On This Day in History

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On November 22, 1988, In the presence of members of Congress and the media, the Northrop B-2 “stealth” bomber is shown publicly for the first time at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.

The aircraft, which was developed in great secrecy for nearly a decade, was designed with stealth characteristics that would allow it to penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defenses unnoticed. At the time of its public unveiling, the B-2 had not even been flown on a test flight. It rapidly came under fire for its massive cost, more than $40 billion for development and a $1 billion price tag for each unit.

In 1989, the B-2 was successfully flown, performing favorably. Although the aircraft had a wingspan of nearly half a football field, its radar signal was as negligible as that of a bird. The B-2 also successfully evaded infrared, sound detectors, and the visible eye.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the original order for the production of 132 stealth bombers was reduced to 21 aircraft. The B-2 has won a prominent place in the modern U.S. Air Force fleet, serving well in bombing missions during the 1990s.

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On November 22, 1972, the United States loses its first B-52 of the war. The eight-engine bomber was brought down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile near Vinh on the day when B-52s flew their heaviest raids of the war over North Vietnam.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 22nd in music.

 

1907 - The world's first radio company, the Marconi Wireless Company of America, is incorporated in New Jersey.

 

2006 - After decades of living in California, Fleetwood Mac drummer, Mick Fleetwood is finally naturalized as a citizen of the United States.

 

Birthdays:

 

1941 - Jessie Colin Young. The Youngbloods, 1969 US No. 5 single 'Get Together'. Born in Queens, New York City.

 

1943 - Floyd Sneed. Drummer with Three Dog Night, who had the 1970 US No. 1 single with a cover of the Randy Newman song 'Mama Told Me Not To Come'. The band scored 21 Billboard Top 40 hits, with three hitting No. 1, between 1969 and 1975. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

 

1946 - Aston "Family Man" Barrett. Bass guitarist of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Though he would earn the nickname "Family Man" before he had kids, it turned out to be an apt title: He allegedly fathered 41 children. Born in Kingston, Jamaica.

 

1947 - Rod Price. Lead guitarist for Foghat. Born in Willesden, North London, England.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 23, 1940, Romania signs the Tripartite Pact, officially allying itself with Germany, Italy and Japan.

As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany’s, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania’s king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania’s Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch’s death and peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany, only to be invaded by its “ally” as part of Hitler’s strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.

King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. Signing the Tripartite Pact was now inevitable. Originally formulated in Berlin on September 27, the pact formally recognized an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, termed the “Axis.” As more European nations became subject to fascist domination and invasion, they too were drawn into the pact, albeit as unequal partners (Hungary was made an Axis “power” on November 20). Now it was Romania’s turn.

While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans’ pillaging its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Besides taking control of Romania’s oil wells and installations, Hitler would help himself to Romania’s food crops, causing a food shortage for native Romanians.

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November 23rd in music.

 

1974 - The Rolling Stones scored their fifth US No. 1 album with 'It's Only Rock 'N Roll'. The album was the last Stones album for guitarist Mick Taylor.

 

1974 - Gary Wright leaves Spooky Tooth to launch a solo career.

 

1974 - One Hit Wonder Billy Swan started a two week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'I Can Help'. The song was a hit throughout most of Europe and also reached No.1 in Australia.

 

1979 - Pink Floyd released 'Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)' which rapidly topped the charts in the US and a further 9 countries. Featuring children from Islington Green School in North London, close to Floyd's Britannia Row Studios.

 

1981 - AC/DC release the album For Those About to Rock We Salute You, their follow-up to Back In Black. The title track, complete with custom cannons, becomes their regular encore.

 

Birthdays:

 

1925 - Johnny Mandel. Grammy and Oscar-winning American composer and arranger. His most famous composition is 'Suicide Is Painless' (theme from the movie and TV series M*A*S*H). Mandel also worked with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett.

 

1939 - Betty Everett. Soul singer, 1964 US No. 6 single 'The Shoop Shoop Song, It's In His Kiss’. She died 8.19.2001, aged 61. Born in Greenwood, Mississippi.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 24, 1963, at 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the “murder with malice” of Oswald and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

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On November 24, 1971, a hijacker calling himself D.B. Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a raging thunderstorm over Washington State. He had $200,000 in ransom money in his possession.

