This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“The secret to happiness is freedom.
The secret to freedom is courage.” Carrie Jones
Nov 17-23, 2025
November 17
1800 – Congress holds its first session in the incomplete Capitol building Washington, DC. The building was completed in 1826.
1871 – The National Rifle Association (NRA) is chartered in New York.
1894 – H. H. Holmes, identified as the first American serial killer, is arrested in Boston after being tracked by Pinkerton detectives. Although he confessed to 27 murders, it is believed he is guilty of more than 200 murders. He was hanged in 1896 after being convicted on a single count of murder.
1936 – Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy become an overnight success on radio. The Edgar Bergen/ Charlie McCarthy Show aired until 1956. Edgar Bergen died in 1978 at age 75. Charlie is on display at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
1968 – NBC cuts to the movie “Heidi,” missing the Oakland Raider’s rally in the final two minutes of the football game. The Raiders scored two touchdowns in nine seconds of play to beat the New York Jets, 43-32 in the “Heidi Bowl.” Watch the news show and commentary, with the last minute of the game that was never seen on TV.
1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
2004 – Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.
November 18
1820 – U.S. Navy Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer of Connecticut, age 22, discovers Antarctica.
1872 – American suffragette Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women are arrested after voting on November 5th in Rochester, New York. Anthony was denied a trial by jury and was tried in Federal Court in June 1873 by newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Ward Hunt. Anthony was not allowed to speak in her own defense until after she was found guilty and ordered to pay a $100 fine. She told the judge she “shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty,” and she never did.
1883 – Standard time zones are formed by the railroads in U.S. and Canada to provide a uniform schedule for train departures and arrivals. Four times zones were first proposed in 1870 by Charles F. Dowd.
1902 – Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names the stuffed bear after President Theodore Roosevelt. The “teddy” bear was nicknamed for the president following a hunting trip in 1902 with Mississippi Governor Andrew H. Longino in which Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill an old bear tied to a tree.
1928 – The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon, Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” starring Mickey Mouse premieres in New York.
1932 – “Flowers & Trees” by Walt Disney Studios receives the first Academy Award for a cartoon. Watch the cartoon.
1951 – Chuck Connors (Los Angeles Angels) becomes the first baseball player to ask for an exemption to the major league baseball draft. Connors left baseball to become an actor, which included starring in the television show “The Rifleman” (1958-1963). He also served in the Army during WWII as a tank-warfare instructor at West Point, after which he played basketball for the Boston Celtics before turning to baseball. Connors died in 1992 at age 71.
1961 – President JFK sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
1966 – The U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops changes the rule prohibiting eating meat on Fridays, amending it to apply only during Lent.
1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana (South America), 909 members of the Peoples Temple are murdered or commit suicide under the leadership of American cult leader Jim Jones.
2001 – Phillips Petroleum and Conoco merge into a new company as ‘ConocoPhillips’, the third-largest oil and natural gas company in the U.S. ExxonMobile is the largest.
November 19
1620 – The “Mayflower” reaches Cape Cod and explores the coast. It eventually landed at Plymouth Rock.
1794 – The Jay Treaty is signed with Great Britain. Named for the first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, the treaty granted America “Most Favored Nation” status but left many issues from the Revolutionary War unresolved.
1861 – Julia Ward Howe pens “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as a poem. It was first published in “The Atlantic Monthly” in February 1862. The music was from the song “John Brown’s Body.”
1863 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his famous “Four score and seven years ago…” address in Pennsylvania dedicating the Gettysburg battlefield. Lincoln was asked to deliver the “concluding remarks” at the dedication ceremony, following the lengthy principal address by Massachusetts Senator Edward Everett. Listen to a recitation of the address with Civil War photographs.
1919 – The U.S. Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles with the League of Nations by a vote of 55-39. The U.S. signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921.
1950 – U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the supreme commander of NATO in Europe. He was president from 1952-1960.
1980 – CBS-TV bans Calvin Klein’s jeans ad featuring 15-year-old Brooke Shields. Watch the provocative ad.
1997 – Bobbi McCaughey of Des Moines, Iowa, gives birth to septuplets (4 boys and 3 girls) in the first known case where all seven babies were born alive and survive infancy. Today they are 28 years old.
1998 – The U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice but he remained in office. President Andrew Johnson was the only other president previously to endure impeachments proceedings. The impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not upheld and Johnson also remained in office.
2002 – The U.S. government takes over of security at 424 airports nationwide through the TSA following the signing of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act by President George W. Bush.
