On This Day in History

[Schmidt Meister]

1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

How many nations are currently known to have developed and stockpiled hydrogen bombs? How many others are suspected or assumed to have done this?

I didn’t know enough to comment so I looked it up.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons says that only five countries possess nuclear-weapons: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
India and Pakistan never signed the treaty and they are believed to possess them.
North Korea ratified and then withdrew and now says it has tested them but different people think they are lying.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 2, 1777, the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.
Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747. He became an apprentice to a merchant at 13 and soon went to sea, traveling first to the West Indies and then to North America as a young man. In Virginia at the onset of the American Revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775.
After departing Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England’s Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in “gain than honor.” Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones’ crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife’s teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship’s captain and lieutenant.
In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!” A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship.
One of the greatest naval commanders in history, Jones is remembered as a “Father of the American Navy,” along with fellow Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry. John Paul Jones is buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 2, 1947, The Hughes Flying Boat, at one time the largest aircraft ever built, is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce (hence the nickname the Spruce Goose) the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.
Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.
Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the “Spruce Goose” was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.
Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.
Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 2nd In Music

1920 - KDKA in Pittsburgh becomes the first commercially licensed radio station in the United States. They are not the first station on the air, but the first to get the broadcast license. With consumers unsure of the benefits of radio, the station announces results of the Harding-Cox presidential election, getting the news to those with a radio much faster than everyone who had to wait for the morning paper.

1963 - Peter, Paul and Mary's album ‘In The Wind’ hits No. 1 in America.

1967 - Cream released their second studio album Disraeli Gears which became the group's American breakthrough, becoming a massive seller in 1968, and reaching No. 4 on the American charts. The album features the two singles 'Strange Brew' and 'Sunshine of Your Love'.

1969 - Sugar Sugar by The Archies was at No. 1 on the UK singles chart. The single became the longest running One Hit Wonder in the UK with eight week's at the top of the charts.

1969 - Creedence Clearwater Revival released Willy and the Poor Boys, the third studio album that the band released in this year. The album features the songs 'Down on the Corner', from which the album got its name, 'Fortunate Son', and their version of the Lead Belly song 'Cotton Fields'.

1974 - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's greatest hits album So Far goes to No. 1 in America.

Birthdays:

1944 - Keith Emerson. Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer is born in Todmorden, Yorkshire, England, where his family has been evacuated during World War II.

1965 - Bobby Dall. Poison, bassist from American rock band Poison who scored the 1988 US No. 1 single 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' that sold over 45 million records worldwide. Born in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

 

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 3, 1903, with the support of the U.S. government, Panama issues a declaration of independence from Colombia. The revolution was engineered by a Panamanian faction backed by the Panama Canal Company, a French-U.S. corporation that hoped to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with a waterway across the Isthmus of Panama.
In 1903, the Hay-Herrán Treaty was signed with Colombia, granting the United States use of the Isthmus of Panama in exchange for financial compensation. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, but the Colombian Senate, fearing a loss of sovereignty, refused. In response, President Theodore Roosevelt gave tacit approval to a rebellion by Panamanian nationalists, which began on November 3, 1903. To aid the rebels, the U.S.-administered railroad in Panama removed its trains from the northern terminus of Colón, thus stranding Colombian troops sent to crush the insurrection. Other Colombian forces were discouraged from marching on Panama by the arrival of the U.S. warship Nashville.
On November 6, the United States recognized the Republic of Panama, and on November 18 the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed with Panama, granting the United States exclusive and permanent possession of the Panama Canal Zone. In exchange, Panama received $10 million and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later. The treaty was negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and the owner of the Panama Canal Company. Almost immediately, the treaty was condemned by many Panamanians as an infringement on their country’s new national sovereignty.
On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. After decades of protest and negotiations, (and under the administration of a moron Democratic President, Jimmy Carter) the Panama Canal passed to Panamanian control in December 1999.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 3, 1957, the Soviet Union launches the first animal into space, a dog name Laika, aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft.
Laika, part Siberian husky, lived as a stray on the Moscow streets before being enlisted into the Soviet space program. Laika survived for several days as a passenger in the USSR’s second artificial Earth satellite, kept alive by a sophisticated life-support system. Electrodes attached to her body provided scientists on the ground with important information about the biological effects of space travel. She died after the batteries of her life-support system ran down.
At least a dozen more Russian dogs were launched into space in preparation for the first manned Soviet space mission, and at least five of these dogs died in flight. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1. He orbited Earth once before landing safely in the USSR.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 3rd In Music

1976 - Firefall's self-titled album is certified Gold.

