And let's not forget that Laika was sacrificed in the experiment. :(

1943 - Halifax, Nova Scotia - US freighter 'Volunteer', carrying explosives, catches fire in Halifax harbour; courage of navy men saves city from disaster.

1908 -Vatican City - Roman Catholic Church declares that it will no longer consider Canada as a country for missionary activities. (Woohoo, we're first-world, baby!)

November 4th
 

True... not so good for him, huh?


This day in 1942 saw the beginning of the end for the Germans "Afrika Korps", and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, at the Battle of El Alamein in WWII


Today in 1980 ex-actor Ronald Reagan, Republican Governor of California, trounced Jimmy Carter in the U.S. elections to become America's 40th President


The first rapid-fire machine gun was patented today in 1862, by Richard Jordan Gatling of Indianapolis


Just ONE WEEK before the Armistice that brought WWI to an end, poet Wilfred Owen was killed in France at the age of 25.

Re: November 4th
 

dm383,

And a real loss it was! I just reread S.I.W. We should never underestimate the cost of war.

Helluva poet. Thank you.

1979 ~ the Iranian hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran.

1920 ~ Canadian Marconi's radio station broadcasts first commercial radio show; station started in December 1919; reputedly the oldest in the world.

November 5th
 

Britain declared war on Turkey ("the old man of Europe", said Winston Churchill) in 1914; 205,000 Allied soldiers were to become casualties there, to NO EFFECT whatsoever!!


Today in 1979, George Michael & Andrew Ridgely (later known as Wham!) played their first-ever live gig together, as 'The Excutives'.


In 1492, Christopher Columbus first learned about growing & harvesting maize from the native population of Cuba


It wasn't until this day in 1800 that King George II became the first British king to renounce all claims to the throne of France.


In 1605, Guy Fawkes and his compatriots were captured trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament..... leading to the quaint & uniquely British "Guy Fawkes" night, celebrated with 'Guys' being burned on top of large bonfires, accompanied by the setting off of large numbers of fireworks!!

1980 Opening of World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto 1.5 million books on 27.3 km of shelves; 6,500 m2 in size; now part of Chapters chain.

1955 Montreal Canadien Jean Beliveau scores a hat trick in 44 seconds; second fastest on record.

November 6th
 

In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula today's the day the old neck-biter FINALLY 'gets his'!!


in 1924, Tory leader Stanley Baldwin was elected Prime Minister and appointed Winston Churchill, formerly a Liberal, as his Chancellor of the Exchequer


Belgian musical instrument maker Antoine-Joseph Adolphe Sax, who invented the Saxophone in 1840, was born today in 1814.


In 1970, three-times Grand National winner Red Rum, the greatest ever steeplechaser, won his first race (a novice event at Doncaster) at odds of 100/7.

1879 CANADA'S FIRST OFFICIAL THANKSGIVING DAY

Ottawa Ontario - The Canadian Thanksgiving Day is officially observed for the first time on this day. The holiday is moved to the week of Armistice Day after World War I, then fixed as the second Monday in October in 1957.

November 7th
 

English peer Lord Lucan disappeared today in 1974, after allegedly killing his nanny. (That is, the nanny to his children!!) He hasn't been seen since.


On this day in 1917, Lenin's Bolsheviks, storming the Winter Palace in Petrograd, led the overtrow of Russia's moderate Kerensky-led socialist gvernment.


In 1990, lawyer & Senator Mary Robinson, became the first woman President of the Republic of Ireland


The Mary Celeste sailed from New York for Genoa in 1872.... but never arrived. She made the history books instead, when found abandoned four weeks later.

Happy birthday, Joni Mitchell!

Joni Mitchell 1943-
singer songwriter, painter, was born Roberta Joan Anderson on this day at Fort McLeod, Alberta, in 1943. Mitchell moved to Saskatoon at age 10, studied art, started folk singing, then moved to Toronto in 1965. She met musician Chuck Mitchell, who took her to Detroit, where they were married, but soon divorced. In 1967 she moved to New York, signed with David Geffen, and released her first album, Song to a Seagull (1968), produced by David Crosby on the Reprise label. Her career took off in 1968 when Judy Collins recorded her song Both Sides Now. After she moved to Laurel Canyon, near Los Angeles, she wrote The Circle Game (recorded by Tom Rush) and her monster hippy anthem Woodstock (recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Mitchell's prime folk/rock albums include Blue (1971), For the Roses (1972) and Court and Spark (1974). She is a painter as well as a musician, and much of her later work, such as Hejira (1976) and Mingus (1979) has expanded her style into jazz.

November 8

1793 The Louvre opens as a museum.

1923 Beer Hall Putsch begins

Adolf Hitler, president of the far-right Nazi Party, launches the Beer Hall Putsch, his first attempt at seizing control of the German government.

November 8th
 

Don't read the FIRST one, dicksbro!!)