November 20
1866 – The first national convention of the Civil War Veteran’s organization the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) is held in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1947 – “Meet the Press” makes its network TV debut on NBC. The news program is the longest running TV show and still airs weekly.
1959 – WABC fires Alan Freed over the “payola” scandal. Freed accepted gratuities and consultation fees from record companies and promoters. When ABC demanded that Freed sign a prepared oath swearing he never received payments for promoting musical recordings on the air, Freed refused and was fired.
1982 – Drew Barrymore hosts Saturday Night Live at age 7, making her the youngest host in SNL history. She has hosted SNL six times. Watch the opening skit with little Drew.
1984 – McDonald’s made its 50 billionth hamburger. They stopped updating their signs in 1994 after 99 billion were sold. It is estimated that McDonald’s has sold nearly 400 billion hamburgers. They sell 75 hamburgers every second. McDonald’s estimates that 1 in 8 Americans has worked for the hamburger chain.
1998 – Forty-six states agree to a $206 billion settlement of health claims against the tobacco industry. The industry also agreed to give up billboard advertising of cigarettes.
2014 – Nearly 5 million illegal migrants in the U.S. will have the threat of deportation deferred after President Obama announced sweeping immigration changes.
November 21
1890 – Edison Lab records the first surviving motion picture, “Monkeyshines No. 1.” The film was shot by William Kennedy Dickson and William Heise.
1959 – Jack Benny (on violin) and Richard Nixon (on piano) play their famed duet during the President’s Ball at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Watch their performance.
1964 – “Verrazano Narrows” opens between Staten Island and Brooklyn as the world’s longest suspension bridge. It has since surpassed by several bridges.
1974 – Congress passes the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) over President Gerald Ford’s veto. FOIA allows people to request access federal records or information with nine exceptions, such as national security or personnel files.
1980 – It is revealed that Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby) is the person who shot J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman) on the TV show “Dallas.” Several alternate scenes were filmed to keep it secret. Watch the big reveal.
1989 – President George H. W. Bush signs a law banning smoking on most domestic flights.
1995 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 5,000 for first time.
2013 – The Dow Jones closed above 16,000 for the first time. The Dow is now around 47,000.
November 22
1718 – British pirate Edward Teach (“Blackbeard”) is killed off the coast of North Carolina in battle with a boarding party led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
1906 – International Radio Telecommunications Company adopts “SOS” as the new Morse code call for help. . . . – – – . . .
1923 – President Calvin Coolidge pardons German spy Lothar Witzke, who was sentenced to death for his role in the sabotage of installations in the San Francisco shipyards and New York Harbors during WW I.
1963 – President John F. Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, et al, in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president the same day.
1977 – The Packet Radio net, SATNET, and ARPANET are connected, sending a message from California to London and back via satellite to Virginia and then the University of Southern California in a demonstration of what would eventually become the Internet.
1984 – Fred Rogers of PBS’ “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” presents a sweater to the Smithsonian Institution. Watch Mr. Rogers don his sweater at the opening of his show.
1995 – “Toy Story” is released as the first feature-length film completely created using computer-generated imagery (CGI).
1998 – CNN airs a tape of Jack Kevorkian giving lethal drugs in an assisted suicide of a terminally ill patient with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kevorkian was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2005. Kevorkian died from a blood clot and liver cancer in 2011 at age 83.
2016 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 19,000 for the first time, two weeks after Donald Trump is elected president. The Dow is now about 47,000.
November 23
1783 – Annapolis, Maryland, becomes the capital of the U.S. until June 1784.
1903 – Enrico Caruso makes his U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” It was the first of 863 appearances at the Met. Watch a slide show of Caruso and listen to him singing.
1936 – The first issue of “Life,” a picture magazine created by Henry R. Luce, is published. A photograph of Fort Peck Dam was on the cover. The last issue, published in May 2000, had a premature baby on the cover.
1954 – For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the peak it reached before the 1929 stock market crash. The Dow closed at 380.33 on August 29, 1929, and at 382.74 on this date.
1960 – Hollywood dedicates its Walk of Fame in Hollywood at Boulevard and Vine Street. Joanne Woodward received the first star. She won an Academy Award in 1957 for “The Three Faces of Eve.” Watch an LA City Tours video advertising the famous street.
1998 – A U.S. federal judge rejects a Virginia county’s effort to block pornography on library computer, calling the attempt unconstitutional.
2014 – Republicans condemn President Obama’s use of executive action to push through immigration reform. Obama infamously said, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” This emphasized his intension to use executive action and the power of the presidency to advance his agenda and bypass congress.
Image from: nytimes.com
