Well, this is interesting!
Chuck Palahniuk is revealing details for the second installment of his best known work, which became a very memorable, iconic movie that seems to have attained something of a cult following.
The thing is, "Fight Club" seemed to me like a one shot deal. Not that I'm questioning Palahniuk. He is weird, true. But having read a good amount of his books (including Fight Club), he definitely offers a lot more than most people assume he does.
Still, I have to admit that "Fight Club" was one movie that I simply never imagined would have a sequel.
Just hope that it is not one of those sequels that not only does not live up to the first one, but actually begins to detract from it. Like Matrix.
But who knows? Maybe it will be like "Empire Strikes Back" to Star Wars!
We'll see. I'll admit to not having kept up with Palahniuk as much over the last three or four years, even though I enjoyed his works quite a bit up to that point! If anyone can make something as crazy as a sequel to that work, it would be him!
Below is the link to the article that I am referring to:
"Chuck Palahniuk reveals details for ‘Fight Club’ sequel" by David Latona of Movie Pilot, November 29th, 2013
http://moviepilot.com/stories/1188698-chuck-palahniuk-reveals-details-for-fight-club-sequel?stamp=67911&utm_campaign=chuck-palahniuk-reveals-details-for-fight-club-sequel&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=fb-stream-post
Sunday, December 1, 2013
On This Day in History - December 1 Chunnel Breakthrough
Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Dec 1, 1990: Chunnel makes breakthrough
Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole--it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.
The Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel," was not a new idea. It had been suggested to Napoleon Bonaparte, in fact, as early as 1802. It wasn't until the late 20th century, though, that the necessary technology was developed. In 1986, Britain and France signed a treaty authorizing the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France.
Over the next four years, nearly 13,000 workers dug 95 miles of tunnels at an average depth of 150 feet (45 meters) below sea level. Eight million cubic meters of soil were removed, at a rate of some 2,400 tons per hour. The completed Chunnel would have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel. The price? A whopping $15 billion.
After workers drilled that final hole on December 1, 1990, they exchanged French and British flags and toasted each other with champagne. Final construction took four more years, and the Channel Tunnel finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and France's President Francois Mitterrand on hand in Calais for the inaugural run. A company called Eurotunnel won the 55-year concession to operate the Chunnel, which is the crucial stretch of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between London and Paris. The regular shuttle train through the tunnel runs 31 miles in total--23 of those underwater--and takes 20 minutes, with an additional 15-minute loop to turn the train around. The Chunnel is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, after the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
Dec 1, 1955: Rosa Parks ignites bus boycot
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic act of civil disobedience.
"The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1943 joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion.
Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday, December 5. Word was spread by fliers, and activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to organize the protest. The first day of the bus boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration. At one point, his home was bombed, but he and his family escaped bodily harm.
The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On December 20, King issued the following statement: "The year old protest against city buses is officially called off, and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow morning on a non-segregated basis." The boycott ended the next day. Rosa Parks was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its first great victory. There would be many more to come.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005. Three days later the U.S. Senate passed a resolution to honor Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Dec 1, 1964: Johnson Administration makes plans to bomb North Vietnam
In two crucial meetings (on this day and two days later) at the White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers agree, after some debate, to a two-phase bombing plan for North Vietnam.
Phase I would involve air strikes by Air Force and Navy jets against infiltration routes and facilities in the Laotian panhandle. Phase II would extend the air strikes to a larger selection of targets in North Vietnam. The more "hawkish" advisers--particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff--preferred a more immediate and intensive series of raids against many targets in North Vietnam, while "dovish" advisers questioned whether bombing was going to have any effect on Hanoi's support of the war. Johnson agreed with the Joint Chiefs on the necessity of bombing, but wanted to take a more gradual and measured approach. When he agreed to the bombing plan, President Johnson made it clear that South Vietnamese leaders would be expected to cooperate and pull their government and people together if they hoped to receive additional aid from the United States. Johnson was concerned that the continuing political instability in Saigon would have a detrimental effect on the South Vietnamese government's ability to pursue the fight against the communist Viet Cong.
Dec 1, 1919: New state declared in the Balkans
Three weeks after the armistice, and on the same day that Allied troops cross into Germany for the first time, a new state is proclaimed in Belgrade, Serbia.
As the great Austrian and German empires were brought low in defeat, the new "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes" sprung to life, bolstered by the League of Nations promised support for Europe s minority populations. Included in the new state were 500,000 Hungarians and an equal number of Germans, as well as tens of thousands of Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Italians.
Crown Prince Alexander, the son of the ailing king of Serbia who had commanded Serbian armies in the Great War, was named regent of the provisional government of the new state. In 1921, with the support of the Serbian representatives in the government and against the opposition of Croatian federalists, who favored a broader distribution of power, a new constitution was put into effect that created a strong central government; Alexander became king after his father died that same year.
Tensions continued to mount with the Serbian-dominated government s denial of autonomy to different ethnic groups, notably the Croats and Slovenes, and in the summer of 1928, in response to the fatal shooting of the Croatian leader Stjepan RadiÆ and two colleagues by a Montenegrin deputy in the national parliament, the Croatians withdrew from parliament and organized a separatist regime based in Zagreb. In January 1929, with the nation on the brink of civil war, Alexander suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament and all political parties, and took dictatorial control of the country. As part of his effort to impose national unity on the country s warring ethnic groups, he renamed the country Yugoslavia.
Conflict continued to simmer in the Balkans, however, and in 1934, Alexander was assassinated by extreme right-wing Croatian nationalists during a state visit to Marseilles, France. His son, Peter, managed to maintain unity until 1941, when the German army invaded Serbia and Croatia declared its independence.
Dec 1, 1830: Due date for Victor Hugo
According to an agreement with his publisher, French novelist Victor Hugo is due to turn in a draft of his book Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) on this day in 1830. However, Hugo applies himself to other projects, extends the deadline several times, and the book is not published until 1831.
Hugo, who had decided to be a writer during his early teens, published his first collection of poetry in 1822, for which he won a pension from Louis XVIII. Also in 1822, Hugo married his childhood sweetheart, Adele Foucher, with whom he would have numerous children.
The following year, Hugo published his first novel, Han d'Islande. His 1827 play Cromwell embraced the tenets of Romanticism, which he laid out in the play's preface. The following year, despite his contract to write Notre Dame de Paris, he set to work on two plays. The first, Marion de Lorme (1829), was censored for its candid portrayal of a courtesan. The second, Hernani, became the touchstone for a bitter and protracted debate between French Classicists and Romantics. He finally finished Notre Dame de Paris, which pled for tolerance of the imperfect and the grotesque in 1831. The book also had a simpler agenda: to increase appreciation of old Gothic structures, which had become the object of vandalism and neglect.
In the 1830s, Hugo wrote numerous plays, many of them vehicles for his mistress, the actress Juliette Drouet. In 1841, Hugo was elected to the prestigious Acadamie Francaise. Two years later, he lost his beloved daughter and her husband when they were drowned in an accident. He expressed his profound grief in a poetry collection called Les Contemplations (1856).
When Napoleon III came to power, Hugo was forced to flee France and did not return for 20 years. While still in exile, he completed Les Miserables (1862), which became a hit in France and abroad. He returned to Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and was hailed a national hero. Hugo's writing career spanned more than six decades. He was buried in the Pantheon after his death in 1885.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1824 The presidential election between John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay was turned over to the House of Representatives due to the lack of an electoral-vote majority. 1887 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes appeared for the first time in print in the story "A Study in Scarlet." 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her front-section bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. 1959 Twelve nations, including the United States, signed a treaty setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve free from military activity. 1997 Representatives from more than 150 countries gathered at a global warming summit in Kyoto, Japan, and over the course of ten days forged an agreement to control the emission of greenhouse gases. President Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. 1998 Exxon and Mobil agreed to merge, creating the world's largest corporation.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec01.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Dec 1, 1990: Chunnel makes breakthrough
Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole--it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.
The Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel," was not a new idea. It had been suggested to Napoleon Bonaparte, in fact, as early as 1802. It wasn't until the late 20th century, though, that the necessary technology was developed. In 1986, Britain and France signed a treaty authorizing the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France.
Over the next four years, nearly 13,000 workers dug 95 miles of tunnels at an average depth of 150 feet (45 meters) below sea level. Eight million cubic meters of soil were removed, at a rate of some 2,400 tons per hour. The completed Chunnel would have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel. The price? A whopping $15 billion.
After workers drilled that final hole on December 1, 1990, they exchanged French and British flags and toasted each other with champagne. Final construction took four more years, and the Channel Tunnel finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and France's President Francois Mitterrand on hand in Calais for the inaugural run. A company called Eurotunnel won the 55-year concession to operate the Chunnel, which is the crucial stretch of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between London and Paris. The regular shuttle train through the tunnel runs 31 miles in total--23 of those underwater--and takes 20 minutes, with an additional 15-minute loop to turn the train around. The Chunnel is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, after the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
Dec 1, 1955: Rosa Parks ignites bus boycot
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic act of civil disobedience.
"The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1943 joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion.
Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday, December 5. Word was spread by fliers, and activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to organize the protest. The first day of the bus boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration. At one point, his home was bombed, but he and his family escaped bodily harm.
The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On December 20, King issued the following statement: "The year old protest against city buses is officially called off, and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow morning on a non-segregated basis." The boycott ended the next day. Rosa Parks was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its first great victory. There would be many more to come.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005. Three days later the U.S. Senate passed a resolution to honor Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Dec 1, 1964: Johnson Administration makes plans to bomb North Vietnam
In two crucial meetings (on this day and two days later) at the White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers agree, after some debate, to a two-phase bombing plan for North Vietnam.
Phase I would involve air strikes by Air Force and Navy jets against infiltration routes and facilities in the Laotian panhandle. Phase II would extend the air strikes to a larger selection of targets in North Vietnam. The more "hawkish" advisers--particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff--preferred a more immediate and intensive series of raids against many targets in North Vietnam, while "dovish" advisers questioned whether bombing was going to have any effect on Hanoi's support of the war. Johnson agreed with the Joint Chiefs on the necessity of bombing, but wanted to take a more gradual and measured approach. When he agreed to the bombing plan, President Johnson made it clear that South Vietnamese leaders would be expected to cooperate and pull their government and people together if they hoped to receive additional aid from the United States. Johnson was concerned that the continuing political instability in Saigon would have a detrimental effect on the South Vietnamese government's ability to pursue the fight against the communist Viet Cong.
Dec 1, 1919: New state declared in the Balkans
Three weeks after the armistice, and on the same day that Allied troops cross into Germany for the first time, a new state is proclaimed in Belgrade, Serbia.
