaut as part of the Teacher in Space program. She was a Mission Specialist on STS-118 in 2007

1953 – A strike of photogravers shuts down New York’s newspapers for 11 days

1953 – Helen De Michiel born, American filmmaker and multimedia director-producer; documentaries include Turn Here, Sweet Corn (1990), The Gender Chip Project (2006) and Lunch Love Community (2014)

1956 – Fiona Armstrong born, Lady MacGregor and currently Lord Lieutenant of Dumfries, Scottish newspaper/television journalist and columnist; has also made over 20 films on Scottish clan history

1958 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community

1960 – Mauritania becomes independent of France

1962 – Jon Stewart born, American comedian, actor, and television host

1964 – Red Planet Day * commemorates NASA’s spacecraft Mariner-4 launch for a 228 day mission which will bring it within 6,118 miles of Mars in July 1965

1964 – Sian Williams born, Welsh journalist and current affairs presenter for the BBC and News 5, on programs which include BBC Breakfast, Sunday Morning Live, 5 News and Save Money: Good Health

1965 – Vietnam War: In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam, Philippine President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam

1966 – Michel Micombero overthrows the monarchy of Burundi and makes himself its first president

1967 – The first pulsar, known as PSR B1919+21, in the constellation of Vulpecula, is discovered by astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish

1972 – Last executions in Paris: Claude Buffet and Roger Bontems are guillotined at La Santé Prison

1974 – Elton John and John Lennon sing a duet of “I Saw Her Standing There” at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The show was John Lennon’s last stage appearance

1975 – East Timor declares its independence from Portugal

1978 – The Iranian government bans religious marches

1983 – The space shuttle Columbia takes off with the STS-9 Spacelab in its cargo bay

STS-9 Spacelab Crew Viewing Monitor

1994 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death in prison by a fellow inmate

1994 – Norwegian voters reject European Union membership

1995 – President Clinton signs $6 billion road bill ending federal 55 mph speed limit

2001 – Enron Corporation, once the world’s largest energy trader, collapses when would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backs out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over

2010 – Wikileaks releases 250,000 messages sent by U.S. embassies, including messages discussing corruption, criticisms of the UK, Guantánamo Bay prison camp, a Chinese cyber attack, the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi, and a possible unified Korea. The “unauthorised disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information” is condemned “in the strongest terms” by the White House

2014 – Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto proposes broad policing reforms on Thursday after two months of criticism over the kidnapping and presumed murder of 43 student-teachers. Witnesses blamed local police for the abductions, and the mayor of Iguala, in Guerrero state, and his wife have been accused of masterminding the crime along with gang members. President Pena Nieto proposes putting the 1,800 municipal police forces under state control, giving the federal government power to dissolve corrupt local governments, and establishing a national 911 system

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