This Week in History: Nov. 5-11, 2018

This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann

“The most effective way to destroy people is to
deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
George Orwell

Week of Nov. 5-11, 2018

November 5

1639 – The first post office in the colonies is set up in Massachusetts. Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General.

1781 – John Hanson is elected the first “President of the U.S. in Congress assembled” (Continental Congress).

1895 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an internal-combustion gasoline fueled automobile.

1917 – The Supreme Court decision of Buchanan v Warley strikes down a Louisville, Kentucky, ordinance requiring backs and whites to live in separate areas.

1940 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) wins an unprecedented third term by beating Wendell Willkie (R). He was elected to a fourth term on November 7, 1944, but FDR died in April of 1945 at age 63. FDR is the only president to serve more than 2 terms.

1956 – Nat King Cole launches a weekly TV show making him the first black person to host his own show on a major national TV network. Cole died in 1965 at age 45. Watch Cole sing on his show:

1994 – George Foreman, at age 45, becomes boxing’s oldest heavyweight champion when he knocks out Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas, Nevada. Foreman is now 69 years old. Watch the final round:

2009 – U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 43 at Fort Hood, Texas, in the largest mass shooting ever at a U.S. military installation. He was convicted and sentenced to death by a military jury in August 2013. He is still awaiting execution.

2015 – Collins Dictionary names “binge-watch” the word of the year. It defined the verb binge-watch as “watching a large number of TV programs in succession.” The 2014 word of the year was “photobomb.”

November 6

1789 – Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the U.S.

1861 – Jefferson Davis is elected to a 6-year term as Confederate president. Davis graduated from West Point in 1828. Col. Davis was a hero of the Mexican-American War in 1847. He served as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi (1847-1851 and 1857-1861) and the U.S. Secretary of War (1853-1857). He died in 1889 at the age of 81.

1938 – The three DiMaggio brothers (Vince, Joe, and Dominic) play baseball together in a west coast charity game. They are the only trio of brothers to have been All-Stars. Over 350 sets of brothers (including sets of twins) have played major league baseball.

1947 – NBC’s “Meet the Press” debuts and is now the longest running TV show in the U.S.

1952 – The first hydrogen bomb is exploded at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. A total of 43 nuclear tests were conducted between 1948 and 1958.

1986 – President Reagan signs a landmark immigration reform bill. It made it illegal to knowingly hire illegal immigrants and legalized illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. before January 1, 1982 under strict conditions. The INS estimated that about 4 million illegal immigrants would apply and about half would be eligible.

1990 – A fire destroys some of Universal Studios stages and causes $25 million in damage. A security guard, who had been on the job less than two months, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to arson. Watch a report on the fire:

2012 – The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico votes in favor of becoming a U.S. state. It was the fourth statehood referendum, but the first in which a majority voted for statehood.

November 7

1805 – Lewis and Clark first view the Pacific Ocean. The Corps of Discovery left Missouri in May of 1804.

1872 – The cargo ship Mary Celeste sails from New York to Italy. It was mysteriously found abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle four weeks later with all the crew’s effects, cargo, and 6-month’s food supply intact. The crew was never found, although a lifeboat was missing. The Mary Celeste was sold several times and made Atlantic voyages over the next 12 years, until it was deliberately run aground for the insurance. The wreck has never been found.

1874 – Thomas Nast creates the first cartoon depicting an elephant as the symbol for the Republican Party. He also created the modern version of Santa Claus.

1910 – The first air freight shipment is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Morehouse. A Wright brother’s pilot flew 200 pounds of silk worth $800 from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio. Philip Parmelee flew the 65-mile route in 66 minutes at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,000 feet in freezing temperatures by following railroad tracks. Parmelee was killed at an airshow two years later. He was 25.

1932 – “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” is broadcast as the first science fiction program on the radio. It aired until 1936, but was revived several times. It debuted as a comic strip in 1929. An 8-minute Buck Rogers film was made for the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair. Buck Rogers was a 12-part movie serial starring Buster Crabbe starting in 1939 and a short-lived TV series in 1950-51. Most recently it aired as a TV show starring Gil Gerard from 1979 to 1981.

1940 – The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping Gertie) collapses in Washington four months after it opened to traffic. Watch actual footage of the bridge collapse, filmed by Barney Elliott, a local camera shop owner:

1973 – Congress over-rides President Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive’s power to wage war without congressional approval.

1991 – Magic Johnson announces he has the HIV virus and retires from the LA Lakers basketball team. Johnson is now 59 years old. Watch his announcement:

1999 – Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win four straight tournaments. Woods is now 42 years old.

2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers an LSD lab inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. William Leonard Pickard, now 73, is serving two life sentences following his conviction in the largest LSD manufacturing case in U.S. history. He continued to conduct research, write, and advocate for psychedelics. His partner, Clyde Apperson, now 63, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

November 8

1731 – Benjamin Franklin opens the first U.S. library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1933 – The Civil Works Administration is created by executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The organization was designed to create jobs for more than four million unemployed people in the U.S. during the Great Depression.