As the great Austrian and German empires were brought low in defeat, the new "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes" sprung to life, bolstered by the League of Nations promised support for Europe s minority populations. Included in the new state were 500,000 Hungarians and an equal number of Germans, as well as tens of thousands of Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Italians.
Crown Prince Alexander, the son of the ailing king of Serbia who had commanded Serbian armies in the Great War, was named regent of the provisional government of the new state. In 1921, with the support of the Serbian representatives in the government and against the opposition of Croatian federalists, who favored a broader distribution of power, a new constitution was put into effect that created a strong central government; Alexander became king after his father died that same year.
Tensions continued to mount with the Serbian-dominated government s denial of autonomy to different ethnic groups, notably the Croats and Slovenes, and in the summer of 1928, in response to the fatal shooting of the Croatian leader Stjepan RadiÆ and two colleagues by a Montenegrin deputy in the national parliament, the Croatians withdrew from parliament and organized a separatist regime based in Zagreb. In January 1929, with the nation on the brink of civil war, Alexander suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament and all political parties, and took dictatorial control of the country. As part of his effort to impose national unity on the country s warring ethnic groups, he renamed the country Yugoslavia.
Conflict continued to simmer in the Balkans, however, and in 1934, Alexander was assassinated by extreme right-wing Croatian nationalists during a state visit to Marseilles, France. His son, Peter, managed to maintain unity until 1941, when the German army invaded Serbia and Croatia declared its independence.
Dec 1, 1830: Due date for Victor Hugo
According to an agreement with his publisher, French novelist Victor Hugo is due to turn in a draft of his book Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) on this day in 1830. However, Hugo applies himself to other projects, extends the deadline several times, and the book is not published until 1831.
Hugo, who had decided to be a writer during his early teens, published his first collection of poetry in 1822, for which he won a pension from Louis XVIII. Also in 1822, Hugo married his childhood sweetheart, Adele Foucher, with whom he would have numerous children.
The following year, Hugo published his first novel, Han d'Islande. His 1827 play Cromwell embraced the tenets of Romanticism, which he laid out in the play's preface. The following year, despite his contract to write Notre Dame de Paris, he set to work on two plays. The first, Marion de Lorme (1829), was censored for its candid portrayal of a courtesan. The second, Hernani, became the touchstone for a bitter and protracted debate between French Classicists and Romantics. He finally finished Notre Dame de Paris, which pled for tolerance of the imperfect and the grotesque in 1831. The book also had a simpler agenda: to increase appreciation of old Gothic structures, which had become the object of vandalism and neglect.
In the 1830s, Hugo wrote numerous plays, many of them vehicles for his mistress, the actress Juliette Drouet. In 1841, Hugo was elected to the prestigious Acadamie Francaise. Two years later, he lost his beloved daughter and her husband when they were drowned in an accident. He expressed his profound grief in a poetry collection called Les Contemplations (1856).
When Napoleon III came to power, Hugo was forced to flee France and did not return for 20 years. While still in exile, he completed Les Miserables (1862), which became a hit in France and abroad. He returned to Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and was hailed a national hero. Hugo's writing career spanned more than six decades. He was buried in the Pantheon after his death in 1885.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
772 - Pope Adrian I elected
800 - Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo
III in the Vatican.
1167 - Northern Italian towns form Lombardi League
1420 - Henry V of England enters Paris.
1566 - Spanish king Philip II names Fernando Alvarez, duke
of Alva
1626 - Pasha Muhammad ibn Farukh tyrannical gov of
Jerusalem, driven out
1640 - Portugal regains independence after 60 years of
Spanish rule
1641 - Mass becomes 1st colony to give statutory recognition
to slavery
1653 - An athlete from Croydon is reported to have run 20
miles from St Albans to London in less than 90 minutes
1656 - Germany promises Poland aid against Sweden
1708 - Great Alliance occupies Brussels
1742 - Empress Elisabeth orders expulsion of all Jews from
Russia
1750 - 1st American school to offer manual training courses
opens, Md
1768 - The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in
Norway.
1783 - Jacques Charles & Nicolas Roberts make first
untethered ascension with gas hydrogen balloon in Paris
1821 - Santo Domingo (Dominican Rep) proclaims independence
from Spain
1822 - Dom Pedro crowned emperor of Brazil
1822 - Franz Liszts (11) debut as pianist Isabella Colbran
1824 - House of Reps begins to end election deadlock between
JQ Adams
Composer/Pianist Franz LisztComposer/Pianist Franz Liszt
1824 - Jackson, WH Crawford & H Clay Adams eventually declared president
1831 - Erie Canal closes for entire month due to cold
weather
1835 - Hans Christian Andersen published his 1st book of
fairy tales
1843 - 1st chartered mutual life insurance company opens
1852 - Telegraph company opens throughout Netherlands
1864 - Raid at Stoneman: Knoxville, TN to Saltville, VA
1864 - Skirmish at Millen Brutal, Georgia
1868 - John D Rockefeller begins anti oil war
1878 - 1st White House telephone installed
1884 - American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy
sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys who want to kill him
for arresting Charles McCarthy.
1887 - Sherlock Holmes 1st appears in print: "Study in
Scarlet"
1887 - Sino-Portuguese treaty recognizes Portugal's control
of Macao
1891 - James Naismith creates the game of basketball
1896 - 1st certified public accountants receive certificates
(NY)
1900 - South African president Paul Kruger visits Flanders
Inventor James NaismithInventor James Naismith 1903 -
"The Great Train Robbery", the 1st Western film, released
1906 - Cinema Omnia Pathe, world's 1st cinema, opens (Paris)
1906 - Shoemaker Wilhelm Voigt (Capt of Köpenick) sentenced
to 4 yrs
1909 - 1st Christmas Club payment made, to Carlisle Trust
Co, Pa
1909 - 1st Israeli kibbutz founded, Deganya Alef
1913 - 1st drive-up gasoline station opens (Pitts)
1913 - Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford
(car every 2:38)
1917 - Boys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan west of
Omaha Neb
1918 - Danish parliament passed an act to grant Iceland
independence
1918 - Iceland becomes independent state under Danish crown
1918 - Serbian-Croatian-Slovic kingdom proclaimed in
Belgrade
1918 - Yugoslavia declares independence; monarchy
established
1919 - AA Milne's "Mr Pim Passes By" premieres in
Manchester
1919 - Lady Nancy Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of
British Parliament
1921 - 1st US helium-filled dirigible makes 1st flight
1921 - US Post Office establishes philatelic agency
1922 - 1st skywriting over US-"Hello USA"-by Capt
Turner, RAF
1922 - Polish state chief marshal Jozef Pilsudski resigns
1923 - CFL Grey Cup: Queen's U beats Regina 54-0 at Toronto
1924 - Calles becomes president of Mexico
1924 - George/Ira Gershwin's musical "Lady Be Good"
premieres in NYC
1925 - Treaty of Locarno signed
1928 - CFL Grey Cup: Ham Tigers beats Regina 30-0 at
Hamilton
1928 - Railroad museum opens in Utrecht Neth
1929 - Game of Bingo invented by Edwin S Lowe
1930 - NHL drops 20 minute slashing-about-the-head penalty
1930 - Ruth Nichols becomes 1st woman pilot to cross
continent
1931 - Ottawa branch of Royal Mint begins operation as Royal
Canadian Mint
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1933 - Rudolf Hess & Earnest Rohm become a minister in
Hitler government
1934 - Leningrad mayor Sergey Kirov assassinated, used by
Stalin as the excuse to begin the Great Purge of 1934-38.
1935 - Austria has world's 1st Day of Postage Stamp
1936 - 2nd Heisman Trophy Award: Larry Kelley, Yale (E)
1936 - Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use
1936 - EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtain patent on soilless
culture of plants
1937 - Japan recognizes Franco government
1938 - School bus & train collide in Salt Lake City Utah
1939 - SS-Fuhrer Himmler begins deportation of Polish Jews
1941 - British cruiser Devonshire sinks German sub Python
1941 - Japanese emperor Hirohito signs declaration of war
1941 - Last day of first-class cricket in Australia for 4
years
1941 - US Civil Air Patrol (CAP) organizes
1942 - Gasoline rationed in US
1942 - The Beveridge Report is published by the British
government unveiling plans for a post-war welfare state
Spanish Dictator Francisco FrancoSpanish Dictator Francisco
Franco 1943 - FDR, Churchill & Stalin agree to Operation Overlord (D-Day)
1944 - Béla Bartòk's Concerto for orchestra, premieres
1944 - Mail routing resumes in free South Netherlands
1944 - Prokofjev's 8th Piano sonata, premieres
1945 - CFL Grey Cup: Toronto beats Winnipeg 35-0 at Toronto
1946 - Australia compile 645 v India at the Gabba (Bradman
187)
1947 - Bradman scores 185 in the 1st Cricket Test v India at
the Gabba
1947 - India cricket all out for 58 v Australia at the
Gabba, Toshack 5-2
1948 - Arabic Congress names Abdullah of Trans Jordan as
King of Palestine
1948 - Piet Roozenburg becomes world champion checker player
1949 - WBNG TV channel 12 in Binghamton, NY (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1949 - WKTV TV channel 2 in Utica, NY (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1951 - 17th Heisman Trophy Award: Dick Kazmaier, Princeton
(HB)
1951 - Benjamin Britten's opera "Billy Budd"
premieres in London
1951 - Golden Gate Bridge closes due to high winds
1952 - The New York Daily News reports the first successful
sexual reassignment operation.
1953 - Red Sox trade M McDermott & Tom Umphlett for
Wash's Jackie Jensen
1953 - WAIM (now WAXA) TV channel 40 in Anderson, SC (IND)
1st broadcast
1953 - WCSH TV channel 6 in Portland, ME (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1953 - Walter Alston named Dodger manager
1954 - Nationalist China & US sign dike agreement
1954 - Yanks send Miller, Segrist, Leppert & 2 minors to
Orioles for Blayzka, Kryhoski, Johnson, Fridley & Del Guercio (completing
18 player deal)
Civil Rights Activist Rosa Lee ParksCivil Rights Activist
Rosa Lee Parks 1955 - Rosa Parks (black) arrested for refusing to move to the
back of bus
1956 - "Candide" opens at Martin Beck Theater NYC
for 73 performances
1956 - Alain Mimoun wins 13th Olympics marathon (2:25:00.0)
1956 - Frank Robinson (NL) & Luis Aparicio (AL) voted
Rookie of the Year
1956 - Indonesian VP Mohammed Hatta resigns
1957 - Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed
Sullivan Show
1958 - "Flower Drum Song" opens at St James
Theater NYC for 602 performances
1958 - Central African Rep made autonomous member of Fr Comm
(Natl Day)
1958 - Our Lady of Angels School burns, killing 92 students
& 3 nuns (Chic)
1959 - 12 nations sign treaty for scientific peaceful use of
Antarctica
1959 - 1st color photograph of Earth from outer space
1959 - 25th Heisman Trophy Award: Billy Cannon, LSU (HB)
1959 - The 1st color photograph of Earth received from outer
space
1960 - Patrice Lumumba caught in the Congo
1960 - Paul McCartney and Pete Best arrested then deported
from Hamburg, Germany for accusation of attempted arson.
