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 *

_______________________________________

MORE! Noemi Gerstein, Neil Gaiman and Nikki Karimi, click

_______________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina –Día de la Tradición
(Birthday of writer José Hernández) 

Australia – Ettalong Beach:
Brisbane Water Oyster Festival

Brazil – Brasilia: Baile da Santinha

Cambodia – Phnom Penh:
Cambodia Water Festival

Canada – Ottawa: Ottawa Dog Festival

Germany – Martinisingen
(food gifts for winter to poor peasants)

Ghana – Kumasi:
National Festival of Art and Culture

Indonesia – Hari Pahlawan (Heroes Day)

Israel – Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day

Kenya – Lamu: Maulidi Festival
(Birth of Prophet Mohammed)

Mozambique – Maputo: Maputo City Day

Panama – Los Santos Cry of Independence *

Poland – Katowice:
Mayday Poland Music Festival

Russia – Police Force Day

Singapore – Festival of Sound

Turkey – Atatürk Remembrance Day

_________________________________________

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

1779 – Ann-Marie Javouhey born, French founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny, to educate children, and later to found missions around the world. She is noted for her work in French Guiana, establishing a leper colony there, and her efforts to prepare the African slaves in Guiana for emancipation in 1835. There are now close to 3,000 nuns in the order, serving in over 60 countries. Ann-Marie Javouhey was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1950

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; “If I Could Tell You”

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 women 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 from mostly rural voters

Lillian Harris Coffin, Mrs. T. Pinther Jr. and Mrs.T.  Pinther Sr. lead  the
march of  300 women of the California Equal Suffrage Association in Oakland

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 two Academy Awards for Best Song for the lyrics of “The Way We Were” and “The Windmills of Your Mind.” They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980

1931 – Lilly Pulitzer born, American fashion designer, known for bright prints and warm-weather clothing

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 New Jersey, and Alameda California

1954 – U.S. President Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery

1957 – born, Italian molecular neurologist; lecturer on molecular neurology at the University of Cambridge; research work on mechanisms that cause Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s and dementia; member of the Royal Society, and winner of the Potamkin Prize in 2000

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, and the Modern Faerie Tales trilogy

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 40^th 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 of The Hunger Games premieres in London

2017 – “Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),” said in a statement from the 11 nations participating in the trade deal. The United States was originally the 12th signatory to the TPP in 2016, but immediately after taking office, Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, which he once called “a rape of our country.” Negotiations continued after the Trump withdrawal, and Vietnamese Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh said participants have now “overcome the hardest part.”

_______________________________________