Cooper commandeered the aircraft shortly after takeoff, showing a flight attendant something that looked like a bomb and informing the crew that he wanted $200,000, four parachutes, and “no funny stuff.” The plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where authorities met Cooper’s demands and evacuated most of the passengers. Cooper then demanded that the plane fly toward Mexico at a low altitude and ordered the remaining crew into the cockpit.

At 8:13 p.m., as the plane flew over the Lewis River in southwest Washington, the plane’s pressure gauge recorded Cooper’s jump from the aircraft. Wearing only wraparound sunglasses, a thin suit, and a raincoat, Cooper parachuted into a thunderstorm with winds in excess of 100 mph and temperatures well below zero at the 10,000-foot altitude where he began his fall. The storm prevented an immediate capture, and most authorities assumed he was killed during his apparently suicidal jump. No trace of Cooper was found during a massive search.

In 1980, an eight-year-old boy uncovered a stack of nearly $5,880 of the ransom money in the sands along the north bank of the Columbia River, five miles from Vancouver, Washington. The fate of Cooper remains a mystery.

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On November 24, 1849, John Froelich, the inventor of the first internal-combustion traction motor, or tractor, is born in Iowa.

At the end of the 19th century, Froelich operated a grain elevator and mobile threshing service: Every year at harvest time, he dragged a crew of hired hands and a heavy steam-powered thresher through Iowa and the Dakotas, threshing farmers’ crops for a fee. His machine was bulky, hard to transport and expensive to use, and it was also dangerous: One spark from the boiler on a windy day could set the whole prairie afire. So, in 1890, Froelich decided to try something new: Instead of that cumbersome, hazardous steam engine, he and his blacksmith mounted a one-cylinder gasoline engine on his steam engine’s running gear and set off for a nearby field to see if it worked.

It did: Froelich’s tractor chugged along safely at three miles per hour. But the real test came when Froelich and his team took their new machine out on their annual threshing tour, and it was a success there, too: Using just 26 gallons of gas, they threshed more than a thousand bushels of grain every day (72,000 bushels in all). What’s more, they did it without starting a single fire.

In 1894, Froelich and eight investors formed the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company. They built four prototype tractors and sold two (though both were soon returned). To make money, the company branched out into stationary engines (its first one powered a printing press at the Waterloo Courier newspaper). Froelich was more interested in farming equipment than engines more generally, however, and he left the company in 1895.

Waterloo kept working on its tractor designs, but between 1896 and 1914 it sold just 20 tractors in all. In 1914, the company introduced its first Waterloo Boy Model “R” single-speed tractor, which sold very well: 118 in 1914 alone. The next year, its two-speed Model “N” was even more successful. In 1918, the John Deere plow-manufacturing company bought Waterloo for $2,350,000.

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November 24th in music.

 

1976 - Chicago started a three week run at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with 'If You Leave Me Now', the American group's only UK No. 1.

 

Birthdays:

 

1957 - Chris Hayes. Lead guitarist from Huey Lewis and the News who had the 1985 US No. 1 single 'The Power Of Love'. Born in Great Lakes, Illinois.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 25, 1783, nearly three months after the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolution, the last British soldiers withdraw from New York City, the last British military position in the United States. After the last Redcoat departed New York, U.S. General George Washington entered the city in triumph to the cheers of New Yorkers. The city had remained in British hands since its capture in September 1776.

Four months after New York was returned to the victorious Patriots, the city was declared to be the capital of the United States. In 1789, it was the site of Washington’s inauguration as the first U.S. president and remained the nation’s capital until 1790, when Philadelphia became the second capital of the United States under the U.S. Constitution.

New Yorkers shaped the history of two new nations. The British evacuated their New York Loyalists to remaining British territories, mainly in Canada. These families had been dispossessed of their land and belongings by the victorious Patriots because of their continued support of the British king and were able to regain some financial independence through lands granted to them by the British in western Quebec (now Ontario) and Nova Scotia. Their arrival in Canada permanently shifted the demographics of what had been French-speaking New France until 1763 into an English-speaking colony, and later nation, with the exception of a French-speaking and culturally French area in eastern Canada that is now Quebec.