1961 - The independent Republic of
West Papua is proclaimed in modern-day Western New Guinea.
1962 - Grey Cup halted by fog, resumed next day (Winnipeg
28, Hamilton 27)
1962 - KGMB TV channel 9 in Honolulu, HI (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1963 - NY Jets 1st shutout, beat KC 17-0
1963 - Nagaland becomes a state of Indian union
1964 - Houston Colt .45s change name to Astros
1964 - ML King speaks to J. Edgar Hoover about his slander
campaign
1965 - Airlift of refugees from Cuba to US began
1965 - South Africa government says children of white
fathers are white
1966 - Georg Kiesinger elected West German chancellor
1966 - Radio time signal WWV moves from Greenbelt, Md to
Boulder, Colo
1967 - Pacific Northwest Sports awarded AL expansion
franchise (Seattle)
1967 - Queen Elizabeth inaugurates 98-inch (249-cm) Isaac
Newton telescope
1967 - Seattle awarded one of the 2 AL expansion franchise
teams
1967 - Wilt Chamberlain set NBA record of 22 free throws
misses
1968 - "Promises Promises" opens at Shubert
Theater NYC for 1281 performances
1968 - Burt Bacharach/Hal David's musical premieres in NYC
1968 - Gonzalo Barrios, Venezuelan presidential candidate
1968 - Peggy Wilson wins LPGA Hollywood Lakes Golf Open
1968 - Pirate Radio Modern (259) (England) begins
transmitting
1969 - US government holds its 1st draft lottery since WW II
1970 - Luis Echeverria Alvarez sworn in as president of
Mexico
1970 - NHL takes control of Pittsburgh Penguins
1970 - Independent People's Republic of South Yemen becomes
People Democratic Republic of Yemen
1971 - Cubs release Ernie Banks & sign him as a coach
1971 - Galt MacDermot/John Guare's "2 gentlemen of
Verona" opens at St James Theater NYC for 613 perfs
1971 - John & Yoko release "Happy Xmas (War is
Over)" in US
1971 - People's Republic of South Yemen renames itself
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
1971 - Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify
assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong
Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
1972 - Wings release "Hi, Hi, Hi" in UK
1973 - Australia grants self-government to Papua New
Guinea
1973 - Jack Nicklaus becomes 1st golfer to earn $2M in a
year
1973 - Jan Ferraris wins LPGA-Japan Golf Classic
1973 - Stan Stasiak beats Pedro Morales in Philadelphia, to
become WWF champ
1974 - Boeing 727 crashes in Upperville Virginia, 92 died
1974 - Jacqueline Hansen runs female world record marathon
(2:43:54.5)
1974 - LA Skid Row slasher kills 1st of 8
1975 - US president Gerald Ford visits China PR
1976 - Angola admitted to UN
1976 - Bangladesh General Ziaur Rahman declares himself
president
1976 - Sex Pistols using profanity on TV, gets them branded
as "rotten punks"
1978 - Pres Carter more than doubles national park system
size
1978 - Test Cricket debut of Rodney Hogg, v England at the
Gabba
1978 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 - 46th Heisman Trophy Award: George Rogers, South
Carolina (RB)
38th US President Gerald Ford38th US President Gerald Ford
1980 - Mel Harris appears on M*A*S*H in "Cementing Relationships"
1980 - US Justice Dept sues Yonkers siting racial
discrimination
1981 - 180 dies as Yugoslav DC-9 jetliner slams into a
mountain
1981 - Yugoslavic DC-9 crashes into mountain at Corsica, 174
killed
1981 - The AIDS virus is officially recognized.
1982 - Dentist Barney B Clark gets 1st artificial heart
1982 - Michael Jackson releases his album
"Thriller"
1982 - Miguel de la Madrid inaugurated as pres of Mexico
1983 - Rita Lavelle, former head of EPA, convicted of
perjury
1984 - 50th Heisman Trophy Award: Doug Flutie, Boston
College (QB)
1984 - France performs nuclear test
1984 - Greg Page KOs Gerrie Coetzee in 8 for WBA heavyweight
boxing title
1985 - Noraly Beyer becomes Neth's 1st black TV newscaster
1985 - STS 61-C vehicle moves to launch pad
1985 - South Africa's Cosatu union centre forms
1986
- Musée d'Orsay opens in Paris
1986 - Paul McCartney releases "Only Love Remains"
1987 - Digging begins to link England & France under
English Channel
1988 - 596 dead after cyclone hits Bangladesh, half a
million homeless
1988 - Benazir Bhutto named 1st female Prime Minister of a
Moslem country (Pakistan)
1988 - Chinese minister of Foreign affairs Qian Qichen
visits Moscow
1988 - NBC bids record $401M to capture rights to 1992
Barcelona Olympics
1988 - NY Islanders greatest shutout lose (8-0) vs St Louis
Blues
1989 - "Day Without Art"-Artists demonstrate
against AIDS
1989 - East Germany drops communist monopoly from its
constitution
1989 - Mark Langston signs record $3.2 million per year Cal
Angels contract
1989 - USSR Pres Mikhail S Gorbachev meets Pope John Paul II
at the Vatican
1990 - 56th Heisman Trophy Award: Ty Detmer, Brigham Young
(QB)
1990 - British & French workers meet in English
Channel's tunnel (Chunnel)
1990 - Hissène Habré of Chad flees to Cameroon
264th Pope John Paul II264th Pope John Paul II 1990 - Iraq
accepts Bush's offer for talks
1990 - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia hold their 1st joint
session
1990 - NY Knicks Patrick Ewing scores 50 points beating
Charlotte 113-96
1991 - "Moscow Circus Cirk Valentin" closes at
Gershwin NYC after 32 perfs
1991 - "Once on this Island" closes at Booth
Theater NYC after 469 perfs
1991 - 80th Davis Cup: France beats USA in Lyon (3-1)
1991 - AIDS awareness day
1991 - Colorado party wins Paraguay parliamentary election
1991 - Nursultan Nazarbayev sworn in as president of
Kazakhstan
1991 - US 75th manned space mission "STS 44"
Atlantis 10 lands
1991 - Ukrainian people vote for independence
1992 - 2 C-141B Starlifters collide in Montana & crash,
13 die
1992 - Amy Fisher sentenced 5-15 yrs for shooting Mary Jo
Buttafuoco
1993 - Northwest Airlink plane crashes in Minn, killing 18
1994 - 3 Seattle Seahawks injured in a car accident
1994 - Cindy Crawford & Richard Gere announce they are
seperating
1994 - Ernesto Zedillo innaugrated as president of Mexico
1994 - PTL leader Jim Bakker released from jail
1994 - Rober Schumanns 2nd Symphony premieres in London
1996 - 85th Davis Cup: France beats Sweden in Malmo (3-2)
1996 - Lance Klusener takes 8-64 in debut Test Cricket to
trounce India
1997 - GS Warrior guard Latrell Sprewell, attacks his coach
P J Carlesimo
1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Davenport IA on
KORB 93.5 FM
1997 - Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS
1998 - Exxon announces a $73.7 billion USD deal to buy
Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest company.
2001 - Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines
Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end
76 years of TWA operations following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
2012 - 8 people are killed and 36 injured after a bus
overturns in Bolivia
2012 - Enrique Peña Nieto sworn in as President of Mexico
2012 - Ukranian Anna Ushenina wins the Women's World Chess
Championship 2012
1835 - Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales. 1909 - The Pennsylvania Trust Company, of Carlisle, PA, became the first bank in the in the U.S. to offer a Christmas Club account. 1913 - Ford Motor Co. began using a new movable assembly line that ushered in the era of mass production. 1913 - The first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburgh, PA. 1919 - Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament. 1925 - The Locarno Pact finalized the treaties between World War I protagonists. 1934 - Sergei M. Kirov, a collaborator of Joseph Stalin, was assassinated at the Leningrad party headquarters. 1941 - In the U.S., the Civil Air Patrol was created. In April 1943 the Civil Air Patrol was placed under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Forces. 1942 - In the U.S., nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect. 1943 - In Teheran, leaders of the United States, the USSR and the United Kingdom met to reaffirm the goal set on October 30, 1943. The previous meeting called for an early establishment of an international organization to maintain peace and security. 1952 - In Denmark, it was announced that the first successful sex-change operation had been performed. 1955 - Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, AL, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Mrs. Parks was arrested marking a milestone in the civil rights movement in the U.S. 1959 - 12 countries, including the U.S. and USSR, signed a treaty that set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, which would be free from military activity. 1965 - An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began. 1969 - The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II. 1984 - A remote-controlled Boeing 720 jetliner was deliberately crashed into California's Mojave Desert to test an anti-flame fuel additive. The test proved to be disappointing. 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagansaid he would welcome an investigation of the Iran-Contra affair if it were recommended by the Justice Department. 1987 - NASA announced four companies had been given contracts to help build a space station. The companies were Boeing Aerospace, G. E.'s Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas Aeronautics, and Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International. 1989 - Dissidents in the Philippine military launched an unsuccessful coup against Corazon Aquino's government. 1989 - East Germany's Parliament abolished the Communist Party's constitutional guarantee of supremacy. 1990 - Iraq accepted a U.S. offer to talk about resolving the Persian Gulf crisis. 1990 - British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel finally met under the English Channel. 1991 - Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union. 1992 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment attempt by hard-liners at the opening of the Russian Congress. 1994 - The U.S. Senate gave final congressional approval to the 124-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. 1998 - Exxon announced that it was buying Mobil for $73.7 billion creating the largest company in the world to date.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec01.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Pope Francis I Reasserts True Christian Values By Rejecting Mindless Consumerism
Now, I have to admit that this Pope is catching my attention more than any Pope that came before.
Shhh! I can't say that too loudly, because my girlfriend is Polish, and over there, Pope John Paul II, the only Polish Pope in history, is a revered figure that has attained a status almost of sainthood!
But seriously, Pope Francis is sounding more and more like what I imagine a prominent religious leader for about two billion people should sound like. He is taking to task the wasteful consumerist mentality that we take for granted here in the West, but which seems to be spreading fast around the globe.
