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Monday November 24, 2014

  • Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day
  • D.B. Cooper Day
  • Use Even If the Seal Is Broken Day
  • National Sardine Day

  • National Women’s Day-Samoa

  • On This Day
  • 1859 --- “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England. Darwin's theory argued that organisms 
    gradually evolve through a process he called "natural selection." In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

  • 1871 --- The National Rifle Association was incorporated.

  • 1874 --- U.S. Patent #157,124 issued to Joseph F. Glidden for barbed wire (patent application filed Oct 27, 1873). The beginning of the end of cowboys and the open range.

  • 1922 --- Robert Erskine Childers, a popular Irish author and member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is shot to death by an Irish Free State firing squad after being convicted of carrying a revolver. He had been one of the leaders, along with Eamon de Valera, of the Republican forces in the Irish Civil War that followed the partition of Ireland in 1921. His son, Erskine Hamilton Childers, was elected president of Ireland in 1973.

  • 1932 --- The crime lab that is now referred to as the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens in Washignton D.C. The lab, which was chosen because it had the necessary sink, operated out of a single room and had only one full-time employee, Agent Charles Appel. Agent Appel began with a borrowed microscope and a pseudo-scientific device called a helixometer. The helixometer purportedly assisted investigators with gun barrel examinations, but it was actually more for show than function. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, provided the lab with very few resources and used the "cutting-edge lab" primarily as a public relations tool. But by 1938, the FBI lab added polygraph machines and started conducting controversial lie detection tests as part of its investigations. In its early days, the FBI Crime Lab worked on about 200 pieces of evidence a year. By the 1990s, that number multiplied to approximately 200,000. Currently, the FBI Crime Lab obtains 600 new pieces of criminal evidence every day.

  • 1947 --- The House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt against 10 Hollywood writers, directors, and producers. These men had refused to cooperate at hearings dealing with communism in the movie industry held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The "Hollywood 10," as the men were known, are sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges.

  • 1947 --- John Steinbeck's novel "The Pearl" was published for the first time. 

  • 1947 --- The first Postmaster General of the United States, to be promoted from the rank and file, was named. J.M. Donaldson had moved through the post office beginning as a letter carrier in 1908.

  • 1950 --- The musical comedy, “Guys and Dolls”, from the pen of Frank Loesser, opened at the 46th Street Theater in New York City.

  • 1960 --- Philadelphia Warrior Wilt Chamberlain snags 55 rebounds in a game against the Boston Celtics and sets an NBA record for the most rebounds in a single game.

  • 1961 --- Howlin' Wolf arrived in London for his first European tour.

  • 1963 --- In the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner. On November 22, 
    President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer 
    J.D. Tippit. On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action.

  • 1963 --- Two days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms the U.S. intention to continue military and economic support to South Vietnam. He instructed Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in Washington for consultations following South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination, to communicate his intention to the new South Vietnamese leadership.

  • 1969 --- Apollo 12 landed safely in the Pacific Ocean bringing an end to the second manned mission to the moon. 

  • 1969 --- U.S. Army officials announce 1st Lt. William Calley will be court-martialed for the premeditated murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. In Washington, Army Secretary Stanley Resor and Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland announced the appointment of Lt. Gen. William R. Peers to "explore the nature and scope" of the original investigation of the My Lai slayings in April 1968. The initial probe, conducted by the unit involved in the affair, 
    concluded that no massacre occurred and that no further action was warranted. The My Lai Massacre took place in March 1968, when between 200 and 500 South Vietnamese civilians were murdered by U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division. During a sweep of a cluster of hamlets, the U.S. soldiers, particularly those from Calley's first platoon, indiscriminately shot people as they ran from their huts. They then systematically rounded up the survivors, allegedly leading them to a ditch where Calley gave the order to "finish them off."

  • 1970 --- The nation’s outstanding collegiate football player of the year received the annual Heisman Memorial Trophy. Jim Plunkett was a quarterback for the Stanford Cardinal and later went on to a sterling career in the NFL.

  • 1971 --- A hijacker calling himself D.B. Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a raging thunderstorm over Washington State. He had $200,000 in ransom money in his possession. Cooper commandeered the aircraft shortly after takeoff, showing a flight attendant something that looked like a bomb and informing the crew that he wanted $200,000, four parachutes, and 
    "no funny stuff." The plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where authorities met Cooper's demands and evacuated most of the passengers. Cooper then demanded that the plane fly toward Mexico at a low altitude and ordered the remaining crew into the cockpit. At 8:13 p.m., as the plane flew over the Lewis River in southwest Washington, the plane's pressure gauge recorded Cooper's jump from the aircraft. Wearing only wraparound sunglasses, a thin suit, and a raincoat, Cooper parachuted into a thunderstorm with winds in excess of 100 mph and temperatures well below zero at the 10,000-foot altitude where he began his fall. 
     The storm prevented an immediate capture, and most authorities assumed he was killed during his apparently suicidal jump. No trace of Cooper was found during a massive search. In 1980, an eight-year-old boy uncovered a stack of nearly $5,880 of the ransom money in the sands along the north bank of the Columbia River, five miles from Vancouver, Washington. The fate of Cooper remains a mystery.

  • 1973 --- Ringo Starr becomes the third former Beatle to earn a solo #1 hit when "Photograph" tops the Billboard Hot 100.

  • 1993 --- The Brady Bill was passed by the U.S. Congress. The battle over the bill had been long and loud since its introduction in 1987, dividing gun-control supporters and opponents. The major issures were background checks of would-be handgun purchasers, bans on semi-automatic assault weapons and ‘Saturday night specials’, and the licensing and registration of handguns.

  • 1993 --- Mrs. Doubtfire, starring Robin Williams as a divorced father who disguises himself as an elderly British nanny in order to spend time with his children, opens in theaters. 
  • 1995 --- In Ireland, the voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment legalizing divorce. 

  • 2005 --- The M&M's balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade hit a light pole, knocking the light to the street and injuring 2 spectators.

  • 2010 --- A jury in Austin convicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on charges he'd illegally funneled corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002.

  • Birthdays
  • Zachary Taylor (12th President)
  • Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
  • Dale Carnegie
  • Junipero Serra
  • Scott Joplin
  • Bat Masterson
  • William F Buckley Jr.
  • Pete Best
  • Donald “Duck” Dunn
  • Lee Michaels

  • 328th Day of 2014 / 37 Remaining
  • Winter Begins in 27 Days

  • Sunrise:7:00
  • Sunset:4:53
  • 9 Hours 53 Minutes

  • Moon Rise:8:57am
  • Moon Set:7:21pm
  • Moon Phase:7%
  • Next Full Moon December 6 @ 4:27am
  • Full Cold Moon
  • Full Long Nights Moon

During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.

  • Tides:
  • High Tide:12:22am/11:09am
  • Low Tide:5:10am/6:04pm

  • Rainfall
  • This Year to Date:2.51
  • Last Year:1.70
  • Avg YTD:3.80
  • Annual Avg:23.80