In 1784, one year after their arrival, the new Loyalist population spurred the creation of New Brunswick in the previously unpopulated (by Europeans, at least) lands west of the Bay of Fundy in what had been Nova Scotia. In 1785, the Loyalists yet again made their mark on Canadian history when their combined settlements at Parrtown and Carleton of approximately 14,000 people became British North America’s first incorporated city under the name City of Saint John. The division between the Anglophone and Francophone sections was ultimately recognized by creating the English-dominant province of Ontario, west of Quebec, in 1867.

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November 25th in music.

 

1972 - Chuck Berry was at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with 'My Ding a-Ling', his only UK No. 1. The song was originally recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952. Berry's version was from a concert recorded at the Locarno ballroom in Coventry, England, on 3 February 1972. Boston radio station WMEX disc jockey Jim Connors was credited with a gold record for discovering the song and pushing it to No. 1 over the airwaves and amongst his peers in the United States.

 

Birthdays:

 

1940 - Percy Sledge. Soul singer, (1966 US No. 1 single 'When A Man Loves A Woman'). Born in Leighton, Alabama. He died 4.14.2015.

 

1944 - Bev Bevan. English rock musician, drummer with Electric Light Orchestra who had the 1979 US No. 4 single 'Don't Bring Me Down' plus 26 other Top 40 hits. Bevan also served as the touring drummer for Black Sabbath during their 1983 Born Again Tour. Born in Sparkhill, Birmingham, England.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

The tradition of celebrating the holiday on Thursday dates back to the early history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, when post-harvest holidays were celebrated on the weekday regularly set aside as “Lecture Day,” a midweek church meeting where topical sermons were presented. A famous Thanksgiving observance occurred in the autumn of 1621, when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited local members of the Wampanoag tribe to join the Pilgrims in a festival held in gratitude for the bounty of the season.

Thanksgiving became an annual custom throughout New England in the 17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga. In 1789, President George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday, when, at the request of Congress, he proclaimed November 26, a Thursday, as a day of national thanksgiving for the U.S. Constitution. However, it was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to officially fall on the last Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated nationally.

With a few deviations, Lincoln’s precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president, until 1939. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt departed from tradition by declaring November 23, the next to last Thursday that year, as Thanksgiving Day. Considerable controversy surrounded this deviation, and some Americans refused to honor Roosevelt’s declaration. For the next two years, Roosevelt repeated the unpopular proclamation, but on November 26, 1941, he admitted his mistake and signed a bill into law officially making the fourth Thursday in November the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day.

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On November 26, 1941, Adm. Chuichi Nagumo leads the Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force, toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should “negotiations with the United States reach a successful conclusion, the task force will immediately put about and return to the homeland.”

Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia, and to repudiate the Tripartite “Axis” Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation, they just didn’t know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway, all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina. As a result of this “bad faith” action, President Roosevelt ordered that a conciliatory gesture of resuming monthly oil supplies for Japanese civilian needs canceled. Hull also rejected Tokyo’s “Plan B,” a temporary relaxation of the crisis, and of sanctions, but without any concessions on Japan’s part. Prime Minister Tojo considered this an ultimatum, and more or less gave up on diplomatic channels as the means of resolving the impasse.

Nagumo had no experience with naval aviation, having never commanded a fleet of aircraft carriers in his life. This role was a reward for a lifetime of faithful service. Nagumo, while a man of action, did not like taking unnecessary risks, which he considered an attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor to be. But Chief of Staff Rear Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto thought differently; while also opposing war with the United States, he believed the only hope for a Japanese victory was a swift surprise attack, via carrier warfare, against the U.S. fleet. And as far as the Roosevelt War Department was concerned, if war was inevitable, it desired “that Japan commit the first overt act.”

[Schmidt Meister]

November 26th in music.

 

1955 - Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" becomes the first rock and roll record to hit No. 1 in the UK, thanks to its inclusion in the movie Blackboard Jungle.

 

1983 - Quiet Riot's Metal Health hits No. 1 in America, becoming the first heavy metal album to reach the top spot.

 

1988 - Russian cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 7 took into space a cassette copy of the latest Pink Floyd album Delicate Sound Of Thunder and played it in orbit, making Pink Floyd the first rock band to be played in space. David Gilmour and Nick Mason both attended the launch of the spacecraft.