The latest was rather a bombshell: he called absolute capitalism a "tyranny", and reminded the very rich of their obligation to share their wealth, rather than horde it all.
Why, that is a message that sounds like it came from a Christian who actually took the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount seriously, rather than as some mere window dressing. Pope Francis I is sounding like someone who actually is not merely playing the game of politics once he gets into the highest office of his faith, but is actually placing faith before politics!
It is not the first time that I am writing in admiration of this man, and of course, the church has been mired in myriad controversies now for well over a decade - and these controversies, such as abuse of young boys, are far from resolved. Nor has Pope Francis I exactly resolved these issues, either.
But what he is focusing on is modernizing Catholicism, and reminding practitioners of the greater spirit of charity that was not some minor point in the religion, but the basis of it to begin with. It is supposed to make followers better people. How can that happen, though, when the Papacy itself becomes just one more political office, with political ambitions outweighing moral concerns? After all, making compromises with fascism back in the days of World War II, when it was already generally known that Germany was practicing a policy of extermination of Jews, is not putting the value of human beings before politics.
So, for that matter, is glossing over today's evils of simply ignoring the growing inequality between rich and poor. How convenient for these men to sit on their golden thrones, inside of a palace in a city that is, technically, it's own country, and which owns vast riches and wealth, even while many, if not most, practitioners live in dire poverty!
Ignoring these inconvenient truths does not make them simply go away, although that appeared to be the de facto policy that they all followed, until very recently. Glossing over this issue, which is, in fact, at the very core of what concerns spirituality and the message of Jesus, was more than a little disheartening, and I think it was what led to the decline of the power of this religion in the West.
Yet, this Pope Francis I appears to be truly different. He seems to not flinch or back down when the faith that he believes in and embodies conflicts with those of the major powers and players in the world. He is speaking here from his heart, from what he believes deep down, and understands as the message that his faith has always taught.
Of course, he is not doing this without opposition. A lot of people, including Tea Party conservatives in the United States, have been quite vocal in their opposition, and claim that he is too liberal.
But I, for one, am starting to see less of a conflict between what the Vatican in general, the and Papacy specifically, is supposed to represent, and what this Pope in particular apparently is.
He is, to me, far and away the most impressive Pope that I can remember, and I am beginning to be more and more interested in following his actions and speeches. No, I am not returning to my Catholic roots, per se. But I am going to take him seriously when he speaks, because he already has shown that he is speaking from a higher authority than his own self-interest.
"Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth Pontiff's first major publication calls on global leaders to guarantee work, education and healthcare" Reuters theguardian.com, Tuesday 26 November 2013:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/26/pope-francis-capitalism-tyranny
Shhh! I can't say that too loudly, because my girlfriend is Polish, and over there, Pope John Paul II, the only Polish Pope in history, is a revered figure that has attained a status almost of sainthood!
But seriously, Pope Francis is sounding more and more like what I imagine a prominent religious leader for about two billion people should sound like. He is taking to task the wasteful consumerist mentality that we take for granted here in the West, but which seems to be spreading fast around the globe.
The latest was rather a bombshell: he called absolute capitalism a "tyranny", and reminded the very rich of their obligation to share their wealth, rather than horde it all.
Why, that is a message that sounds like it came from a Christian who actually took the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount seriously, rather than as some mere window dressing. Pope Francis I is sounding like someone who actually is not merely playing the game of politics once he gets into the highest office of his faith, but is actually placing faith before politics!
It is not the first time that I am writing in admiration of this man, and of course, the church has been mired in myriad controversies now for well over a decade - and these controversies, such as abuse of young boys, are far from resolved. Nor has Pope Francis I exactly resolved these issues, either.
But what he is focusing on is modernizing Catholicism, and reminding practitioners of the greater spirit of charity that was not some minor point in the religion, but the basis of it to begin with. It is supposed to make followers better people. How can that happen, though, when the Papacy itself becomes just one more political office, with political ambitions outweighing moral concerns? After all, making compromises with fascism back in the days of World War II, when it was already generally known that Germany was practicing a policy of extermination of Jews, is not putting the value of human beings before politics.
So, for that matter, is glossing over today's evils of simply ignoring the growing inequality between rich and poor. How convenient for these men to sit on their golden thrones, inside of a palace in a city that is, technically, it's own country, and which owns vast riches and wealth, even while many, if not most, practitioners live in dire poverty!
Ignoring these inconvenient truths does not make them simply go away, although that appeared to be the de facto policy that they all followed, until very recently. Glossing over this issue, which is, in fact, at the very core of what concerns spirituality and the message of Jesus, was more than a little disheartening, and I think it was what led to the decline of the power of this religion in the West.
Yet, this Pope Francis I appears to be truly different. He seems to not flinch or back down when the faith that he believes in and embodies conflicts with those of the major powers and players in the world. He is speaking here from his heart, from what he believes deep down, and understands as the message that his faith has always taught.
Of course, he is not doing this without opposition. A lot of people, including Tea Party conservatives in the United States, have been quite vocal in their opposition, and claim that he is too liberal.
But I, for one, am starting to see less of a conflict between what the Vatican in general, the and Papacy specifically, is supposed to represent, and what this Pope in particular apparently is.
He is, to me, far and away the most impressive Pope that I can remember, and I am beginning to be more and more interested in following his actions and speeches. No, I am not returning to my Catholic roots, per se. But I am going to take him seriously when he speaks, because he already has shown that he is speaking from a higher authority than his own self-interest.
"Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth Pontiff's first major publication calls on global leaders to guarantee work, education and healthcare" Reuters theguardian.com, Tuesday 26 November 2013:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/26/pope-francis-capitalism-tyranny
On This Day in History - November 30 Soviet Union Invades Finland
Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Nov 30, 1939: USSR attacks Finland
On this day in 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.
Nov 30, 1835: Mark Twain is born
Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twin, is born in Florida, Missouri, on this day in 1835.
Clemens was apprenticed to a printer at age 13 and later worked for his older brother, who established the Hannibal Journal. In 1857, the Keokuk Daily Post commissioned him to write a series of comic travel letters, but after writing five he decided to become a steamboat captain instead. He signed on as a pilot's apprentice in 1857 and received his pilot's license in 1859, when he was 23.
Clemens piloted boats for two years, until the Civil War halted steamboat traffic. During his time as a pilot, he picked up the term "Mark Twain," a boatman's call noting that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for safe navigation. When Clemens returned to writing in 1861, working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he wrote a humorous travel letter signed by "Mark Twain" and continued to use the pseudonym for nearly 50 years.
In 1864, he moved to San Francisco to work as a reporter. There, he wrote the story that made him famous: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
In 1866, he traveled to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union. Next, he traveled the world writing accounts for papers in California and New York, which he later published the popular book The Innocents Abroad (1869). In 1870, Clemens married the daughter of a wealthy New York coal merchant and settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he continued to write travel accounts and lecture. In 1875, his novel Tom Sawyer was published, followed by Life on the Mississippi (1883) and his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn (1885). Bad investments left Clemens bankrupt after the publication of Huckleberry Finn, but he won back his financial standing with his next three books--Pudd'Nhead Wilson (1894), Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1895), and Following the Equator (1897). In 1903, he and his family moved to Italy, where his wife died. Her death left him sad and bitter, and his work, while still humorous, grew distinctly darker. He died in 1910.
Nov 30, 1917: German foreign minister celebrates revolution in Russia
On this day in 1917, Foreign Minister Richard Von Kuhlmann stands before the German Reichstag government to deliver a speech applauding the recent rise to power in Russia of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his radical socialist Bolshevik Party.
Soon after November 7, 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized control in Petrograd from the provisional government--in place since the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in March--Lenin moved to secure an immediate armistice with the Central Powers in the First World War. Not surprisingly, Austria-Hungary and Germany welcomed this development with open arms; the latter nation had actually helped smuggle the exiled Lenin back to Russia the previous April. The German chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling, went so far as to suggest to Kuhlmann on November 29 that Germany make the new Russia one of its allies.
The following day, Kuhlmann addressed the Reichstag, declaring that "Our eyes at the present moment are turned toward the east. Russia has set the world ablaze." The mobilization of Russia, he continued, was "the actual and immediate cause" of the entire war; only now was Russia in the hands of leaders who would set things right and seek immediate peace with Germany. According to Kuhlmann, Russia's allies--Britain and France--would do well to consider following its lead, as "the German people will stand up and be prepared to beat force with force until the dawn of the better and more humane understanding which is beginning to appear in the eastern sky shall arise in the nations of the west, which are as yet filled with greed for money and power."
While the Central Powers rejoiced at the turn of events in Petrograd, the Allies were filled with a sense of dread. With Russia out of the war, Germany would be free to transfer more manpower to the Western Front; to the south, Austria-Hungary seemed close to overpowering Italy. Although the United States had entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 1917, it was not expected to deliver troops in significant numbers until the following summer. By the end of 1917, with casualties mounting on the Western Front, the Allies looked ahead with trepidation as the possibility of victory seemed to recede ever further into the distance.
Nov 30, 1965: McNamara warns Johnson that communists are gaining strength in South Vietnam
Following a visit to South Vietnam, Defense Secretary McNamara reports in a memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson that the South Vietnamese government of Nguyen Cao Ky "is surviving, but not acquiring wide support or generating actions."
He said that Viet Cong recruiting successes coupled with a continuing heavy infiltration of North Vietnamese forces indicated that "the enemy can be expected to enlarge his present strength of 110 battalion equivalents to more than 150 battalion equivalents by the end of 1966." McNamara said that U.S. policymakers faced two options: to seek a compromise settlement and keep further military commitments to a minimum, or to continue to press for a military solution, which would require substantial bombing of North Vietnam.
In conclusion, McNamara warned that there was no guarantee of U.S. military success and that there was a real possibility of a strategic stalemate, saying that "U.S. killed in action can be expected to reach 1,000 a month." In essence, McNamara cautioned Johnson that sending additional troops was not likely to prevent the stalemate. In the end, however, Johnson chose to seek a military solution. By 1969, there were more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Nov 30, 1989: "America's First Female Serial Killer" strikes
Richard Mallory, a storeowner in Palm Harbor, Florida, is last seen taking a ride with Aileen Wuornos. The following day, his car—containing his wallet, some condoms, and an empty vodka bottle—was found abandoned in a remote area of Ormond Beach. Nearly two weeks later, his body turned up in a Daytona Beach junkyard with three bullets in his chest. Mallory's murder was the first of seven committed by Aileen Wuornos over the next year. Perhaps because she was one of the few women killers to gain widespread fame and notoriety, she was inaccurately dubbed "America's first female serial killer."
