11-26-09 Today in History
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
USCC members Dave O and Neal Coffin were born this date.
AP: Today is Thursday, Nov. 26, the 330th day of 2009. There are 35 days left in the year. This is Thanksgiving Day.
Today’s Highlight in History:
Nov. 26, 1789, was a day of thanksgiving set aside by President George Washington to observe the adoption of the Constitution of the United States.
On this date:
In 1825, the first college social fraternity, the Kappa Alpha Society, was formed at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
In 1842, the founders of the University of Notre Dame arrived at the school’s present-day site near South Bend, Ind.
In 1883, former slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Mich.
In 1933, a judge in New York decided the James Joyce book “Ulysses” was not obscene and could be published in the United States.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning Dec. 1. The motion picture “Casablanca,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Theater in New York.
In 1943, during World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed.
In 1949, India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth.
In 1950, China entered the Korean War, launching a counteroffensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the U.S. and South Korea.
In 1965, France launched its first satellite, sending a 92-pound capsule into orbit.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.
Ten years ago: Sixteen people were killed when a Norwegian high-speed passenger ferry hit a shoal and sank off Boemla Island, 250 miles west of Oslo.
Five years ago: Leading Iraqi politicians called for a six-month delay in the Jan. 30 election because of spiraling violence; President George W. Bush said, “The Iraqi Election Commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would hope they’d go forward in January.” (The vote took place as scheduled.) French movie director Philippe de Broca (”King of Hearts”) died at age 71.
One year ago: Teams of heavily armed gunmen, allegedly from Pakistan, stormed luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in Mumbai, India, leaving at least 166 people dead in a rampage lasting some 60 hours. A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles of three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl, Megan Meier, to suicide. (However, Lori Drew’s convictions were later dismissed.)
Today’s Birthdays: Actress Ellen Albertini Dow is 91. Author Gail Sheehy is 72. Impressionist Rich Little is 71. Singer Tina Turner is 70. Singer Jean Terrell is 65. Pop musician John McVie is 64. Actress Marianne Muellerleile is 61. Actor Scott Jacoby is 53. Actress Jamie Rose is 50. Country singer Linda Davis is 47. Blues singer-musician Bernard Allison is 44. Country singer-musician Steve Grisaffe is 44. Actress Kristin Bauer is 36. Actor Peter Facinelli is 36. Actress Tammy Lynn Michaels Etheridge is 35. Actress Maia Campbell is 33. Country singer Joe Nichols is 33. Contemporary Christian musicians Randy and Anthony Armstrong (Red) are 31. Actress Jessica Bowman is 29. Pop singer Natasha Bedingfield is 28. Rock musician Ben Wysocki (The Fray) is 25. Singer Lil Fizz is 24. Singer Aubrey Collins is 22.
Thought for Today: “Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.” - Sister Elizabeth Kenny, Australian nurse (1886-1952).
Wikipedia:
43 BC – The Second Triumvirate alliance of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (”Octavian”, later “Caesar Augustus”), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony is formed.
783 – The Asturian queen Adosinda is put up in a monastery to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.
1476 – Vlad III Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.
1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
1784 – The Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established.
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
1805 – Official opening of Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
1825 – At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society, the first college social fraternity.
1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.
1863 – American Civil War: Mine Run – Union forces under General George Meade position against troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
1865 – Battle of Papudo: The Spanish navy engages a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet north of Valparaiso, Chile.
1909 – Sigma Alpha Mu is founded in the City College of New York by 8 Jewish young men.
1913 – Phi Sigma Sigma is founded at Hunter College in New York City.
1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
1918 – The Podgorica Assembly votes for “union of the people”, declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia.
1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.
1922 – Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely distributed).
1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.
1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.
1942 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s store on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing 168 shoppers.
1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
1949 – The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India’s constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People’s Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of Ch’ongch’on River), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
1965 – In the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.
1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.
1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.
1977 – ‘Vrillon’, claiming to be the representative of the ‘Ashtar Galactic Command’, takes over Britain’s Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM.
1983 – Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.
1986 – Iran-Contra scandal: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.
1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight.
1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland’s parliament.
2003 – Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.
2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: a man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.
2004 – Male Po’ouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of Avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
2008 – Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India: Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 250 people in Mumbai, India.