 

1994 - The Eagles started a two-week run at No. 1 on the US album chart with 'Hell Freezes Over.' The album name is in reference to a quote by Don Henley after the band's breakup in 1980; he commented that the band would play together again when …

 

Birthdays:

 

1937 - Bob Babbitt. Hungarian-American bassist, most famous for his work as a member of Motown Records' studio band, the Funk Brothers, from 1966 to 1972. Babbitt's most notable bass performances include 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours' by Stevie Wonder, 'War' by Edwin Starr, 'The Tears of a Clown' by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, 'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)' and 'Inner City Blues' by Marvin Gaye', and 'Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)' by The Temptations. Bob Babbitt died on 7.16.2012, aged 74.

 

1939 - David White. American singer-songwriter. He formed, and was a founding member of the doo-wop quartet Danny & the Juniors as well as being a founding member of the pop trio The Spokesmen. He wrote the Rock and Roll anthem, 'Rock and Roll is Here to Stay' and co-wrote a number of other hit songs, including 'At the Hop,' a hit for Danny & the Juniors. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He died in Las Vegas on 3.16.2019 age 79.

 

1945 - John McVie. Bassist with the rock band Fleetwood Mac who had the 1977 US No. 1 single 'Dreams' taken from their worldwide No. 1 album Rumours which spent 31 weeks on the US chart. He was also a member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Born in Ealing, London, England.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 27th in music.

1968 - Steppenwolf's self-titled debut album is certified gold.

1986 - Bon Jovi were at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'You Give Love A Bad Name'. Released as the first single from the album Slippery When Wet, in 2009 it was named the 20th-greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.

Birthdays:

1942 - Jimi Hendrix. Guitarist, singer, songwriter who had the 1968 US No. 1 album 'Electric Ladyland' and the 1970 UK No. 1 single 'Voodoo Chile’. Hendrix is widely considered to be one the greatest guitarist in musical history made appearances at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival. Born in Seattle, Washington. Hendrix died on 9.18.1970.

1945 - Randy Brecker. Trumpeter, flugelhornist for Blood, Sweat & Tears. They scored the 1969 US No. 2 single 'Spinning Wheel', and the 1969 US No. 12 single 'You've Made Me So Very Happy'. They had a US No. 1 with their second album Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968. Born in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

1948 - Dave Winthrop - Sax player and flautist for Supertramp.

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On November 28, 1520, after sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now bear his name, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific Ocean with three ships, becoming the first European explorer to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic.

On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Rio de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.

On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in 99 days, crossing waters so strangely calm that the ocean was named “Pacific,” from the Latin word pacificus, meaning “tranquil.” By the end, the men were out of food and chewed the leather parts of their gear to keep themselves alive. On March 6, 1521, the expedition landed at the island of Guam.

Ten days later, they dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu, they were only about 400 miles from the Spice Islands. Magellan met with the chief of Cebu, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan. In fighting on April 27, Magellan was hit by a poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades.

After Magellan’s death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Vittoria, continued west under the command of Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlucar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.

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On November 28, 1895, piloting a gas-powered “horseless carriage” of his and his brother’s own design, the mechanic, inventor and now racecar driver Frank Duryea wins the first motor-car race in the United States. The race, sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald, was intended to drum up publicity for the nascent American car industry. It worked, especially for the Duryeas: In the year after the Times-Herald race, the brothers sold 13 of their eponymous Motor Wagons, more than any other carmaker in America.

The race course was originally supposed to loop from Chicago to Waukegan, Illinois, and back (a harrowing 92 miles) but, thanks to the sudden arrival of a spectacular blizzard, race organizers decided to abbreviate the route. (“With eight inches of snow,” one journalist wrote later, “Waukegan might as well have been Timbuktu.”) The racers would be driving just 50 miles, from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back again. The other rules would remain the same: Vehicles had to have at least three wheels, all wrapped in twine to give traction in the snow, and they also had to be able to carry at least two people, the driver and a race-appointed umpire who would ride along to guard against cheating.

Because of the bad weather, only six of 89 racers made it to the starting line: the Duryea; three Benz cars, one sponsored by Macy’s in New York; and two electrics whose batteries died almost immediately after the race began.

About 10 hours after the race began, the Duryea chugged across the finish line. The only other finisher was one of the Benzes (not the one from Macy’s: that one collided with a streetcar on the way to Evanston and with a sleigh and then a hack on the return trip), which sloshed to a finish almost two hours later. The victorious Duryeas won $2,000 and enough publicity to establish themselves as the American motor-car company. From then on, for the Duryeas and all who followed, automobile manufacturing was a business, not just a hobby.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 28th in music.