Her case was heavily publicized through television talk show appearances and a documentary, The Selling of a Serial Killer. Wuornos had been the victim of abuse and neglect herself. Her parents split before she was born and her father, who had been arrested for child molesting, killed himself while awaiting trial in a mental institution. When her mother abandoned her at a young age, Aileen was sent to live with her grandparents. But she was kicked out of their home when she got pregnant at age 14. From 1974 to 1976, Wuornos operated under several aliases and amassed an arrest record for offenses including drunk driving, assault, and armed robbery. In 1986, she became romantically and criminally involved with a woman named Tyria Moore.
In late 1989, Wuornos began her infamous killing spree. Five months after Richard Mallory was killed, David Spears was found dead, shot six times with a .22 caliber gun in the woods near Tampa. At around the same time, another male body turned up nearby that appeared to have been killed with the same type of gun. Three additional men met the same demise during the summer of 1990.
When the seventh victim was found in November, the media was alerted to the possibility of a serial killer. After receiving several tips, detectives caught Wuornos in a seedy biker bar in January 1991. With Moore assisting police, Wuornos decided to confess to the killings but claimed that they had all been done in self-defense. When a jury found Wuornos guilty on January 27, 1992, she screamed out, "I'm innocent! I was raped! I hope you get raped! Scumbags of America!" Her outburst was probably ill considered, given the fact that the same jury came back to decide her penalty the next day. Wuornos was sentenced to death.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1016 - English King Edmund II died. 1700 - 8,000 Swedish troops under King Charles XII defeated an army of at least 50,000 Russians at the Battle of Narva. King Charles XII died on this day. 1782 - The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War. 1803 - Spain completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France. 1804 - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase went on trial accused of political bias. He was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate. 1835 - Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born. He wrote "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" under the name Mark Twain. 1838 - Three days after the French occupation of Vera Cruz Mexico declared war on France. 1853 - During the Crimean War, the Russian fleet attacked and destroyed the Turkish fleet at the battle of Sinope. 1875 - A.J. Ehrichson patented the oat-crushing machine. 1897 - Thomas Edison's own motion picture projector had its first commercial exhibition. 1936 - London's famed Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. The structure had been constructed for the International Exhibition of 1851. 1939 - The Russo-Finnish War began when 20 divisions of Soviet troops invaded Finland. 1940 - Lucille Ball and Cuban musician Desi Arnaz were married. 1949 - Chinese Communists captured Chungking. 1954 - In Sylacauga, AL, Elizabeth Hodges was injured when a meteorite crashed through the roof of her house. The rock weighed 8½-pounds. 1956 - CBS replayed the program "Douglas Edward and the News" three hours after it was received on the West Coast. It was the world's first broadcast via videotape. 1962 - U Thant of Burma was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold. 1966 - The former British colony of Barbados became independent. 1967 - Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower announced their engagement. 1971 - ABC-TV aired "Brian's Song." The movie was about Chicago Bears' Brian Picolo and his friendship with Gale Sayers. 1981 - The U.S. and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva that were aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe. 1982 - The motion picture "Ghandi" had its world premiere in New Delhi. 1986 - "Time" magazine published an interview with U.S. President Reagan. In the article, Reagan described fired national security staffer Oliver North as a "national hero." 1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. took over RJR Nabisco Inc. with a bid of $24.53 billion. 1989 - Alfred Herrhausen was killed in a bombing. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility of killing Herrhausen the chairman of West Germany's largest bank. 1989 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat was refused a visa to enter the United States in order to address the U.N. General Assebly in New York City. 1993 - U.S. President Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill. The bill required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers. 1993 - Richard Allen Davis was arrested by authorities in California. Davis confessed to abducting and slaying 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma. 1995 - President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland. 1998 - The Deutsche Bank AG announced that it would acquire Bankers Trust Corp. for $10.1 billion creating the world's largest financial institution. 2000 - David Spade was assaulted with a stun gun by his longtime personal assistant, David Warren Malloy. Malloy attacked Spade during a burglary of Spade's home in Beverly Hills. 2001 - For the first time in its history, McDonald's teamed up with a retail partner on its Happy Meal promotions. Toys R Us provided plush figures from its Animal Alley. 2001 - In Seattle, WA, Gary Leon Ridgeway was arrested for four of the Green River serial killings. He was pled innocent on December 18, 2001. 2004 - In Stockholm, Sweden, the Carl Larsson painting "Boenskoerd" ("Bean Harvest") was sold at auction for $730,000. The work had been in a private collection for more than a century. The Larsson work "Vid Kattegatt" ("By Kattegatt") sold for $640,000 at the same auction.
1804 Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase was tried for political bias. 1900 Irish author Oscar Wilde died in Paris at age 46. 1940 Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were married. 1966 Barbados became independent of Great Britain. 1974 The fossilized remains of a female human ancestor named Lucy (after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) were found in Ethiopia. 1993 The Brady Bill, requiring a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, is signed. 1995 President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland. 2004 Ken Jennings ended his 74-game winning spree on the game show, Jeopardy!
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/nov30.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Nov 30, 1939: USSR attacks Finland
On this day in 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.
Nov 30, 1835: Mark Twain is born
Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twin, is born in Florida, Missouri, on this day in 1835.
Clemens was apprenticed to a printer at age 13 and later worked for his older brother, who established the Hannibal Journal. In 1857, the Keokuk Daily Post commissioned him to write a series of comic travel letters, but after writing five he decided to become a steamboat captain instead. He signed on as a pilot's apprentice in 1857 and received his pilot's license in 1859, when he was 23.
Clemens piloted boats for two years, until the Civil War halted steamboat traffic. During his time as a pilot, he picked up the term "Mark Twain," a boatman's call noting that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for safe navigation. When Clemens returned to writing in 1861, working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he wrote a humorous travel letter signed by "Mark Twain" and continued to use the pseudonym for nearly 50 years.
In 1864, he moved to San Francisco to work as a reporter. There, he wrote the story that made him famous: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
In 1866, he traveled to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union. Next, he traveled the world writing accounts for papers in California and New York, which he later published the popular book The Innocents Abroad (1869). In 1870, Clemens married the daughter of a wealthy New York coal merchant and settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he continued to write travel accounts and lecture. In 1875, his novel Tom Sawyer was published, followed by Life on the Mississippi (1883) and his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn (1885). Bad investments left Clemens bankrupt after the publication of Huckleberry Finn, but he won back his financial standing with his next three books--Pudd'Nhead Wilson (1894), Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1895), and Following the Equator (1897). In 1903, he and his family moved to Italy, where his wife died. Her death left him sad and bitter, and his work, while still humorous, grew distinctly darker. He died in 1910.
Nov 30, 1917: German foreign minister celebrates revolution in Russia
On this day in 1917, Foreign Minister Richard Von Kuhlmann stands before the German Reichstag government to deliver a speech applauding the recent rise to power in Russia of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his radical socialist Bolshevik Party.
Soon after November 7, 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized control in Petrograd from the provisional government--in place since the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in March--Lenin moved to secure an immediate armistice with the Central Powers in the First World War. Not surprisingly, Austria-Hungary and Germany welcomed this development with open arms; the latter nation had actually helped smuggle the exiled Lenin back to Russia the previous April. The German chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling, went so far as to suggest to Kuhlmann on November 29 that Germany make the new Russia one of its allies.
The following day, Kuhlmann addressed the Reichstag, declaring that "Our eyes at the present moment are turned toward the east. Russia has set the world ablaze." The mobilization of Russia, he continued, was "the actual and immediate cause" of the entire war; only now was Russia in the hands of leaders who would set things right and seek immediate peace with Germany. According to Kuhlmann, Russia's allies--Britain and France--would do well to consider following its lead, as "the German people will stand up and be prepared to beat force with force until the dawn of the better and more humane understanding which is beginning to appear in the eastern sky shall arise in the nations of the west, which are as yet filled with greed for money and power."
While the Central Powers rejoiced at the turn of events in Petrograd, the Allies were filled with a sense of dread. With Russia out of the war, Germany would be free to transfer more manpower to the Western Front; to the south, Austria-Hungary seemed close to overpowering Italy. Although the United States had entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 1917, it was not expected to deliver troops in significant numbers until the following summer. By the end of 1917, with casualties mounting on the Western Front, the Allies looked ahead with trepidation as the possibility of victory seemed to recede ever further into the distance.
Nov 30, 1965: McNamara warns Johnson that communists are gaining strength in South Vietnam
Following a visit to South Vietnam, Defense Secretary McNamara reports in a memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson that the South Vietnamese government of Nguyen Cao Ky "is surviving, but not acquiring wide support or generating actions."
He said that Viet Cong recruiting successes coupled with a continuing heavy infiltration of North Vietnamese forces indicated that "the enemy can be expected to enlarge his present strength of 110 battalion equivalents to more than 150 battalion equivalents by the end of 1966." McNamara said that U.S. policymakers faced two options: to seek a compromise settlement and keep further military commitments to a minimum, or to continue to press for a military solution, which would require substantial bombing of North Vietnam.
In conclusion, McNamara warned that there was no guarantee of U.S. military success and that there was a real possibility of a strategic stalemate, saying that "U.S. killed in action can be expected to reach 1,000 a month." In essence, McNamara cautioned Johnson that sending additional troops was not likely to prevent the stalemate. In the end, however, Johnson chose to seek a military solution. By 1969, there were more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Nov 30, 1989: "America's First Female Serial Killer" strikes
Richard Mallory, a storeowner in Palm Harbor, Florida, is last seen taking a ride with Aileen Wuornos. The following day, his car—containing his wallet, some condoms, and an empty vodka bottle—was found abandoned in a remote area of Ormond Beach. Nearly two weeks later, his body turned up in a Daytona Beach junkyard with three bullets in his chest. Mallory's murder was the first of seven committed by Aileen Wuornos over the next year. Perhaps because she was one of the few women killers to gain widespread fame and notoriety, she was inaccurately dubbed "America's first female serial killer."
Her case was heavily publicized through television talk show appearances and a documentary, The Selling of a Serial Killer. Wuornos had been the victim of abuse and neglect herself. Her parents split before she was born and her father, who had been arrested for child molesting, killed himself while awaiting trial in a mental institution. When her mother abandoned her at a young age, Aileen was sent to live with her grandparents. But she was kicked out of their home when she got pregnant at age 14. From 1974 to 1976, Wuornos operated under several aliases and amassed an arrest record for offenses including drunk driving, assault, and armed robbery. In 1986, she became romantically and criminally involved with a woman named Tyria Moore.