1979 - The Eagles' sixth album, The Long Run, hits No. 1 in America, where it stays for the rest of 1979 (nine weeks).

Birthdays:

1933 - John Barry. English composer and conductor. He composed the scores for 11 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987. He wrote the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning scores to the films Dances with Wolves and Out of Africa! Barry died on 1.31.2011 aged 77.

1945 - Nick Simper. Original bass player in Deep Purple. Born in Middlesex, England.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 4, 1979, student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. The students were enraged that the deposed Shah had been allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment and they threatened to murder hostages if any rescue was attempted. Days later, Iran’s provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country, and the fate of the hostages.
Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the United States government. The remaining 52 captives were left at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next 14 months.
President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued. Three months later, the former shah died of cancer in Egypt, but the crisis continued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations finally began between the United States and Iran.
On January 20, 1981, the day of Reagan’s inauguration, the United States freed almost $3 billion in frozen Iranian assets and promised $5 billion more in financial aid. Minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the hostages flew out of Iran on an Algerian airliner, ending their 444-day ordeal.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally shot after attending a peace rally held in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square in Israel. Rabin later died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.
The 73-year-old prime minister was walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student who had connections to the far-right Jewish group Eyal. Israeli police arrested Amir at the scene of the shooting, and he later confessed to the assassination, explaining at his arraignment that he killed Rabin because the prime minister wanted “to give our country to the Arabs.”
Born in Jerusalem, Rabin was a leader of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and served as chief-of-staff of Israel’s armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967. After serving as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Rabin entered the Labour Party and became prime minister in 1974. As prime minister, he conducted the negotiations that resulted in a 1974 cease-fire with Syria and the 1975 military disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt. In 1977, Rabin resigned as prime minister over a scandal involving his holding of bank accounts in the United States in violation of Israeli law. From 1984 to 1990, he served as his country’s defense minister.
In 1992, Rabin led the Labour Party to election victory and became Israel’s prime minister again. In 1993, he signed the historic Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and in 1994 concluded a formal peace agreement with the Palestinians. In October 1994, Rabin and Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres. One year later, Rabin was assassinated. Peres succeeded him as prime minister.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 4, 1956, a spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.The problems in Hungary began in October 1956, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. In response, Communist Party officials appointed Imre Nagy, a former premier who had been dismissed from the party for his criticisms of Stalinist policies, as the new premier. Nagy tried to restore peace and asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops. The Soviets did so, but Nagy then tried to push the Hungarian revolt forward by abolishing one-party rule. He also announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet bloc’s equivalent of NATO). On November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush, once and for all, the national uprising. Vicious street fighting broke out, but the Soviets’ great power ensured victory. At 5:20 a.m., Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced the invasion to the nation in a grim, 35-second broadcast, declaring: “Our troops are fighting. The Government is in place.” Within hours, though, Nagy sought asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest. He was captured shortly thereafter and executed two years later. Nagy’s former colleague and imminent replacement, János Kádár, who had been flown secretly from Moscow to the city of Szolnok, 60 miles southeast of the capital, prepared to take power with Moscow’s backing. The Soviet action stunned many people in the West. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had pledged a retreat from the Stalinist policies and repression of the past, but the violent actions in Budapest suggested otherwise. An estimated 2,500 Hungarians died and 200,000 more fled as refugees. Sporadic armed resistance, strikes and mass arrests continued for months thereafter, causing substantial economic disruption.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 4th In Music

1972 - Johnny Nash started a three week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'I Can See Clearly Now', his only US chart topper and the first reggae tune to top the chart.

1978 - Linda Ronstadt's LP Living In The USA hits No. 1.

2007 - The Eagles went to No. 1 on the UK album chart with Long Road Out of Eden. It was the group's first full studio album since The Long Run in 1979 and became the highest selling album of the year.