 

1964 - The Shangri-Las went to No. 1 on the US singles chart with the teenage tragedy song, 'Leader Of The Pack'. When released in the UK the song was refused airplay by the BBC, (probably due to its tragedy theme), where it went on to chart three times: No. 11 in 1965; No. 3 in 1972 (by which time the BBC ban had been lifted); and once again at No. 7 in 1976.

 

1964 - The Kinks' first hit, "You Really Got Me," peaks at No. 7 in America.

 

Birthdays:

 

1936 - Roy McCurdy. Jazz drummer of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Born in Rochester, New York.

 

1943 - Randy Newman, singer, songwriter, Composer of 'Mama Told Me Not To Come’ and the 1977 US No. 2 single 'Short People.' Once hailed as the greatest songwriter alive by Paul McCartney. Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer, his film scores include Ragtime, Toy Story; A Bug's Life; Toy Story 2; Monsters, Inc.; Cars; Toy Story 3; and Monsters University. Born in Los Angeles, California.

 

1948 - Beeb Birtles, born Gerard Bertelkamp in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from Australian group, Little River Band who scored the 1978 US No. 3 single 'Reminiscing' plus 12 other US Top 40 singles selling more than 30 million records. Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 29, 1947, despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations passed Resolution 181, which called for the partition of British-ruled Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state (back then Jews living in the Holy Land were called Palestinians and the Palestine Post was a Jewish-owned newspaper whose name was only later changed to the Jerusalem Post).  

It was approved on November 29, 1947, with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, 10 abstentions and one absent.

Even France voted in favor of the partition plan which may have been the last time France voted in favor of Israel at the UN. And in what started a pattern that continues for Middle East votes today Great Britain didn’t have the guts to take a stand (they abstained).

On that very same day, November 29th, 1947 the Arab world declared war on the nascent Jewish State, and seventy-one years later most of the Arab league still refuses to acknowledge that Jewish State’s existence. The Arab League announced its intention to occupy Palestine militarily to forcibly prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.

Here are a few things about Israel that the UN, the EU, Arab League or even the Democratic Party don’t understand.  

Jews were in the Holy Land since the time of Abraham, over 4,000 years ago.

He even purchased land there in Hebron (he overpaid).

Abraham’s grandson Jacob (Israel) purchased land at Shechem. 

Though the numbers have varied Jews have lived in the Holy Land continuously since Joshua crossed the Jordan River 3,500 years ago (by the way, the Jordan River is more like a creek).

The top of the Temple Mount was purchased from Araunah the Jebusite, by King David for the precise purpose of building Jewish Temples about 3,000 years ago. Jews have lived in Jerusalem ever since.

After the Romans crushed the Bar Kochba rebellion, back in 135 CE, Roman occupiers decided to not just kill Jews. In addition, they also wanted to destroy any future Jewish hope for freedom in the Land of Israel. They had a smart, yet devious strategy in order to accomplish this. They renamed the Jewish capital Jerusalem, and called it “Aelia Capitolina.”  In addition, they named the land of Judea a new name: Syria-Palestina.

Their goals were clear, they wanted to remove any connection of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel. But the Jewish people held on tightly to their faith, and never let the fictional name take root.

The methodology of the Romans and Israel’s enemies today are the same, attack the Jewish identity. SO what is Palestine? An attempt to rename Israel so that Jews will forget their eternal connection to the Land of Israel.

So who were the actual “Palestinians” of two millennia ago?

They were the Jews.

Not only 2,000 years ago, but even in the middle of the 1800’s, the Jews were a majority in the city of Jerusalem. Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, visited the Holy Land. Even he wrote in his memoirs that there is a Jewish majority in the city of Jerusalem. This is before the Zionist movement even existed.

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is ancient and eternal. The use of the word “Palestine” is largely just a modern ploy to disconnect thew Jewish people from the Land of Israel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAwfEl0eyY4&feature=emb_logo

The UN vote seventy-two years ago UN didn’t give the Jews the right to live in the holy land, neither did any country or the land purchases by biblical heroes. The landlord was never the Arabs (before the partition in 1947 there was never a state of Palestine). Jews have lived in the Holy Land continuously for the past 3,500 years because of an unbreakable contract with the real landlord, God.  