In 1970, the Great Bengal Frog War began - a "frantic frog-killing orgy" which left thousands of the poor creatures dead.


In 1974 Covent Garden ceased to be London's flower & vegetable market as it moved across the Thames, leaving the old warehouses and Floral Hall to be re-developed


In the first-ever dogfight between jet fighters, a U.S. Air Force Lockheed F-80 shot down a Soviet MiG-15 over Korea in 1950


The 13-ton bell in the Palace of Westminster clock tower got it's name, Big Ben, from Sir Benjamin Hall, born today in 1802.

(Lots of people think that Big Ben is the tower itself..... which is actually St. Stephen's tower!!)

November 9th
 

Today in 1888, a woman named Marie Kelly became the first victim of.... "Jack the Ripper"!


In 1966, John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at a preview of her art exhibition at Barry Miles, Peter Asher and John Dunbar's Indica Books & Gallery at Mason's Yard, London


In 1989, the East German government allowedfree pasage through the Berlin Wall. The next day, bulldozers began demolishing the 28-year-old barrier.


An Act of Parliament was passed today in 1868, declaring voting by women illegal. An earlier Act allowed all ratepayers to vote, without specifying that they must be male!!

In 1858 on this date, the 1st performance of the NY Symphony Orchestra took place.

1965 The great Northeast blackout occurred as several states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of power failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours.

1856 ~ a telegraph line was opened between Newfoundland and New York.

In 1932, Foster Hewitt made his first Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. Boston and Toronto tied 1-1.

November 10th
 

Romania entered WWI (for the SECOND time!!) one day before it finished, in 1918.


On this day in 1969, twenty years after he first released Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer Gene Autry finally received an award for the song.


The first rugby league game ever to be televised was the Second Test between Great Britain and New Zealand, played in Manchester in 1951. Great Britain won 20-19.


The 'haunted' wreck of the U.S. brig Somers , on which the stroy "Billy Budd" was based, was discovered today in 1987.

On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.

November 11th
 

In 2000, a cable-car being pulled through an Alpine tunnel in Austria caught fire, resulting in a death toll of 155 people


In 1965, Ian Smith's Rhodesian government unilaterally declared independence from Britain


The Royal Mail was first carried by train, between Liverpool and Manchester, today in 1830.


In 1975 Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the government, led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

(and DM got his leathers!!!:D)

November 12th
 

Yep..... a notable date in history indeed!! :)


Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union in 1927 - thus beginning the systematic slaughter of an estimated 43 MILLION of his own people!!!


In 1987 Vincent Van Gogh's 'Irises' was sold for a then world record £30.2 million ($48.3 million) He painted it while a patient at the St. Remy lunatic asylum


The Conservative Party held it's first conference in 1867, at the Freemasons' Tavern in London's Great Queen Strret.


In 1997 a Brazilian court ruled that as his crime had been committed more than 20 years previously, Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs could not be extradited to Britain

Speaking of Brazil ... in 1989, Brazil held it's first free presidential election in 29 years. Hats off to Brazil. :)

On Nov. 12, 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. The Americans ended up winning a major victory over the Japanese.

On Nov. 13, 1956, the American Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

November 13th
 

Ugandan rainmaker Festo Kazarwa was beaten to death today in 1988, after a freak hailstorm destoyed his village's crops.


In 1999 Lennox Lewis became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, winning a unanimous decision over Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas


On this day in 1907, inventor Paul Corno made the first helicpter flight, lifting his machine ~ powered by two propellors ~ six feet above a Normandy field.


Public donations helped the Archbishop of Canterbury to buy the original manuscript of 'Alice In Wonderland' from the U.S. Library Of Congress in 1948

November 14th
 

In 1973 Bobby Moore made his 108th, and final, appearance for the England football team. The team lost 1-0 to Italy at Wembley.


Leo (Hendrik) Baekeland, the chemist who invented the first commercial plastic, named Bakelite in his honour, was born in Belgium in 1863.


In 1889, reporter Nellie Bly set out from New York and travelled by sea, horse, rail & road, to beat Phileas Fogg's 80-day, round-the-world trip........by a week!

November 15th
 

General William Tecumsa Sherman burned the Confederate city of Atlanta to the ground today in 1864


^^^
This was also the start of the General's infamous march, with 60,000 men, from Atlanta to Savannah, during which he destroyed all the towns and farms along the 300-mile route to the sea.


The S.S. St. Paul became the first ship to receive radio messages, transmitted from the Needles wireless station off the Isle of Wight, today in 1899.


In 1983, John Prescott M.P. swam along the River Thames from Chelsea Bridge to Westminster in protest at the dumping of nuclear waste in the sea. (Have to say, I can't see him doing that NOW!!)

On Nov. 15, 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War.

1983 Margaret Trudeau files for divorce from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau; granted April 2, 1984.