In late 1989, Wuornos began her infamous killing spree. Five months after Richard Mallory was killed, David Spears was found dead, shot six times with a .22 caliber gun in the woods near Tampa. At around the same time, another male body turned up nearby that appeared to have been killed with the same type of gun. Three additional men met the same demise during the summer of 1990.
When the seventh victim was found in November, the media was alerted to the possibility of a serial killer. After receiving several tips, detectives caught Wuornos in a seedy biker bar in January 1991. With Moore assisting police, Wuornos decided to confess to the killings but claimed that they had all been done in self-defense. When a jury found Wuornos guilty on January 27, 1992, she screamed out, "I'm innocent! I was raped! I hope you get raped! Scumbags of America!" Her outburst was probably ill considered, given the fact that the same jury came back to decide her penalty the next day. Wuornos was sentenced to death.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
306 - St Marcellus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
722 - Pope Gregory II names Boniface as missionary bishop
1016 - Cnut (or Canute), king of Denmark, claims the English
throne the death of Edmund 'Ironside'.
1215 - Pope Innocent III closes 4th council of Lateranen
1406 - Angelo Correr elected Pope Gregory XII
1523 - Amsterdam bans assembly of heretics
1554 - England reconciles with Pope Julius III
1630 - 16,000 inhabitants of Venice died this month of
plague
1648 - English Parliamentary army captures King Charles I
1678 - Roman Catholics banned from English parliament
1700 - King Charles XII of Sweden defeats Russia at Narva
[NS]
1700 - Turkey declares war on Russia
1700 - Utrecht/Overijssel/Buren/Leerdam/IJsselstein go on
Gregoria calendar
1731 - Beijing hit by Earthquake; about 100,000 die
1735 - States of Holland forbid Free Masonry
1747 - Dutch State of Zealand declare governorship
hereditary for women
1753 - Benjamin Franklin receives Godfrey Copley-Penny
1776 - Capt Cook begins 3rd & last trip to Pacific
(South Sea)
1782 - Britain signs agreement recognizing US independence
United States Founding Father Benjamin FranklinUnited States
Founding Father Benjamin Franklin 1786 - Peter Leopold Joseph of
Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform making his
country the first state to abolish the death penalty. November 30 is therefore
commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day.
1787 - Spanish governor leaves Philippines
1803 - Spain cedes her claims to Louisiana Territory to
France
1804 - Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel
Chase begins
1813 - Prince Willem Frederik returns to Netherlands
1824 - First ground is broken at Allenburg for the building
of the original Welland Canal.
1829 - First Welland Canal opens for a trial run, 5 years to
the day from the ground breaking.
1838 - Mexico declares war on France
1861 - Harper's Weekly publishes EE Beers' "All quiet
along the Potomac"
1863 - Confederate troops vacate Fort Esperanza, Texas
1864 - Battle of Franklin Tennessee: Confederate attack
fails, 7,700 casualities
1864 - Battle of Honey Hill SC (Broad River) 96 dead/665
wounded
1866 - Work begins on 1st US underwater highway tunnel,
Chicago
1868 - The inauguration of a statue of King Charles XII of
Sweden takes place in the King's garden in Stockholm.
1872 - 1st intl soccer game, Scotland-England 0-0 (Glasgow)
1885 - Opera "El Cid" premieres (Paris)
1886 - 1st commercially successful AC electric power plant
opens, Buffalo
1886 - The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
1887 - 1st indoor softball game (Chicago)
1891 - Pope Leo XIII's encyclical "Rerum novarum"
published
1900 - A German engineer patents front-wheel drive for
automobiles
1902 - American Old West: Second-in-command of Butch
Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years
imprisonment with hard labor.
1907 - Pike Place Market dedicated in Seattle
1912 - 4th CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Alerts defeats Toronto
Argonauts, 11-4
1915 - St John Ervine's "John Ferguson," premieres
in Dublin
1916 - Costa Rica becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires
copyright treaty.
1922 - 1st speed test of 1st genuine Japanese aircraft
carrier Hosho
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1922 - Hitler speaks to 50,000 national-socialists in
Munich
1923 - Dutch Catholic minority government of Wilhelm Marx
forms
1924 - 1st photo facsimile transmitted across Atlantic by
radio (London-NYC)
1924 - Last French/Belgian troops leave Ruhrgebied
1924 - French/Belgium troops completely withdrawn from the
Rurh
1928 - Test Cricket debut of Don Bradman, who scored 18
& 1 vs England
1929 - 17th CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Tigers defeats Regina
Roughriders, 14-3
1931 - Crystal Palace in Hyde Park London destroyed by fire
1931 - His Master's Voice & Columbia Records merge into
EMI
1933 - CCC Camps are established in Cleveland Park District
1936 - London's Crystal Palace (built 1851), destroyed by
fire
1937 - 3rd Heisman Trophy Award: Clint Frank, Yale (HB)
1938 - Fascist coup in Romania, fails
1938 - Germany bans Jews being lawyers
1939 - 21 U boats sunk this month (52,000 ton)
1939 - Paul Osborn's "Mornings at 7," premieres in
NYC
1939 - USSR invades Finland, bombs Helsinki
1940 - 28th CFL Grey Cup (Game 1): Toronto Balmy Beach
defeats Ottawa, 8-2
1940 - 32 U boats sunk this month (147,000 ton)
1941 - 101 year old Nyack-Tarrytown (NY) ferry makes its
last run
1941 - 13 U boats sunk this month (62,000 ton)
1941 - Japanese Emperor Hirohito consults with admirals
Shimada & Nagano
1942 - -Dec 1st: Sea battle at Tassafaronga, Guadalcanal
1942 - 109 U boats sunk this month (729,000 ton)
1942 - 30th CFL Grey Cup: Toronto Hurricanes defeats
Winnipeg Bombers, 8-5
1942 - Bill Terry resigns as supervisor of NY Giants minor
league system
1942 - German scout ship Altmark explode & sinks off
Yokohama
1944 - Biggest & last British Battleship HMS Vanguard
runs aground
1945 - 33rd CFL Grey Cup: Toronto Argonauts defeats Winn
Blue Bombers, 35-0
1946 - Bradman scores 187 in 1st Test Cricket v England at
the Gabba
1947 - Arab terrorist campaign opens in Palestine
1947 - Day after UN decree for Israel, Jewish settlements
attacked
1948 - Baseball's Negro National League disbands
1948 - Player-manager Lou Boudreau is selected AL MVP
1948 - Soviets set up a separate municipal government in
East Berlin
1949 - Chinese Communists captured Chungking
1949 - KOTV TV channel 6 in Tulsa, OK (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1950 - US Pres Harry Truman threatens China with atom bomb
Baseball Player Jackie RobinsonBaseball Player Jackie
Robinson 1952 - Jackie Robinson charges NY Yankees with racism
1953 - French parachutist under Col De Castries attacks Dien
Bien Phu
1953 - Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is
deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
1954 - 1st meteorite known to strike a woman (Liz
Hodges-Sylacauga Ala)
1954 - 20th Heisman Trophy Award: Alan Ameche, Wisconsin
(FB)
1954 - John Strydom succeeds Malan as premier of South
Africa
1955 - "Pipe Dream" opens at Shubert Theater NYC
for 245 performances
1955 - Argentine government disbands Peronistic party
1956 - 1st use of videotape on TV (Douglas Edwards & the
News)
1956 - Floyd Patterson KOs Archie Moore in 5 for heavyweight
boxing title
1957 - "Happy Hunting" closes at Majestic Theater
NYC after 413 performances
1957 - 45th CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeats Winn
Blue Bombers, 32-7
1957 - Assassination attempt on Indonesian president
Sukarno, kills 8
1958 - 1st guided missile destroyer launched, Dewey, Bath,
Me
1958 - WKBW TV channel 7 in Buffalo, NY (ABC) begins
broadcasting
Boxing Champ Archie MooreBoxing Champ Archie Moore 1959 -
Joe Foss named 1st commissioner of AFL
1960 - French Senate condemns building own nuclear weapons
1960 - Tad Mosels "All the Way Home" premieres in
NYC
1961 - Billy Williams of the Cubs is voted NL Rookie of Year
1961 - USSR vetoes Kuwaits application for UN membership
1962 - U Thant of Burma elected 3rd Secretary-General of UN
unanimously
1963 - 51st CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeats BC
Lions, 21-10
1963 - Martin Walser's "Überlebensgross Herr
Krott" premieres in Stuttgart
1964 - USSR launches Zond 2 towards Mars; no data returned
1966 - Barbados gains independence from Britain (National
Day)
1966 - Radio time signal WWV moves from Greenbelt, Maryland
1966 - Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 - Democratic People's republic of Yemen gains
independence
1967 - Julie Nixon & David Eisenhower announce their
engagement
1967 - Kuria Muria Islands ceded by Britain to Oman
1967 - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen declares
independence from UK
1967 - People's Rep of South Yemen (Aden) gains independence
from Britain
1967 - Senenator Eugene McCarthy begins run for US
presidency
1967 - The Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto who becomes its first Chairman later as the Head of state and Head of
government after the 1971 Civil War.
1968 - 56th CFL Grey Cup: Ottawa Rough Riders defeat Calgary
Stampeder, 24-21
1969 - 57th CFL Grey Cup: Ottawa Rough Riders defeats
Saskatchewan, 29-11
1969 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk
USSR
1970 - George Harrison releases his triple album set
"All Things Must Pass"
1971 - TV movie "Brian's Song," airs for 1st time
on ABC-TV
1972 - BBC bans Wings' "Hi, Hi, Hi"
1972 - Illegal fireworks factory explodes killing 15 (Rome
Italy)
1973 - M T Ghani scores 104 on FC debut for Commerce Bank
(Pak) age 44
1973 - Firestone World Tournament of Champions won by Jim
Godman
1974 - "Good Evening" closes at Plymouth Theater
NYC after 438 performances
1974 - "Mack & Mabel" closes at Majestic
Theater NYC after 66 performances
1974 - 20th time Islanders shut-out (3-0 vs Canucks)
1974 - Miss Teenage America Pageant
1974 - Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy,
Australopithecus) is discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens
and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
1975 - Dahomey becomes Benin
1976 - 42nd Heisman Trophy Award: Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh
(RB)
1978 - France performs nuclear test
1979 - Ted Koppel becomes anchor of nightly news on Iranian
Hostages (ABC)
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1980 - "Banjo Dancing" closes at Century Theater
NYC after 38 performances
1980 - "Perfectly Frank" opens at Helen Hayes
Theater NYC for 16 performances
1980 - "West Side Story" closes at Minskoff
Theater NYC after 341 perfs
1980 - Uruguay's new constitution rejected by referendum
1981 - NY Yankee Dave Righetti wins AL Rookie of Year Award
1981 - Porn star John Holmes arrested on fugitive charges
1981 - South Africa anti apartheid advocate Bulelani Ngcuka
arrested
1981 - Yankees Dave Righetti wins AL Rookie of Year
1981 - Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United
States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear
weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17).