We may have been punished at times with exile but God always promised our return. The UN may have voted for partition, but they were simply acting as the agent of God, and if they didn’t pass that resolution, he would have found another way.

As Israel’s first prime minister David Ben Gurion once told CBS News

“In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”

About 2,600 years ago the prophet Jeremiah was sitting in prison as the Armies of Nebuchadnezzar were about to invade the Kingdom of Judea. His cousin Hanamel visited him and asked the prophet to buy his land in the field in his hometown of Anathoth. Needless to say, property values were not great since Jerusalem was being besieged by what was then the most powerful army in the world. It didn’t seem as if it would be a good investment. But God told Jeremiah to buy the land, not because the prophet would ever get to enjoy it, but as a symbol, that one day the Jews would return to the land.

And on November 29, 1947, God kept his promise.

Somewhere buried under the ground in the biblical city of Anathoth the bill of sale is buried, as an everlasting symbol to the Jewish people’s eternal covenant with God, a covenant that was recognized by the UN via General Assembly Resolution 181.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 29, 1942, coffee joins the list of items rationed in the United States. Despite record coffee production in Latin American countries, the growing demand for the bean from both military and civilian sources, and the demands placed on shipping, which was needed for other purposes, required the limiting of its availability.

Scarcity or shortages were rarely the reason for rationing during the war. Rationing was generally employed for two reasons: (1) to guarantee a fair distribution of resources and foodstuffs to all citizens; and (2) to give priority to military use for certain raw materials, given the present emergency.

At first, limiting the use of certain products was voluntary. For example, President Roosevelt launched “scrap drives” to scare up throwaway rubber-old garden hoses, tires, bathing caps, etc., in light of the Japanese capture of the Dutch East Indies, a source of rubber for the United States. Collections were then redeemed at gas stations for a penny a pound. Patriotism and the desire to aid the war effort were enough in the early days of the war.

But as U.S. shipping, including oil tankers, became increasingly vulnerable to German U-boat attacks, gas became the first resource to be rationed. Starting in May 1942, in 17 eastern states, car owners were restricted to three gallons of gas a week. By the end of the year, gas rationing extended to the rest of the country, requiring drivers to paste ration stamps onto the windshields of their cars. Butter was another item rationed, as supplies were reserved for military breakfasts. Along with coffee, the sugar and milk that went with it were also limited. All together, about one-third of all food commonly consumed by civilians was rationed at one time or another during the war. The black market, an underground source of rationed goods at prices higher than the ceilings set by the Office of Price Administration, was a supply source for those Americans with the disposable incomes needed to pay the inflated prices.

Some items came off the rationing list early; coffee was released as early as July 1943, but sugar was rationed until June 1947.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 29th in music.

 

1977 - Kansas' Point of Know Return album is certified Platinum.

 

1978 - Neil Young's Comes a Time album is certified Gold.

 

Birthdays:

 

1939 - Domenico "Meco" Monardo. His space disco version of the Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band hits No. 1 in 1977. Born in Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania.

 

1941 - Denny Doherty. From American folk rock vocal group The Mamas & the Papas who had the 1965 hit 'California Dreamin'', the 1966 US No. 1 single 'Monday Monday' and the 1967 hit 'Dedicated to the One I Love'. Doherty started his musical career in 1956 with a band called the Hepsters and in 1963, established a friendship with Cass Elliot when she was with a band called The Big 3. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Doherty died on 1.19.2007 at 66.

 

1943 - Tim Davis. American drummer, singer and songwriter, who co-founded the Steve Miller Band who had the 1974 US No. 1 single 'The Joker', the 1976 hit 'Fly Like an Eagle' and the 1982 US No. 1 hit 'Abracadabra'. He died on 9.20.1988 age 44.

 

1944 - Felix Cavaliere. Keyboards, with American rock band, The Rascals (initially known as The Young Rascals) who had the US No. 1 hits 'Good Lovin'' (1966), 'Groovin'' (1967), and 'People Got to Be Free' (1968). Born in Pelham, New York.

 

1951 - Barry Goudreau. Guitar, Boston, 1977 single 'More Than A Feeling', 1986 US No. 1 single 'Amanda'. Boston have sold more than 75 million records worldwide, including 31 million albums in the United States, of which 17 million were from their self-titled debut album and seven million were for their second album, Don't Look Back, making them one of the world's best-selling artists. Born in Boston, Massachusetts.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 30, 1874, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, is born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.