1885 Louis Riel hanged in Mounted Police barracks in Regina; before dying, he gives exclusive interview to journalist Nicholas Flood Davin, who entered prison disguised as a priest. Just after eight in the morning, the hangman appears in the doorway of his cell; Riel asks, 'Mr. Gibson, you want me? I am ready'; after receiving absolution from the priest, he ascends the scaffold; as he and the priest are reciting the words of the Lord's Prayer, the trap door drops.

1973 President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla., that "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

1869 Suez Canal opens
The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.

1558 Elizabethan Age begins
Queen Mary I, the monarch of England and Ireland since 1553, dies and is succeeded by her 25-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth.

November 17th
 

November 16th

Jack Sheppard, a highwayman who had escaped execution on four separate occasions, was finally hanged today in 1724

That one kinda "tickled" me, so I thought I'd post it anyway!


On to today...........

In 1944 a quacking duck alerted the city of Freiburg, Germany, to an air-raid. A statue was later built in it's honour!!


In 1964 General Nasser became Egypt's head of state as the high-living King Farouk departed rapidly into exile


The first international cycle road race - 83 miles from Paris to Rouen - was won in 1869, by Britain's James Moore


Louis XVIII of France, born in 1755, came to power after the fall of Napoleon, and was so overwrought he initiated the custom of leaving one's bottom waistcoat button undone

1976 ~ Spain's parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.

November 18th
 

After a huge Asthma attack, "Four Weddings & a Funeral" star Charlotte Coleman was found dead in 2001


In 1916, General Douglas Haig finally called off the Somme offensive after five months of highly costly battle (in money AND lives!) had failed to make any headway against the Germans


Photography pioneer Louis Dagueere, born in 1789, developed the daguerreotype, a one-off picture without a negative, when he accidentally spilt iodine on some silvered plates


Roman emperor Vespassian, boorn in 9 A.D., raised the mpney for his campaigns in Wales & north Britain by levying a tax on public urinals!!

1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

November 19th
 

Today in 1600, King Charles I was executed at Runnymede by order of Oliver Cromwell's Parliament


This day in 1703 a mysterious man died in the Bastille in Paris, his head encased in a mask of velvet & whalebone. He would later become known as "The Man In The Iron Mask"


In 1951 the Football Association reluctantly agreed to give official sanction to the use of the new, White footballs


A third attempt by the U.S. to invade Canada during The War of 1812 collapsed in ignominy when the American troops refused to leave New York State!

Those stubborn Americans! :)

1976 Gordon Lightfoot's 'The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald' peaks at #2 on the Billboard pop single chart.

1964 Mt. Kennedy named in memory of late U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; unnamed mountain on Alaska-Yukon border

November 20th
 

In 1945, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials began; twenty top Nazis went before the judges ~ half of them were excuted for their Crimes


In 1944 the neon advertising lights of London's Piccadilly Circus and the Strand were switched on again, after FIVE years of blackout!


When Princess Elizabeth married Lt. Philip Mountbatten RN in Westminster Abbey in 1947, the BBC made the first-ever telerecording for broadcast in the U.S. 32 hours later


AListair Cooke, the U.S.-based broadcaster who began his famous Letter From America on BBC radio in 1938, was born "Alfred Cooke" in Britain today in 1908

November 21st
 

(Where'd ya get to today Steph?!?! :) )


In 1906, an unnamed man was killed when 200,000 gallons of hot whisky burst from vats in a Glasgow distillery!


In 1987 Demi Moore and Bruce Willis married after knowing each other for just three months. Three children and eleven years later, they divorced in 1998


Cole Porter's "Anything Goes", with words by Guy Bolton & P.G. Wodehouse, had it's first performance today in 1934. It also, incidentally, made Ethel Merman a Star!


Harry Bidwen of Brighton divorced his wife in 1980, at the age of 101, having waited 'til ALL their children were dead!!!

November 22nd
 

!Hey STEPH.... where'd you get to hon?!?! :)

FYI: One of my "sources" for these ramblings has dried up, so I've had to find an alternative! From now on, there will probably be a few more each day than there were!

INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence hanged himself in a Sydney hotel in 1997, in an (alleged) act of autoeroticsim.


In 1497 Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first navigator to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in his search for a sea route to India


Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard the pirate, was killed off the east coast of North America today in 1718


Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted in 1842. Ash fallout reached as far as 48 mi away Not for the first time.....nor the last!! :)


Today in 1943,President Franklin Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss measures for defeating Japan.



1963 - President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas Somehow, it doesn't SEEM 40 years ago..... and I'M only 41

November 23rd
 

Ottilie Lundgren, 94, of Oxford, Connecticut, became thr fifth anthrax fatality in 2001's still unexplained postal attacks.


The first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco today in 1889


The first issue of Life magazine hit the newsstands in 1936. The cover photograph, by Margaret Bourke-White, featured the Fort Peck Dam.


On this day in 1945, U.S. wartime food rationing, of meat, butter, and other foods, ended


In 1971 the People's Republic of China was seated at the UN Security Council for the first time