Birthdays:

1965 - Jeff Scott Soto. Journey and Yngwie Malmsteen Band. Born in Brooklyn, New York.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 5, 1941, the Combined Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In just over a month's time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala (now known as Malaysia), the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.
Relations between the United States and Japan had been deteriorating quickly since Japan’s occupation of Indochina in 1940 and the implicit menacing of the Philippines (an American protectorate), with the occupation of the Cam Ranh naval base approximately 800 miles from Manila. American retaliation included the seizing of all Japanese assets in the States and the closing of the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. In September 1941, President Roosevelt issued a statement, drafted by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that threatened war between the United States and Japan should the Japanese encroach any further on territory in Southeast Asia or the South Pacific.
The Japanese military had long dominated Japanese foreign affairs; although official negotiations between the U.S. secretary of state and his Japanese counterpart to ease tensions were ongoing, Hideki Tojo, the minister of war who would soon be prime minister, had no intention of withdrawing from captured territories. He also construed the American “threat” of war as an ultimatum and prepared to deliver the first blow in a Japanese-American confrontation: the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
And so Tokyo delivered the order to all pertinent Fleet commanders, that not only the United States, and its protectorate the Philippines, but British and Dutch colonies in the Pacific were to be attacked. War was going to be declared on the West.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 5th In Music

1970 - Led Zeppelin release "Immigrant Song" in the US.

1974 - The Eagles release "Best Of My Love."

Birthdays:

1911 - Roy Rogers. Singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies & The Roy Rogers Show. The show ran on radio for 9 years before moving to TV from 1951 - 1957. He scored 8 US Top 40 country hits. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rogers died on 7.6.1998.

1941 - Art Garfunkel. Singer, actor. With Paul Simon as Simon and Garfunkel they scored the No. 1 hits 'The Sound of Silence', 'Bridge over Troubled Water' and 'Mrs. Robinson'. Born in Queens, New York.

1943 - Pablo Gomez. From Spanish beat group Los Bravos who had the 1966 US No. 4 single 'Black Is Black'. They were the first Spanish rock band to have a UK & US hit single.

1947 - Peter Noone. Singer with English beat rock band, Herman's Hermits who scored the 1964 single 'I'm Into Something Good' and the 1965 US No. 1 single 'Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter'. Born in Davyhulme, Manchester, England.

1948 - Don McDougall. Guitarist for The Guess Who. Born in Canada.

1957 - David Moyse. Guitarist for the Australian soft rock band Air Supply who scored the 1980 single 'All Out Of Love' and the 1981 US No. 1 single 'The One That You Love'. Born in Adelaide, Australia.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.
Like his Union counterpart, President Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky, born in 1808. He attended West Point and graduated in 1828. After serving in the Black Hawk War of 1832, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of General (and future U.S. president) Zachary Taylor, in 1835. However,Sarah contracted malaria and died within several months of their marriage. Davis married Varina Howells in 1845. He served in the Mexican War (1846-48), during which he was wounded. After the war, he was appointed to fill a vacant U.S. senate seat from Mississippi, and later served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.
When the Southern states began seceding after the election of Abraham Lincoln in the winter of 1860 and 1861, Davis suspected that he might be the choice of his fellow Southerners for their interim president. When the newly seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, in February1861, they decided just that. Davis expressed great fear about what lay ahead. “Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.” On November 6, Davis was elected to a six-year term as established by the Confederate constitution. He remained president until May 5, 1865, when the Confederate government was officially dissolved.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, first gained national stature during his campaign against Stephen Douglas of Illinois for a U.S. Senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party. In 1860, Lincoln won the party’s presidential nomination.
In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell. The announcement of Lincoln’s victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of the year had been publicly threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House.
By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In 1863, as the tide turned against the Confederacy, Lincoln emancipated the slaves and in 1864 won reelection. In April 1865, he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after the American Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
For preserving the Union and bringing an end to slavery, and for his unique character and powerful oratory, Lincoln is hailed as one of the greatest American presidents.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers beats Princeton, 6-4, in the first college football game. The game, played with a soccer ball before roughly 100 fans in New Brunswick, New Jersey, resembles rugby instead of today's football.
Even off the playing fields, the rivalry between the New Jersey schools, located 20 miles apart, was heated. At the time, Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey.
"For years each had striven for possession of an old Revolutionary cannon, making night forays and lugging it back and forth time and again," recalled Rutgers' John W. Herbert, who played in the first game, in a 1930 newspaper feature. "Not long before the first football game, the canny Princetonians had settled this competition in their own favor by ignominiously sinking the gun in several feet of concrete."
In 1866, Princeton walloped Rutgers, 40-2, in baseball. Wanting to even the score, Rutgers challenged Princeton to a three-game football series for 1869. Each school had 25 players. Every score counted as a "game”, the contest was supposed to end when the teams combined for 10 "games." Rutgers finished with six games to Princeton's four.
"To describe the varying fortunes of the match...would be a waste of labor for every game was like the one before," wrote Rutgers' student newspaper, The Targum. "There was the same headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking."
Princeton won the rematch, but the expected third game never was played. Both teams finished the 1869 season with a 1-1 record.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 6th In Music

1976 - The Steve Miller Band's "Rock 'N' Me" hits No. 1 in the US, giving the group their second chart-topper, following "The Joker."

