- National Cake Day
- Tie One On Day
- International Aura Awareness Day
- Proclamation Day-Mongolia
- Day Of The Covenant-Baha’i
- On This Day
- 1789 --- President George Washington signed a proclamation on October 3, 1789 declaring Thursday the 26th day of November as the first national Thanksgiving Day under the Constitution.
- 1832 --- The 'John Mason', the first public horse-drawn streetcar, began carrying passengers in New York City. The fare was 12½¢. The coaches, with seating for 30 passengers, were mounted on iron wheels and were drawn by horses over iron rails laid down the middle of the street. Designed and built by John Stephenson.
- 1862 --- Oxford mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson sends a handwritten manuscript called Alice's Adventures Under Ground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell. The 30-year-old Dodgson, better known by his nom de plume Lewis Carroll, made up the story one day on a picnic with young Alice and her two sisters, the children of one of Dodgson's colleagues. Dodgson, the son of a country parson, had been brilliant at both mathematics and wordplay since childhood, when he enjoyed making up games. However, he suffered from a severe stammer, except when he spoke with children. He had many young friends who enjoyed his fantastic stories: The Liddell children thought his tale of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole was one of his best efforts, and Alice insisted he write it down.
- 1867 --- J.B. Sutherland patented the refrigerated railroad car.
- 1872 --- The Great Diamond Hoax, one of the most notorious mining swindles of the time, is exposed with an article in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. Fraudulent gold and silver mines were common in the years following the California Gold Rush of 1849. Swindlers fooled many eager greenhorns by "salting" worthless mines with particles of gold dust to make them appear mineral-rich. However, few con men were as daring as Kentucky cousins Philip Arnold and John Slack, who convinced San Francisco capitalists to invest in a worthless mine in the northwestern corner of Colorado.
- 1916 --- Thomas Edward Lawrence, a junior member of the British government's Arab Bureau during World War I, publishes a detailed report analyzing the revolt led by the Arab leader Sherif Hussein against the Ottoman Empire in the late spring of 1916.
- 1922 --- In Egypt's Valley of the Kings, British archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first souls to enter King Tutankhamen's tomb in more than 3,000 years. Tutankhamen's sealed burial chambers were miraculously intact, and inside was a collection of several thousand priceless objects, including a gold coffin containing the mummy of the teenage king. Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over several years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. In addition to numerous pieces of jewelry and gold, there was statuary, furniture, clothes, a chariot, weapons, and numerous other objects that shed a brilliant light on the culture and history of ancient Egypt. The most splendid find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummified body of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for 3,200 years. Most of these treasures are now housed in the Cairo Museum.
- 1931 --- The first cloverleaf interchange to be built in the United States, at the junction of NJ Rt. 25 (now U.S. Rt. 1) and NJ Rt. 4 (now NJ Rt. 35) in Woodbridge, New Jersey, is featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Engineering News-Record. (By contrast, a piece on the under-construction Hoover Dam was relegated to the journal's back pages.)
- 1933 --- Thousands of peoples in San Jose, California, storm the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for pictures. The public seemed to welcome the gruesome act of vigilante violence. After the incident, pieces of the lynching ropes were sold to the public. Though the San Jose News declined to publish pictures of the lynching, it condoned the act in an editorial. Seventeen-year-old Anthony Cataldi bragged that he had been the leader of the mob but he was not held accountable for his participation. At Stanford University, a professor asked his students to stand and applaud the lynching. Perhaps most disturbing, Governor Rolph publicly praised the mob. "The best lesson ever given the country," said Governor Rolph. "I would like to parole all kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose."
- 1940 --- The Nazis forced 500,000 Jews of Warsaw, Poland to live within a walled ghetto.
- 1941 --- Adm. Chuichi Nagumo leads the Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force, toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should "negotiations with the United States reach a successful conclusion, the task force will immediately put about and return to the homeland." Nagumo had no experience with naval aviation, having never commanded a fleet of aircraft carriers in his life. This role was a reward for a lifetime of faithful service. Nagumo, while a man of action, did not like taking unnecessary risks—which he considered an attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor to be. But Chief of Staff Rear Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto thought differently; while also opposing war with the United States, he believed the only hope for a Japanese victory was a swift surprise attack, via carrier warfare, against the U.S. fleet. And as far as the Roosevelt War Department was concerned, if war was inevitable, it desired "that Japan commit the first overt act."
- 1941 --- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1939 Roosevelt had signed a bill that changed the celebration of Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November.
- 1942 --- Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City; it will go on to become one of the most beloved Hollywood movies in history.
- 1942 --- President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December 1.
- 1950 --- In some of the fiercest fighting of the Korean War, thousands of communist Chinese troops launch massive counterattacks against U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops, driving the Allied forces before them and putting an end to any thoughts for a quick or conclusive U.S. victory. When the counterattacks had been stemmed, U.S. and ROK forces had been driven from North Korea and the war settled into a grinding and frustrating stalemate for the next two-and-a-half years.
- 1968 --- Cream gave its last concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was recorded and released as "Goodbye Cream" February 20, 1969.
- 1969 --- The Band received a gold record for the album, The Band.
- 1973 --- Rose Mary Woods, U.S. President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, told a federal court she had accidentally erased over eighteen minutes of a ‘Watergate tape’ made June 20, 1972. The recording was of a crucial conversation at an Oval-Office meeting between Nixon and Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman just three days after the Watergate break-in.
- 1975 --- Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, Manson-family devotee, was found guilty by a federal jury of trying to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. Fromme, 27, had attempted to shoot the president in Sacramento September 5 with a hand gun. Secret service agents wrestled the weapon from her.
- 1980 --- Rockshow premiered in New York City. The movie is about the first American tour of Paul McCartney and Wings.
- 1983 --- A Brinks Mat Ltd. vault at London's Heathrow Airport was robbed by gunmen. The men made off with 6,800 gold bars worth nearly $40 million. Only a fraction of the gold has ever been recovered and only two men were convicted in the heist.
- 1989 --- The television series MTV Unplugged, featuring stripped-down acoustical performances by a wide range of artists not usually known for such performances, makes its broadcast premiere.
- 1992 --- The British government announced that Queen Elizabeth II had volunteered to start paying taxes on her personal income. She also took her children off the public payroll.
- 1996 --- The Las Vegas Sands Hotel was 'imploded' to make way for the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino.
- 2000 --- Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Republican George W. Bush the winner over Democrat Al Gore in the state's presidential balloting by 537 votes.
- 2009 --- An investigation ordered by Ireland's government found that Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin had spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and that most fellow clerics turned a blind eye.
- Birthdays
- Tina Turner
- John McVie
- Art Shell
- Charles Schultz
- Eric Sevareid
- Robert Goulet
- Marian Mercer
- 330th Day of 2014 / 35 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 25 Days
- Sunrise:7:02
- Sunset:4:52
- 9 Hours 50 Minutes
- Moon Rise:10:39am
- Moon Set:9:29pm
- Moon Phase:22%
- 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:2:01am/12:48pm
- Low Tide:7:00am/7:42pm