November 15th is
America Recycles Day *
I Love to Write Day *
Philanthropy Day *
Rock Your Mocs Day *
Day of the Imprisoned Writer *
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MORE! Mary Byrd, Ronnie Kasrils and Jessica Atsye, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Eastern Orthodox – start of Winter Lent (also called the Nativity Fast)
Austria – Saint Leopold’s Day
(Patron saint of Vienna)
Belgium – The King’s Feast and
German-speaking Community Day
Brazil – Republic Proclamation Day
Canada – Brampton: Winter Lights Festival
Côte d’Ivoire – National Peace Day
India – Jengraimukh: Majuli Music Festival
Japan – Shichi Go San
(Shinto festival for children ages 7, 5 & 3)
Mexico – Santiago de Querétaro:
Festival Cancionistas (songwriters)
New Zealand – Christchurch:
Ngā Mātāiwi Haka Festival
South Africa – Johannesburg:
Festival of Ideas
Sri Lanka – National Tree Planting Day
Turkish North Cyprus – Republic Day
United Kingdom – Cambridge:
Cambridge Jazz Festival
Uruguay – Montevideo: Origins Festival
West Bank and Gaza – Independence Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
459 – Bʼutz Aj Sak Chiik, Ajaw (ruler) of the Maya city of Palenque (487-501)
Glyph of Bʼutz Aj Sak Chiik
565 – Justin II succeeds his uncle, Justinian I, as emperor of the Byzantine Empire
1492 – “We found a man in a canoe going from Santa Maria to Fernandia. He had with him some dried leaves which are in high value among them, for a quantity of it was brought to me at San Salvador” – from Christopher Columbus’ Journal. A few days before meeting canoe man, Arawaks gave him a gift of “certain dried leaves,” along with some fruit – back on the ship, the fruit was eaten, but the leaves were thrown away
1532 – Francisco Pizarro, with a force of only 106 foot-soldiers and 62 horsemen, arrives at Cajamarca, where the last Sapa Inca (emperor) Atahualpa is camped, with his army of 80,000 men
Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru, painted
by John Everett Millais – 1846
1533 – Francisco Pizarro enters Incan capital, Cuzco, to complete the conquest of Peru
1607 – Madeleine de Scudéry born, French writer and salon host; often published her work under her brother’s name; her 10-volume novel Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus, which contains over two million words, is believed to be the longest novel ever published; acknowledged as the foremost “bluestocking” of Paris in the last half of the 17th century
1708 – William Pitt the elder, first Earl of Chatham, born, British leader of the Whigs during the Seven Years’ War in America (1756-1761); Prime Minister and Lord Privy Seal (1766-1768)
1738 – William Herschel born in Germany, English astronomer and composer
1777 – After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation
1791 – The first U.S. Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors
1806 – Lt. Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains, later named Pikes Peak
1849 – Mary E. Byrd born, American astronomer who used photography to determine cometary positions, and a pioneer in astronomy teaching at the college level, designing a method of teaching Astronomy as a laboratory science combined with field work, and writing one of the first teacher training manuals on the subject; She was the director of the observatory at Smith College (1887-1906), but resigned her position because she disapproved of Smith accepting money from Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller
1852 – Mohamed Tewfik Pasha born, Khedive of Egypt and Sudan (1879-1892); he was a very reluctant ruler, who had never expected to be on the throne, and had inherited a host of financial and political troubles. The people were dissatisfied, his army was disaffected, and nearly all of his advisers were busy intriguing for their own gain. Tewfik Pasha had neither the temperament to be a strong ruler, or the knowledge and experience needed to secure an orderly administration of affairs. After five months of disorder, the British and the French stepped in, with the British Controller-General Evelyn Baring, and the Frenchman Monsieur de Blignieres, attempting, behind the scenes,to bring order to the government. But when the British resorted to bombarding Alexandria to put down a mutiny by the Egyptian army, Tewfik Pasha refused to leave Alexandra, saying, “I am still Khedive, and I remain with my people in the hour of their danger.” He was nearly captured by rebel soldiers, but escaped from his palace through the burning streets of the city to another palace, where the British insisted on a guard of British seamen to protect him. Britain sent Lord Dufferin as the British special commissioner to “guide and advise” him on instituting much-needed reforms
1867 – The first stock ticker is demonstrated in New York City
1873 – Sara ‘Doctor Jo’ Baker born, American physician and medical inspector for the New York City Department of Health, fought against urban poverty and ignorance to save newborns and children; a pioneer in preventative medicine; invented a safe infant formula which helped women return to work and support their families, an eye drop system to prevent infants from becoming blind as a result of transmitted gonorrhea, and safety lessons and licenses for midwives which reduced childbirth fatalities. She said it was more dangerous to be a child in Hell’s Kitchen than it was to be a soldier on the front lines of World War I, as their mortality rate was three times higher; she tracked down Mary Mallon, better known as ‘Typhoid Mary,’ twice. She was the author of Fighting for Life, a memoir about her crusade to transform New York from an incubator for disease into the “healthiest city on earth.”