1976 - Blue Öyster Cult land their biggest hit as "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" peaks at No. 12 in the US. The song is not about suicide, but about reuniting with loved ones in the afterlife.

1993 - Meat Loaf was at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'I'd' Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That). The track was also a No. 1 in over 25 other countries.

Birthdays:

1948 - Glenn Frey. After moving to Los Angeles, he forms the Eagles with Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner. 1977 US No. 1 single 'Hotel California', plus 5 US No. 1 albums. ‘Greatest Hits 1971-1975’ is the second biggest selling album in the world with sales over 30m. Solo, 1985 UK No. 12 single 'The Heat Is On'. Frey died on 1.18.2016 at the age of 67. Born in Detroit, Michigan.

1957 - Chris Hayes. Lead guitarist for Huey Lewis and the News. Born in Great Lakes, Illinois.

[railfancwb]

Must point out that the “Emancipation Proclamation” applied only to states where Lincoln had no current authority to enforce it. Thus he emancipated slaves in “old” Virginia but not “West” Virginia  

Lincoln signed both the WV Statehood Bill and his final Emancipation Proclamation on the same day—January 1, 1863.

[GT4494]

6 hours ago, railfancwb said:

Must point out that the “Emancipation Proclamation” applied only to states where Lincoln had no current authority to enforce it. Thus he emancipated slaves in “old” Virginia but not “West” Virginia  

Lincoln signed both the WV Statehood Bill and his final Emancipation Proclamation on the same day—January 1, 1863.

and if Lincoln said that the states could not leave the union, he could not legally split a state.  Therefore WV is and always has been an illegitimate because Lincoln said the states could not leave. 

Or the war was an attack on a sovereign nation..   You decide!!! 

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 7, 1775, shortly after the conviction of Dr. Benjamin Church, America’s first traitor, the Continental Congress added a mandate for the death penalty as punishment for acts of espionage to the “articles of war.” Dr. Church corresponded with the British general Gage about Continental troops and arsenal locations.
Church was court marshaled, removed from his post as Director General, and arrested. He was briefly jailed in Norwich, Connecticut, until January 1776 until he got ill and was allowed to live under house arrest at his home in Massachusetts until 1778 when he was named in the Massachusetts Banishment Act, forcing those who supported the British or “joined the enemies thereof” to leave the United States. He sailed from Boston headed for the Caribbean, but the ship was lost at sea, and Church likely perished along with it.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 7th In Music

1969 - Pink Floyd release their third album, Ummagumma, in the UK. Tracks include "Astronomy Domine" and "Careful With That Axe, Eugene."

1974 - Ted Nugent won a National Squirrel-shooting contest after picking off a squirrel at 150 yards.

1981 - Hall and Oates started a two week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'Private Eyes', the duo's third US No. 1.

1987 - Tiffany became the youngest act to score a US No. 1 with 'I Think we're Alone Now'. The song written by Ritchie Cordell was initially a 1967 hit for Tommy James & the Shondells.

Birthdays today:

1937 - Mary Travers. Singer-songwriter from American folk group Peter Paul and Mary, who had the 1969 US No. 1 single 'Leaving On A Jet Plane'. 'Blowin' in the Wind' was one of their biggest hit singles. She died 9.16.2009 age 72.

1951 - Kevin MacDonald. Guitarist, with English rock band Cutting Crew, who scored the 1987 US No. 1 single 'I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight'.