1956 – After turning down 18,000 names, the Ford Motor Company decides to name its new car the “Edsel,” after Henry Ford’s only son. The Ford Edsel was in production for only three years.

1966 – Movie actor Ronald Reagan is elected governor of California. He first appeared in a movie in 1937 and finished his acting career in 1965 in the TV series Death Valley Days. He was elected president in 1980 and 1984. He died in 2004 at age 93. Watch Reagan in Death Valley Days:

1988 – George H. W. Bush is the first vice president since Martin Van Buren (1837) to be elected president of the U.S.

1990 – Gina Marie Tolleson of the U.S., age 21, is crowned the 40th Miss World. Only two other American women have been crowned Miss World – Marjorie Wallace in 1973 and Alexandria Mills in 2010. Watch Tolleson’s farewell speech at the 1991 crowning:

2000 – Waco special counsel John C. Danforth releases his final report that absolves the government of wrongdoing in the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas that ended in the death of 76 people, including 25 children.

2000 – A statewide recount begins in Florida to decide the winner of the U.S. presidential election. George Bush beat Al Gore by a hanging chad.

November 9

1857 – The Atlantic magazine is first published, billing itself as a “journal of literature, politics, science, and the arts.” It is the second-oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., after Scientific American (founded 1845).

1935 – The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor union forms. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was formed in 1886. The two unions merged in 1955 as the AFL-CIO.

1961 – The X-15 rocket plane, piloted by Robert White, sets a world record speed of 4,092 mph (Mach 6.04) and reaches an altitude of 101,600 feet after being launched from under the wing of a B-52. Watch a video with a description of the launch, flight, and landing:

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from boxing for the first time. He retired again in 1984. He came out of retirement in 1987 to defeat Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Sugar Ray retired again in 1991 only to return to the ring in 1997 at age 40. He retired for the last time in 1997 following a TKO and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame later that same year. Sugar Ray is now 62 years old.

1984 – “The Three Servicemen” Memorial is completed in Washington, DC. It was designed and created to complement the controversial design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

2015 – San Diego’s SeaWorld announces it will overhaul its killer whale show after controversy over the treatment of its whales. Watch a news report on the announcement:

November 10

1775 – Congress forms the U.S. Marine Corps. Major Samuel Nicholas was the first Commandant (1775-1783).

1891 – Granville T. Woods patents the electric railway. Known as the “Black Edison,” Woods received close to 60 patents, 15 for inventions or improvements for electric railroads.

1940 – Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI. Disney’s job was to report back to the FBI any information on Hollywood political subversives until his death in 1966.

1969 – “Sesame Street” premieres on PBS TV. The show is still on the air and is the longest running children’s show. Its creators included Muppets creators Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Watch the opening of the show:

1982 – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial opens in Washington, DC. The design of 21-year-old Chinese-American Ohio-born Maya Ying Lin was chosen from more than 1,400 submissions.

1993 – The House of Representatives passes the Brady Bill, which calls for a background check and five-day waiting period for handgun purchases. The bill, introduced by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY), was named for James Brady, who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan. The bill was signed into law on November 30th by President Bill Clinton.

1997 – The 1960s pop art icon Peter Max pleads guilty to tax fraud and was sentenced to 2 months in prison and ordered to pay $30,000 in fines. Max is now 81 years old. Watch a Larry King Live and The Early Show interviews with Peter Max and his artwork:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punS9XAjMJ8

2016 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average sets a new all-time high record of 18,791 just two days after Donald Trump is elected president.

November 11 – Thanks to our Veterans!

1750 – The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was the first college fraternity.

1865 – Mary Edwards Walker, the first female Army surgeon, becomes the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

1918 – World War I ends at 11 AM with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. President Wilson proclaims November 11 a national holiday as Armistice Day in 1919. The holiday was renamed Veteran’s Day after WWII. In 1954, President Eisenhower made the first Veterans Day proclamation.

1921 – President Harding dedicates the Tomb of Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The Tomb of the Unknowns has been guarded continuously 24/7/365 since 1937, including during hurricanes when Honor Guards refused to stand down. Guards are volunteers of the elite 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, “The Old Guard,” at Fort Meyer, Virginia. Over 600 Tomb Guard Identification Badges have been awarded since they started counting in 1958.

1926 – U.S. Route 66 is established and, when completed, winds from Chicago to LA, more than two thousand miles all the way. Get your kicks on Route 66. The song of the same name was first recorded by Nat King Cole in 1946.

1939 – Kate Smith makes her first public performance of “God Bless America,” written by Russian-born immigrant Irving Berlin in 1918. Watch the quintessential performance of the patriotic song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2XLHyUWT94

1972 – The Dow Jones Index goes above 1,000 for the first time.

1992 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin tells U.S. senators in a letter that Americans had been held in prison camps after World War II. Some were “summarily executed,” but others were still living in his country voluntarily.

1993 – The Vietnam Women’s Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, to honor the more than 11,000 women who served in the Vietnam War.

1998 – Jay Cochrane sets a record for the longest blindfolded skywalk. He walked on a tightrope between the towers of the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas, which were 600 feet apart. Watch the death-defying walk:

Image from roadandtrack.com

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