Month: November 2022 (Page 1 of 2)

On Nov. 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.

In 1806, explorer Zebulon Pike sighted the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh (teh-KUM’-seh) Sherman began their “March to the Sea” from Atlanta; the campaign ended with the capture of Savannah on Dec. 21.

In 1889, Brazil was proclaimed a republic as its emperor, Dom Pedro II, was overthrown.

In 1937, at the U.S. Capitol, members of the House and Senate met in air-conditioned chambers for the first time.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 1942, the naval Battle of Guadalcanal ended during World War II with a decisive U.S. victory over Japanese forces.

In 1959, four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, were found murdered in their home. (Ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were later convicted of the killings and hanged in a case made famous by the Truman Capote book “In Cold Blood.”)

In 1966, the flight of Gemini 12, the final mission of the Gemini program, ended successfully as astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. splashed down safely in the Atlantic after spending four days in orbit.

In 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War.

In 1989, Time Warner launched The Comedy Channel, which later merged with Viacom’s HA! network to form Comedy Central.

In 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed in Iraq; 17 U.S. troops were killed.

In 2019, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ally of President Donald Trump, was convicted of all seven counts in a federal indictment accusing him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation of whether Trump coordinated with Russia during the 2016 campaign. (As Stone was about to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence, Trump commuted the sentence.)

On Nov. 14, 1851, Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale” was published in the United States, almost a month after being released in Britain.

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave the go-ahead for Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s plan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond; the resulting Battle of Fredericksburg proved a disaster for the Union.

In 1881, Charles J. Guiteau went on trial for assassinating President James A. Garfield. (Guiteau was convicted and hanged the following year.)

In 1910, Eugene B. Ely became the first aviator to take off from a ship as his Curtiss pusher rolled off a sloping platform on the deck of the scout cruiser USS Birmingham off Hampton Roads, Virginia.

In 1915, African-American educator Booker T. Washington, 59, died in Tuskegee, Alabama.

In 1940, during World War II, German planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry.

In 1965, the U.S. Army’s first major military operation of the Vietnam War began with the start of the five-day Battle of Ia Drang. (The fighting between American troops and North Vietnamese forces ended on Nov. 18 with both sides claiming victory.)

In 1969, Apollo 12 blasted off for the moon.

In 1970, a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 crashed while trying to land in West Virginia, killing all 75 people on board, including the Marshall University football team and its coaching staff.

In 1972, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 1,000 level for the first time, ending the day at 1,003.16.

In 1996, singer Michael Jackson married his plastic surgeon’s nurse, Debbie Rowe, in a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. (Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.)

In 2005, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees won his second American League Most Valuable Player award in three seasons.

In 2013, former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was led off to prison to begin serving a life sentence at 84 for his murderous reign in the 1970s and ’80s. (Bulger was killed Oct. 30, 2018, hours after arriving at a federal prison in West Virginia.)

On Nov. 3, 868, Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the presidential election over Democrat Horatio Seymour.

In 1911, the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. was founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant. (The company was acquired by General Motors in 1918.)

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide election victory over Republican challenger Alfred “Alf” Landon.

In 1954, the Japanese monster movie “Godzilla” was released by Toho Co.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In 1970, Salvador Allende (ah-YEN’-day) was inaugurated as president of Chile

In 1979, five Communist Workers Party members were killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro, North Carolina.

In 1986, the Iran-Contra affair came to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.

In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush. In Illinois, Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 1994, Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, Michael and Alex, nine days after claiming the children had been abducted by a Black carjacker.

In 1997, the Supreme Court let stand California’s groundbreaking Proposition 209, which banned race and gender preference in hiring and school admissions.

In 2004, President George W. Bush claimed a re-election mandate a day after more than 62 million Americans chose him over Democrat John Kerry; Kerry conceded defeat in make-or-break Ohio rather than launch a legal fight reminiscent of the contentious Florida recount of four years earlier.

In 2014, 13 years after the 9/11 terrorist attack, a new 1,776-foot skyscraper at the World Trade Center site opened for business, marking an emotional milestone for both New Yorkers and the nation.