11-20-09 Today in History
AP: Today is Friday, Nov. 20, the 324th day of 2009. There are 41 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 20, 1947, Britain’s future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey.
On this date:
In 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
In 1910, revolution broke out in Mexico, led by Francisco I. Madero.
In 1925, Robert F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass.
In 1929, the radio program “The Rise of the Goldbergs” debuted on the NBC Blue Network.
In 1945, 22 out of 24 indicted Nazi officials went on trial (one in absentia) before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
In 1959, the United Nations issued its Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
In 1967, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Clock at the Commerce Department ticked past 200 million.
In 1969, the Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phaseout. A group of American Indian activists began a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.
In 1975, after nearly four decades of absolute rule, Spain’s General Francisco Franco died, two weeks before his 83rd birthday.
In 1992, fire seriously damaged Windsor Castle, the favorite weekend home of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Ten years ago: A day after violent anti-American protests in Greece, President Bill Clinton sought to heal old wounds by acknowledging the United States had failed its “obligation to support democracy” when it backed Greek’s harsh military junta during the Cold War.
Five years ago: Republicans whisked a $388 billion spending bill through the House. Palestinians formally opened the campaign for a successor to Yasser Arafat. Scientist Ancel Keys, who invented the K rations eaten by soldiers in World War II and who linked high cholesterol and fatty diets to heart disease, died in Minneapolis at age 100.
One year ago: Sen. Ted Stevens, the chamber’s longest-serving Republican, delivered his swan song address following his failed re-election bid; he was saluted by his colleagues as a staunch friend and teacher. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose new sanctions aimed at reducing the arms flowing into Somalia and the lawlessness and piracy that were flourishing there. Betty James, co-founder of the company that made the Slinky, died in Philadelphia at age 90.
Today’s Birthdays: Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., is 92. Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer is 86. Actress-comedian Kaye Ballard is 84. Actress Estelle Parsons is 82. TV personality Richard Dawson is 77. Comedian Dick Smothers is 71. Singer Norman Greenbaum is 67. Vice President Joe Biden is 67. Actress Veronica Hamel is 66. Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is 63. Actor Samuel E. Wright is 63. Singer Joe Walsh is 62. Actor Richard Masur is 61. Opera singer Barbara Hendricks is 61. Actress Bo Derek is 53. Former NFL player Mark Gastineau is 53. Reggae musician Jim Brown (UB40) is 52. Actress Sean Young is 50. Pianist Jim Brickman is 48. Rock musician Todd Nance (Widespread Panic) is 47. Actress Ming-Na is 46. Actor Ned Vaughn is 45. Rapper Mike D (The Beastie Boys) is 44. Rapper Sen Dog (Cypress Hill) is 44. Actress Callie Thorne is 40. Actress Sabrina Lloyd is 39. Actor Joel McHale is 38. Actress Marisa Ryan is 35. Country singer Dierks Bentley is 34. Actor Joshua Gomez is 34. Actress Laura Harris is 33. Olympic gold medal gymnast Dominique Dawes is 33. Country singer Josh Turner is 32. Actress Nadine Velazquez is 31. Actor Dan Byrd is 24. Rock musician Jared Followill (Kings of Leon) is 23. Actor Cody Linley is 20.
Thought for Today: “Make haste slowly.” Caesar Augustus, Roman emperor (63 B.C.-A.D. 14).
Wikipedia:
284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman Emperor.
762 – During An Shi Rebellion, Tang Dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptured Luoyang from the rebels.
1194 – Palermo is conquered by Emperor Henry VI.
1407 – A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed.
1700 – Great Northern War: Battle of Narva – King Charles XII of Sweden defeats the army of Tsar Peter the Great at Narva.
1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story).
1861 – American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky’s Confederate government.
1910 – Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosi, denouncing President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.
1917 – World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins – British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
1917 – Ukraine is declared a republic.
1923 – Rentenmark replaces the Papiermark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Rentenmark to One Trillion (One Billion on the long scale) Papiermark
1936 – Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
1943 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins – United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
1945 – Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.
1952 – Slánský trials – a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1969 – Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
1975 – Francisco Franco, Caudillo of Spain, dies after 36 years in power.
1979 – Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising.
1984 – The SETI Institute is founded.
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1989 – Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1991 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his “dealings” with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war (localized fighting resumes the next year).
1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden “a man without a sin” in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 – The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
2001 – In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2008 – After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.