1960 - Tommy Thayer. Lead guitarist, took over from Ace Frehley in American hard rock band Kiss. Thayer became the lead guitarist for Kiss in 2002.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 8, 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible.
Röntgen's discovery occurred accidentally in his Wurzburg, Germany, lab, where he was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-rays because of their unknown nature.
X-rays are electromagnetic energy waves that act similarly to light rays, but at wavelengths approximately 1,000 times shorter than those of light. Röntgen holed up in his lab and conducted a series of experiments to better understand his discovery. He learned that X-rays penetrate human flesh but not higher-density substances such as bone or lead and that they can be photographed.
Röntgen's discovery was labeled a medical miracle and X-rays soon became an important diagnostic tool in medicine, allowing doctors to see inside the human body for the first time without surgery. In 1897, X-rays were first used on a military battlefield, during the Balkan War, to find bullets and broken bones inside patients.
Scientists were quick to realize the benefits of X-rays, but slower to comprehend the harmful effects of radiation. Initially, it was believed X-rays passed through flesh as harmlessly as light. However, within several years, researchers began to report cases of burns and skin damage after exposure to X-rays, and in 1904, Thomas Edison’s assistant, Clarence Dally, who had worked extensively with X-rays, died of skin cancer. Dally’s death caused some scientists to begin taking the risks of radiation more seriously, but they still weren’t fully understood.
During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, in fact, many American shoe stores featured shoe-fitting fluoroscopes that used X-rays to enable customers to see the bones in their feet; it wasn’t until the 1950s that this practice was determined to be risky business.
Wilhelm Röntgen received numerous accolades for his work, including the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901, yet he remained modest and never tried to patent his discovery. Today, X-ray technology is widely used in medicine, material analysis and devices such as airport security scanners.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 8, 1900, Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind (1936), is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mitchell worked as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal for six years. She quit after an ankle injury limited her mobility, and she devoted herself to her novel about the South during and after the Civil War. Her tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the shallow Southern belle transformed into ruthless survivor during the war, became the biggest American publishing sensation of its day. The book sold 1 million copies in its first six months in print, 8 million by the time Mitchell died in 1949, and at least 25 million more to date.
The book was made into an Oscar-winning movie in 1939. In 1988, Warner Books purchased the rights to a Gone with the Wind sequel. The book, titled Scarlett, was written by Alexandra Ripley and published in 1991. Though not a critical success, the book became a bestseller and was made into a TV miniseries. The movie was criticized (by liberal wimps and sensitive bois) for its portrayals of enslaved characters, and for whitewashing the horrors of slavery.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 8th In Music

1971 - Led Zeppelin released their fourth album. With no title printed on the album, and generally referred to as Four Symbols, The Fourth Album or Led Zeppelin IV it has gone on to sell over 37 million copies worldwide. The 19th century rustic oil painting on the front of the album was purchased by Robert Plant from an antique shop in Reading, Berkshire, England. The 20th century urban tower block on the back of the full gatefold LP cover is Butterfield Court in Eves Hill, Dudley, England.

2008 - AC/DC started a two-week run at No. 1 on the US album chart with 'Black Ice' the bands fifteenth studio album and the second-best selling album of 2008. Black Ice went to No. 1 in 29 countries, including Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.

Birthdays

1929 - Bert Berns. American songwriter and producer Bert Berns. He wrote many classic songs including 'Twist And Shout', 'Hang On Sloopy', ‘Here Comes the Night’, ‘I Want Candy’, ‘Under the Boardwalk’, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ and 'Brown Eyed Girl'. Born in New York City. Died on 12.30.1967.

1942 - Gerald Alston. Vocals, The Manhattans, 1976 US No. 1 single 'Kiss And Say Goodbye'. Born in Henderson, N.C.

1945. Don Murray. Drummer for The Turtles. Born in Inglewood, California.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 9, 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and was later dubbed “Kristallnacht,” or “Night of Broken Glass,” after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards vandalized. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of whom were then sent to concentration camps for several months; they were released when they promised to leave Germany. Kristallnacht represented a dramatic escalation of the campaign started by Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he became chancellor to purge Germany of its Jewish population.
The Nazis used the murder of a low-level German diplomat in Paris by a 17-year-old Polish Jew as an excuse to carry out the Kristallnacht attacks. On November 7, 1938, Ernst vom Rath was shot outside the German embassy by Herschel Grynszpan, who wanted revenge for his parents’ sudden deportation from Germany to Poland, along with tens of thousands of other Polish Jews. Following vom Rath’s death, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ordered German storm troopers to carry out violent riots disguised as “spontaneous demonstrations” against Jewish citizens. Local police and fire departments were told not to interfere. In the face of all the devastation, some Jews, including entire families, committed suicide.
In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, the Nazis blamed the Jews and fined them 1 billion marks (or $400 million in 1938 dollars) for vom Rath’s death. As repayment, the government seized Jewish property and kept insurance money owed to Jewish people. In its quest to create a master Aryan race, the Nazi government enacted further discriminatory policies that essentially excluded Jews from all aspects of public life.
Over 100,000 Jews fled Germany for other countries after Kristallnacht. The international community was outraged by the violent events of November 9 and 10. Some countries broke off diplomatic relations in protest, but the Nazis suffered no serious consequences, leading them to believe they could get away with the mass murder that was the Holocaust, in which an estimated 6 million European Jews died.