1881 –Franklin ‘Pierce’ Adams born, American newspaper columnist, radio show personality; Algonquin Round Table member 1920s-1930s; wrote “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” a lament over Chicago Cubs’ “Tinker to Evers to Chance”
1882 – Felix Frankfurter born, American legal scholar; U.S. Supreme Court associate justice (1939-1962)
1887 – Georgia O’Keeffe born, one of America’s foremost 20th century painters, known for landscapes and oversized, close-up paintings of flowers
Red Poppy, painted by Georgia O’Keeffe – 1927
1887 – Marianne Moore born, influential American poet and translator; in 1952, her book, Collected Poems, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the National Book Award for Poetry
1889 – The Proclamation of the Republic: Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca declares Brazil a republic as Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a non-violent military coup d’état, and Fonseca becomes President and head of the Interim Government
1891 – Averell Harriman born, American statesman; U.S. Ambassador, to the Soviet Union (1943-1946), then to Great Britain (1946); U.s. Representative in Europe during implementation of the Marshall Plan (1948-1950); Ambassador-at-Large and head of the U.S. delegation for the Vietnam War Paris peace talks (1968-1969)
1901 – Miller Reese patents an electrical hearing aid
1915 – WWI: Winston Churchill tenders his letter of resignation as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, leaving office ten days later, to command the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front
Winston Churchill – WWI portrait by John Lavery
1916 – Nita Barrow born, Barbadian nurse, humanitarian activist and politician; first woman Governor-General of Barbados (1990-1995)
1920 – The League of Nations meets for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland
1926 –NBC’s radio network of 24 stations opens with a 4-hour broadcast spectacular
1932 – Petula Clark born, English vocalist, composer and actress; her singing career began at age nine, during WWII, performing for the studio audience at a BBC radio broadcast delayed by a bombing raid; she became part of a WWII troupe entertaining the troops, making hundreds of appearances, often with another child performer, Julie Andrews
1933 – Thailand holds its first election
1934 – Peter Dickinson born, British composer
1938 – Ronnie Kasrils born, South African anti-apartheid activist, member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Due to his activities in South Africa, he fled into exile in 1963, and went on missions in several foreign countries on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC). Appointed by President Nelson Mandela in 1994 as a minister of defense in his Cabinet
1939 – FDR lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC
1940 – Under the first peacetime conscription, 75,000 American men are called to Armed Forces duty
1949 – Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
1954 – Emma Dent Coad born, British Labour politician; Member of Parliament for Kensington since 2017
1955 – The first phase of the Saint Petersburg Metro opens
1956 – Elvis Presley makes his acting debut in the movie “Love Me Tender”
1958 – Lesley Laird born, Scottish politician; Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party since June 2018; Member of the Scottish Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath since 2017
1959 – The Clutter family of Holcomb KS murdered, which will inspire Truman Capote’s non-fiction book In Cold Blood
1962 – Judy Gold born, American comedian, television writer and producer; won 2 Daytime Emmys for her writing and producing on The Rosie O’Donnell Show
1966 – NASA’s Gemini 12 splashes down in the Atlantic, completing its final mission
1967 – Cynthia Breazeal born, computer scientist known for her pioneering work in social robotics and human-robot interaction; Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Cynthia Breazeal on left
1969 – A peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War is staged by 250,000 protesters in Washington DC
1981 – The first Day of the Imprisoned Writer * is started by PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, to bring attention to writers who are in prison for resisting repression of freedom of expression, and to commemorate those writers who were killed or died in prison because of what they wrote
1983 – Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declares independence, but only Turkey recognizes it
1984 – An infant who received a baboon’s heart to replace her own congenitally deformed one dies at a California medical center three weeks after the transplant
1985 – The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald
1986 – The first Philanthropy Day * is proclaimed by Ronald Reagan, sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals
1988 – The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, unilaterally proclaims the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution making Palestine a non-member observer state in the UN
1990 – David Bowie debuts on Broadway as The Elephant Man
1997 – America Recycles Day * is started by the National Recycling Coalition, and declared by Presidential Proclamation, now a Keep American Beautiful program
2002 – John Riddle starts I Love to Write Day *
2006 – Al Jazeera English launches worldwide
2011 – Rock Your Mocs Day * is started by Jessica Jaylyn Atsye, enrolled with Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, as a day during Native American Heritage Month for all Native peoples to show unity and cultural pride
2011 – Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raid the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York City, evicting hundreds of protesters, then demolishing the tent city
2013 – Janet Yellen, President Obama’s nominee to replace Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chair, testifies before the Senate Banking Committee. The Senate confirmed her nomination, and she served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018
2016 – The World Meteorological Organization announced at the 22nd annual U.N. Climate Summit, that 2016 is very likely to be the hottest year on record, with an average global temperature of 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels
2018 – The Trump administration’s top environmental official in the Southeast, Trey Glenn, was arrested on criminal ethics charges. Glenn, 47, was accused of trying to help a coal company avoid paying to clean up toxic waste. Before Glenn’s appointment as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Southeastern Regional Office in Atlanta, he and his then-business partner Scott Phillips worked for Drummond, a coal company, trying to stoke opposition to a federal Superfund cleanup in Birmingham, Alabama, which Drummond would be required to help fund. Glenn said the charges “are totally unfounded,” and he vowed to fight them. The EPA declined to comment. Glenn and Phillips were indicted by a Grand Jury, both charged with multiple violations of Alabama’s Ethics Act. Glenn resigned from the EPA after he was indicted
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