1982 - STS-6 vehicle moves to launch pad
1982 - US sub Thomas Edison collides with US Navy destroyer
in So China Sea
1982 - USSR performs nuclear test
1983 - 6th Emmy Sports Award presentation
1983 - Police free kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in
Amsterdam
1983 - Radio Shack announces Tandy Model 2000 computer
(80186 chip)
1983 - Raúl Alfonsín wins Argentine presidential election
1983 - Sam Shepards "Fool for love," premieres in
NYC
1983 - Denver Nugget coach Doug Moe, hoplessly behind,
advise team to let Blazers break their scoring record
1986 - "Flamenco Puro" closes at Mark Hellinger
Theater NYC after 40 perfs
1986 - 74th CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeats
Edmonton Eskimos, 39-15
1986 - Ivan Lendl is 1st tennis player to earn over $10
million, lifetime
1987 - Afghanistan Constitution adopted
1988 - Cyclone lashes Bangladesh, Eastern India; 317 killed
1988 - France performs nuclear test at Fangataufa Island
1988 - NYC furrier sues Mike Tyson for $92,000 for non
payment of purchase
1988 - Soviets stop jamming Radio Liberty; 1st time in 38
yrs
1988 - UN General Assembly (151-2) censures US for refusing
PLO's Arafat visa
1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco
for $25.07 billion USD.
1989 - Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen is
killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.
1990 - Actor Burt Lancaster suffers a stroke
1990 - Bush proposes US-Iraq meeting to avoid war
1991 - 1st world championship of women's soccer, US defeats
Norway 2-1
1991 - 93 cars & 11 truck accident near SF during a dust
storm, 17 die
1991 - Rob Pilatus, 27, of Milli-Vanilli attempts suicide
1991 - San Diego State's Marshall Faulk is 1st freshman to
capture national rushing & scoring titles
1992 - David Boon's 14th Test Cricket century, 111 v WI at
Brisbane
1992 - Intercity-train derailed at Village chief, 5 die
1993 - NFL announces 30th franchise - Jacksonville Jaguars
42nd US President Bill Clinton42nd US President Bill Clinton
1993 - President Clinton signs Brady Gun Control Bill
1994 - Beatles' 1st album in 25 years, "Live at
BBC" is released in Britain
1994 - Cruiser Achille Lauro destroyed by fire at Somalia, 4
die
1994 - Man Mohan Adhikary sworn in as 1st communist premier
of Nepal
1995 - Official end of Operation Desert Storm.
1997 - "Eugene Onegin" closes at Martin Beck
Theater NYC
1997 - 86th Davis Cup: Sweden sweeps US in Gothenburg (5-0)
1998 - Deutsche Bank announces a $10 billion USDdeal to buy
Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.
1999 - In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests
against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police
unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
1999 - British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems
merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth
largest aerospace firm in the world.
2004 - Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
resigns.
2004 - Longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake
City, Utah finally loses, leaving him with $2,520,700 USD, television's
all-time biggest game show haul.
2004 - Lion Air Flight 538 crash lands in Surakarta, Central
Java, Indonesia, killing 26.
2005 - John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in
the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York.
2007 - Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office hostage
crisis: Leeland Eisenberg entered the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in
Rochester, New Hampshire with a device suspected of being a bomb and held three
people hostage for 5 hours.
2012 - At least 32 people are killed in a
Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane crash in the Congo1016 - English King Edmund II died. 1700 - 8,000 Swedish troops under King Charles XII defeated an army of at least 50,000 Russians at the Battle of Narva. King Charles XII died on this day. 1782 - The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War. 1803 - Spain completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France. 1804 - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase went on trial accused of political bias. He was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate. 1835 - Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born. He wrote "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" under the name Mark Twain. 1838 - Three days after the French occupation of Vera Cruz Mexico declared war on France. 1853 - During the Crimean War, the Russian fleet attacked and destroyed the Turkish fleet at the battle of Sinope. 1875 - A.J. Ehrichson patented the oat-crushing machine. 1897 - Thomas Edison's own motion picture projector had its first commercial exhibition. 1936 - London's famed Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. The structure had been constructed for the International Exhibition of 1851. 1939 - The Russo-Finnish War began when 20 divisions of Soviet troops invaded Finland. 1940 - Lucille Ball and Cuban musician Desi Arnaz were married. 1949 - Chinese Communists captured Chungking. 1954 - In Sylacauga, AL, Elizabeth Hodges was injured when a meteorite crashed through the roof of her house. The rock weighed 8½-pounds. 1956 - CBS replayed the program "Douglas Edward and the News" three hours after it was received on the West Coast. It was the world's first broadcast via videotape. 1962 - U Thant of Burma was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold. 1966 - The former British colony of Barbados became independent. 1967 - Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower announced their engagement. 1971 - ABC-TV aired "Brian's Song." The movie was about Chicago Bears' Brian Picolo and his friendship with Gale Sayers. 1981 - The U.S. and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva that were aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe. 1982 - The motion picture "Ghandi" had its world premiere in New Delhi. 1986 - "Time" magazine published an interview with U.S. President Reagan. In the article, Reagan described fired national security staffer Oliver North as a "national hero." 1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. took over RJR Nabisco Inc. with a bid of $24.53 billion. 1989 - Alfred Herrhausen was killed in a bombing. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility of killing Herrhausen the chairman of West Germany's largest bank. 1989 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat was refused a visa to enter the United States in order to address the U.N. General Assebly in New York City. 1993 - U.S. President Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill. The bill required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers. 1993 - Richard Allen Davis was arrested by authorities in California. Davis confessed to abducting and slaying 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma. 1995 - President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland. 1998 - The Deutsche Bank AG announced that it would acquire Bankers Trust Corp. for $10.1 billion creating the world's largest financial institution. 2000 - David Spade was assaulted with a stun gun by his longtime personal assistant, David Warren Malloy. Malloy attacked Spade during a burglary of Spade's home in Beverly Hills. 2001 - For the first time in its history, McDonald's teamed up with a retail partner on its Happy Meal promotions. Toys R Us provided plush figures from its Animal Alley. 2001 - In Seattle, WA, Gary Leon Ridgeway was arrested for four of the Green River serial killings. He was pled innocent on December 18, 2001. 2004 - In Stockholm, Sweden, the Carl Larsson painting "Boenskoerd" ("Bean Harvest") was sold at auction for $730,000. The work had been in a private collection for more than a century. The Larsson work "Vid Kattegatt" ("By Kattegatt") sold for $640,000 at the same auction.
1804 Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase was tried for political bias. 1900 Irish author Oscar Wilde died in Paris at age 46. 1940 Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were married. 1966 Barbados became independent of Great Britain. 1974 The fossilized remains of a female human ancestor named Lucy (after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) were found in Ethiopia. 1993 The Brady Bill, requiring a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, is signed. 1995 President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland. 2004 Ken Jennings ended his 74-game winning spree on the game show, Jeopardy!
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/nov30.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
Friday, November 29, 2013
Some Thoughts For This Thanksgiving Weekend
Well, another Thanksgiving is over, and now, it is the dreaded "Black Friday", that most crazy day of Christmas shopping, immediately after Thanksgiving.
More on that later, because I do have some thoughts on it.
But first and foremost, I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving a little bit. Hopefully, you got to enjoy your Thanksgiving, if you are American. If you are not, and perhaps are unfamiliar with this particular holiday, it was traditionally a day where people take a timeout for one day, in order to enjoy a feast and remember all of those things that they are thankful for. Thus, the name Thanksgiving. And yet I say again, a little more on this in a minute, as well, because there are some contradictions with how this holiday is popularly perceived, versus the historical reality.
Suffice to say, though, that the modern day holiday is a time when Americans traditionally get together with family, and enjoy a feast of turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes, candied yams, cranberries, and assorted other vegetables and dishes that may be on offer, as well as desserts such as pumpkin pie, among other things.
The main idea behind it, though, is to give thanks. Time out, if you will, to appreciate all that you have, and all that you have been blessed with in life. Generally, that includes those people around you, that you are enjoying the Thanksgiving feast with. You give thanks for having family and friends to be around, and which helps make your life more complete, more full. You give thanks for your good health, as well as those of your family, hopefully. You give thanks, also, simply for being able to enjoy this moment, to enjoy hot food in a warm, family environment, at precisely that time when the weather is growing colder, and far less hospitable and inviting.
Of course, this was by design. The holiday falls at a time when the warmth of the summer and early fall is giving way to the colder season of later fall, and the approach of winter.
Yet, traditionally, Thanksgiving is in honor of when the pilgrims and Indians got together for a feast of goodwill. There was a bit more to the story than that and, in fact, here is an article that suggests that this conventional interpretation of the holiday is actually wrong:
Thanksgiving created by ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ author — not the Pilgrims BY VALERIE STRAUSS November 26, 2013:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/26/how-mary-had-a-little-lamb-author-created-thanksgiving-not-the-pilgrims/
Well, that is interesting. But there is a problem with the history of Thanksgiving: Indians, or Native Americans, do not look at it as a positive thing. Far from being appreciative of the spirit of togetherness and companionship, they recognize in the holiday the tradition of having their land stolen from them, and the genocide that they were victims of. This makes Thanksgiving a holiday of the victors, not celebrated by those who were vanquished. More and more, this viewpoint is getting more exposure. I have read some articles, and even spoken to some native people, and so far, that viewpoint seems more than just common: it seems to be the rule among natives, and it is something that we might want to keep in mind.
I try to but, I must admit, I never reached the point where I no longer celebrated the holiday. Everyone, family and friends, celebrate the holiday, and it is a time - one of the rare opportunities, really - to simply enjoy a nice meal under nice circumstances, and indeed, to try and remember all of those things to be thankful for.
So, yes, I try and keep in mind that the history of this particular holiday has not always been kind to everyone.
But yesterday was a time to enjoy time with loved ones. In my case, in fact, I actually went to two Thanksgiving meals.
The first was with my immediate family. My parents, my brother, and my son. It came early on in the day, because my son was scheduled to go with his mom into the city, to have a second Thanksgiving meal himself with her side of the family. But before then, I was able to enjoy time with him, and to embrace him, even tell him that, for this Thanksgiving, I was appreciative to be sharing this special occasion with him. Also, to be thankful for the relative good health of my family, including my son and myself, as well as a good turn of fortune for my brother recently. My mom retired a few months ago, which means that both of my parents are retired now.