Churchill came from a prestigious family with a long history of military service and joined the British Fourth Hussars upon his father’s death in 1895. During the next five years, he enjoyed an illustrious military career, serving in India, the Sudan, and South Africa, and distinguishing himself several times in battle. In 1899, he resigned his commission to concentrate on his literary and political career and in 1900 was elected to Parliament as a Conservative MP from Oldham. In 1904, he joined the Liberals, serving in a number of important posts before being appointed Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, where he worked to bring the British navy to a readiness for the war he foresaw.

In 1915, in the second year of World War I, Churchill was held responsible for the disastrous Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, and he was excluded from the war coalition government. He resigned and volunteered to command an infantry battalion in France. However, in 1917, he returned to politics as a cabinet member in the Liberal government of Lloyd George. From 1919 to 1921, he was secretary of state for war and in 1924 returned to the Conservative Party, where two years later he played a leading role in the defeat of the General Strike of 1926. Out of office from 1929 to 1939, Churchill issued unheeded warnings of the threat of German and Japanese aggression.

After the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Churchill was called back to his post as First Lord of the Admiralty and eight months later replaced the ineffectual Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of a new coalition government. In the first year of his administration, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender.” He rallied the British people to a resolute resistance and expertly orchestrated Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin into an alliance that eventually crushed the Axis.

In July 1945, 10 weeks after Germany’s defeat, his Conservative government suffered an electoral loss against Clement Attlee’s Labour Party, and Churchill resigned as prime minister. He became leader of the opposition and in 1951 was again elected prime minister. Two years later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his six-volume historical study of World War II and for his political speeches. In 1955, he retired as prime minister but remained in Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 30, 1939, the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.

The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties, and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers, on skis and bicycles, fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.

President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 30th in music.

 

1979 - Pink Floyd's album The Wall is released, and sells over 13 million copies. The powerful concept album's themes of isolation and despair resonate with legions of fans, and it even spawns a No. 1 single - "Another Brick In The Wall (part II).

 

Birthdays:

 

1929 - Dick Clark. The "world's oldest teenager," he becomes a cultural icon as host of US TV's longest running music show American Bandstand and he created and produced the annual American Music Awards show. Born in Mount Vernon, New York. Clark died on 4.18.2012.

 

1945 - Roger Glover. Bassist with Deep Purple who had the 1970 single 'Black Night' and the 1973 US No. 4 single 'Smoke On The Water'. Born in Wales.

 

1954 - George McArdale. From Australian group, Little River Band who scored the 1978 US No. 3 single 'Reminiscing' plus 12 other US Top 40 singles selling more than 30 million records.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.

Ford’s Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple, sturdy and relatively inexpensive, but not inexpensive enough for Ford, who was determined to build “motor car[s] for the great multitude.” (“When I’m through,” he said, “about everybody will have one.”) In order to lower the price of his cars, Ford figured, he would just have to find a way to build them more efficiently.

Ford had been trying to increase his factories’ productivity for years. The workers who built his Model N cars (the Model T’s predecessor) arranged the parts in a row on the floor, put the under-construction auto on skids and dragged it down the line as they worked. Later, the streamlining process grew more sophisticated. Ford broke the Model T’s assembly into 84 discrete steps, for example, and trained each of his workers to do just one. He also hired motion-study expert Frederick Taylor to make those jobs even more efficient. Meanwhile, he built machines that could stamp out parts automatically (and much more quickly than even the fastest human worker could).

The most significant piece of Ford’s efficiency crusade was the assembly line. Inspired by the continuous-flow production methods used by flour mills, breweries, canneries and industrial bakeries, along with the disassembly of animal carcasses in Chicago’s meat-packing plants, Ford installed moving lines for bits and pieces of the manufacturing process: For instance, workers built motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulley powered conveyor belts. In December 1913, he unveiled the pièce de résistance: the moving-chassis assembly line.

In February 1914, he added a mechanized belt that chugged along at a speed of six feet per minute. As the pace accelerated, Ford produced more and more cars, and on June 4, 1924, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park assembly line. Though the Model T did not last much longer, by the middle of the 1920s, customers wanted a car that was inexpensive and had all the bells and whistles that the Model T scorned, it had ushered in the era of the automobile for everyone.