The second meal was with my girlfriend and her close friends, who are really like extended family for her here. Almost all of her family is in Poland, but this is her family here on this side of the pond. So, for the last two years, we enjoyed meals there, including for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And they really do an amazing job with the meals! I mean, the woman that cooks them is a top notch cook! These meals are, generally speaking, better than anything that you can get in a restaurant. She was not feeling too well this time, having undergone medical procedures, and feeling physically exhausted. But last year, she had an amazing assortment of food, including lamb with mint sauce that knocked my socks off! Again, better quality than any restaurant that I have ever been to! It makes my girlfriend jealous to say this (so I try not to say it too often), but I think that ranked among the very best meals that I had in my entire life!
So, we enjoyed a good meal, and towards the end, I was predictably so full, that it was difficult to move. We did move, over to the living room, to the sofas, where I almost fell asleep. But before long, we conversed. They do not have a television in the living room, which is kind of a novelty these days. Truth be told, it was actually a refreshing change. They said that, if there was a television and it would be on, we would all be watching, and not sharing a conversation. They are absolutely right about that, and it was a very fun evening, breaking bread together, and sharing laughs and lively conversation.
Before long, it was getting late, and thus, time to go. It always seems like these days just fly by!
Still feeling full to the brim, we went home. Both my girlfriend and I were determined to enjoy a nice day off the next day (today), on what now has come to be known as Black Friday. It is known as Black Friday, because it is the day when all of the stores have these supposedly ridiculous sales, and people flock to the stores to get the best deals.
Here is the thing, though: it is almost offensively about greed. Greed on such a level, and without any attempt to keep it in check. Commercials are everywhere, encouraging you to rush out to the stores, to the malls, to shop, shop, shop 'til you drop! This, just a day after we are supposed to be appreciative for all that we have been blessed with in life, and with absolutely no sense of irony or contradiction by those who participate in both!
And the level of greed is just getting absurd! It was starting to get more extreme for quite a few years now. Some years ago, rather than waiting to open a bit earlier than usual with extended hours on this day, stores began to open at ridiculous hours in the middle of the night.
As if that weren't enough, now stores are going more extreme! A lot of them opened up on the very evening of Thanksgiving itself! Some, like Kmart, opened up as early as 6am on Thanksgiving morning, with "Black Friday" sales!
To me, this is an unfortunate trend, and what nobility and truly great spirit the holiday still may have represented has truly been compromised.
Maybe, given the paradox and contradiction with the history of the holiday, it is indeed fitting. Certainly, it is a sign of the times, of where we are exactly as a country nowadays. Seriously! Again, think about the irony of rushing to the stores, to the stress of life, to excess greed and trying to grab the best deals for things that are on sale, cheaper perhaps than they are on the other 364 days of the year, and this on the day after we are supposed to take time for a deeper appreciation of all that we have in our lives, all that we have been blessed with! Absolutely absurd! And we see the prominent reports of these excesses of greed, with news reports of violence and death, as people who participate going crazy and acting in shameful ways has become every bit a tradition of this day as turkey is for Thanksgiving.
So, maybe I have not been able to eliminate Thanksgiving as a tradition, as a holiday, that I recognize and participate in. But I can tell you one thing: I want absolutely no part of Black Friday! The very idea, the notion of flocking mindlessly to the stores to allegedly save money to buy shit that we don't need just offends me, and I, for one, will not participate! You won't find me in a store on this day and, hopefully, there are plenty of other people who share this sentiment, and who steadfastly refuse to cheapen our better spirit in order to prostitute ourselves and pervert our values by shredding what remains of our personal, as well as societal, dignity, to participate in the most symbolic and shameful tradition of our age!
More on that later, because I do have some thoughts on it.
But first and foremost, I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving a little bit. Hopefully, you got to enjoy your Thanksgiving, if you are American. If you are not, and perhaps are unfamiliar with this particular holiday, it was traditionally a day where people take a timeout for one day, in order to enjoy a feast and remember all of those things that they are thankful for. Thus, the name Thanksgiving. And yet I say again, a little more on this in a minute, as well, because there are some contradictions with how this holiday is popularly perceived, versus the historical reality.
Suffice to say, though, that the modern day holiday is a time when Americans traditionally get together with family, and enjoy a feast of turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes, candied yams, cranberries, and assorted other vegetables and dishes that may be on offer, as well as desserts such as pumpkin pie, among other things.
The main idea behind it, though, is to give thanks. Time out, if you will, to appreciate all that you have, and all that you have been blessed with in life. Generally, that includes those people around you, that you are enjoying the Thanksgiving feast with. You give thanks for having family and friends to be around, and which helps make your life more complete, more full. You give thanks for your good health, as well as those of your family, hopefully. You give thanks, also, simply for being able to enjoy this moment, to enjoy hot food in a warm, family environment, at precisely that time when the weather is growing colder, and far less hospitable and inviting.
Of course, this was by design. The holiday falls at a time when the warmth of the summer and early fall is giving way to the colder season of later fall, and the approach of winter.
Yet, traditionally, Thanksgiving is in honor of when the pilgrims and Indians got together for a feast of goodwill. There was a bit more to the story than that and, in fact, here is an article that suggests that this conventional interpretation of the holiday is actually wrong:
Thanksgiving created by ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ author — not the Pilgrims BY VALERIE STRAUSS November 26, 2013:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/26/how-mary-had-a-little-lamb-author-created-thanksgiving-not-the-pilgrims/
Well, that is interesting. But there is a problem with the history of Thanksgiving: Indians, or Native Americans, do not look at it as a positive thing. Far from being appreciative of the spirit of togetherness and companionship, they recognize in the holiday the tradition of having their land stolen from them, and the genocide that they were victims of. This makes Thanksgiving a holiday of the victors, not celebrated by those who were vanquished. More and more, this viewpoint is getting more exposure. I have read some articles, and even spoken to some native people, and so far, that viewpoint seems more than just common: it seems to be the rule among natives, and it is something that we might want to keep in mind.
I try to but, I must admit, I never reached the point where I no longer celebrated the holiday. Everyone, family and friends, celebrate the holiday, and it is a time - one of the rare opportunities, really - to simply enjoy a nice meal under nice circumstances, and indeed, to try and remember all of those things to be thankful for.
So, yes, I try and keep in mind that the history of this particular holiday has not always been kind to everyone.
But yesterday was a time to enjoy time with loved ones. In my case, in fact, I actually went to two Thanksgiving meals.
The first was with my immediate family. My parents, my brother, and my son. It came early on in the day, because my son was scheduled to go with his mom into the city, to have a second Thanksgiving meal himself with her side of the family. But before then, I was able to enjoy time with him, and to embrace him, even tell him that, for this Thanksgiving, I was appreciative to be sharing this special occasion with him. Also, to be thankful for the relative good health of my family, including my son and myself, as well as a good turn of fortune for my brother recently. My mom retired a few months ago, which means that both of my parents are retired now.
The second meal was with my girlfriend and her close friends, who are really like extended family for her here. Almost all of her family is in Poland, but this is her family here on this side of the pond. So, for the last two years, we enjoyed meals there, including for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And they really do an amazing job with the meals! I mean, the woman that cooks them is a top notch cook! These meals are, generally speaking, better than anything that you can get in a restaurant. She was not feeling too well this time, having undergone medical procedures, and feeling physically exhausted. But last year, she had an amazing assortment of food, including lamb with mint sauce that knocked my socks off! Again, better quality than any restaurant that I have ever been to! It makes my girlfriend jealous to say this (so I try not to say it too often), but I think that ranked among the very best meals that I had in my entire life!
So, we enjoyed a good meal, and towards the end, I was predictably so full, that it was difficult to move. We did move, over to the living room, to the sofas, where I almost fell asleep. But before long, we conversed. They do not have a television in the living room, which is kind of a novelty these days. Truth be told, it was actually a refreshing change. They said that, if there was a television and it would be on, we would all be watching, and not sharing a conversation. They are absolutely right about that, and it was a very fun evening, breaking bread together, and sharing laughs and lively conversation.
Before long, it was getting late, and thus, time to go. It always seems like these days just fly by!
Still feeling full to the brim, we went home. Both my girlfriend and I were determined to enjoy a nice day off the next day (today), on what now has come to be known as Black Friday. It is known as Black Friday, because it is the day when all of the stores have these supposedly ridiculous sales, and people flock to the stores to get the best deals.
Here is the thing, though: it is almost offensively about greed. Greed on such a level, and without any attempt to keep it in check. Commercials are everywhere, encouraging you to rush out to the stores, to the malls, to shop, shop, shop 'til you drop! This, just a day after we are supposed to be appreciative for all that we have been blessed with in life, and with absolutely no sense of irony or contradiction by those who participate in both!
And the level of greed is just getting absurd! It was starting to get more extreme for quite a few years now. Some years ago, rather than waiting to open a bit earlier than usual with extended hours on this day, stores began to open at ridiculous hours in the middle of the night.
As if that weren't enough, now stores are going more extreme! A lot of them opened up on the very evening of Thanksgiving itself! Some, like Kmart, opened up as early as 6am on Thanksgiving morning, with "Black Friday" sales!
To me, this is an unfortunate trend, and what nobility and truly great spirit the holiday still may have represented has truly been compromised.
Maybe, given the paradox and contradiction with the history of the holiday, it is indeed fitting. Certainly, it is a sign of the times, of where we are exactly as a country nowadays. Seriously! Again, think about the irony of rushing to the stores, to the stress of life, to excess greed and trying to grab the best deals for things that are on sale, cheaper perhaps than they are on the other 364 days of the year, and this on the day after we are supposed to take time for a deeper appreciation of all that we have in our lives, all that we have been blessed with! Absolutely absurd! And we see the prominent reports of these excesses of greed, with news reports of violence and death, as people who participate going crazy and acting in shameful ways has become every bit a tradition of this day as turkey is for Thanksgiving.
So, maybe I have not been able to eliminate Thanksgiving as a tradition, as a holiday, that I recognize and participate in. But I can tell you one thing: I want absolutely no part of Black Friday! The very idea, the notion of flocking mindlessly to the stores to allegedly save money to buy shit that we don't need just offends me, and I, for one, will not participate! You won't find me in a store on this day and, hopefully, there are plenty of other people who share this sentiment, and who steadfastly refuse to cheapen our better spirit in order to prostitute ourselves and pervert our values by shredding what remains of our personal, as well as societal, dignity, to participate in the most symbolic and shameful tradition of our age!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)