Day 334 - This day in legal and military history

November 30
 
NATIONAL Stay Home Because You're Well Day
 
NATIONAL Computer Security Day
 
NATIONAL Mousse Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1782 The British sign a preliminary agreement in Paris, recognizing American independence and ending the Revolutionary War
 
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
 
1982 Thriller, Michael Jackson’s second solo album, is released and becomes the best-selling album in history
 
1993 US President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law, which required a 5 day waiting period to purchase handguns
 
1995 Operation Desert Storm officially comes to an end
 
1998 Exxon and Mobil Oil agree to a $73.7 billion merger, creating the world’s largest company, Exxon-Mobil
 
2004 On the game show Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings loses after 74 consecutive victories, the longest winning streak in game-show history, earning him a total of over $3 million

Day 333 - This day in legal and military history

November 29
 
Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Day [tentative]
 
NATIONAL Square Dance Day
 
NATIONAL Electronic Greeting Card Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1777 San Jose, California, the first civilian settlement [pueblo] in Alta California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe
 
1890 The first Army-Navy football game, at West Point: Navy 24, Army 0
 
1903 An inquiry into the US Postal Service demonstrates the government has lost millions of dollars because of fraud
 
1948 The children’s television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres

1963 The Beatles released I Want to Hold Your Hand in Great Britain
 
1972 Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game
 
2012 Data from the NASA space probe MESSENGER indicate that Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, almost surely has water/ice buried beneath the surface at its north pole

Day 332 - This day in legal and military history

November 28
 
NATIONAL French Toast Day
 
NATIONAL Red Planet Day
 
NATIONAL Day of Giving [Tuesday after Thanksgiving]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1520 Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan, having discovered a strait at the tip of South America [now called the Strait of Magellan], enters the Pacific Ocean
 
1868 Mt. Etna in Sicily violently erupts

1942 Coffee rationing went into effect in the US, continuing through World War II
 
1942 Almost 500 people died in the Coconut Grove nightclub fire in Boston
 
1948 Dr. Edwin Land’s first Polaroid cameras go on sale in Boston
 
1958 The US reported the first full-range firing of an ICBM
 
1963 Six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson announced that the Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, would be renamed “The John F. Kennedy Space Center.” Residents voted in 1973 to change the name back to Cape Canaveral. 
 
1980 Iranian naval and air forces destroy most of the Iraqi Navy
 
1990 Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister of Great Britain and John Major became the new prime minister

1995 President Clinton signed a $6 billion road bill that ended the federal 55 mile-an-hour speed limit

Day 331 - This day in legal and military history

November 27
 
Cyber Monday [Monday after Thanksgiving, advertised as the first official online shopping day of the Christmas season]
 
NATIONAL Pins and Needles Day
 
NATIONAL Craft Jerky Day
 
NATIONAL Bavarian Cream Pie Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1910 New York's Pennsylvania Station opened
 
1951 Cease-fire and demarcation zone accord was signed in Panmunjom, Korea
 
1973 The Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who’d resigned
 
1978 San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city’s first openly gay supervisor, are assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White
 
2001 The Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet

2003 President Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with US troops

Day 330 - This day in legal and military history

November 26
 
NATIONAL Shopping Reminder Day
 
NATIONAL Cake Day
 
NATIONAL Cookie Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1778 Captain Cook discovered Maui in the Sandwich Islands, later named Hawaii
 
1789 George Washington proclaims this a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new Constitution
 
1861 West Virginia was created because of a dispute over slavery with Virginia
 
1863 The first National Thanksgiving is celebrated
 
1901 The Hope diamond is brought to New York

1941 The Japanese fleet departs from the Kuril Islands en route to its attack on Pearl Harbor
 
1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day
 
1942 President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December 1
 
1949 India becomes a sovereign democratic republic
 
1975 Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme is found guilty of an attempt on President Gerald Ford’s life
 
1985 Random House advanced President Ronald Reagan $3 million for the rights to publish his autobiography
 
2000 Republican candidate George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida’s electoral votes, giving him enough electoral votes to defeat Democrat Al Gore Jr. for the US presidency, despite losing the popular vote

Day 329- This day in legal and military history

November 25
 
NATIONAL Small Business Saturday
 
NATIONAL Parfait Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
2348 BC Biblical scholars believe this is the day of the Great Deluge, or Flood
 
1783 Evacuation Day - the British leave New York City, their last base in the US, and the Governor of New York honors George Washington at a banquet where thirteen toasts are offered, beginning with "The United States of America"
 
1867 Alfred Nobel invents dynamite
 
1923 Transatlantic broadcasting from England to America commences
 
1946 The US Supreme Court grants the Oregon Indians land payment rights from the US government
 
1955 The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel
 
1963 The body of assassinated President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery

1999 Elian Gonzalez was rescued off the coast of Florida
 
2002 President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security

Day 328 - This day in legal and military history

November 24
 
Black Friday [day after Thanksgiving, first advertised shopping day of Christmas season]

Black Friday at Apple store, NYC, 2011

NATIONAL You're Welcome Day
 
NATIONAL Buy Nothing Day
 
NATIONAL Native American Heritage Day
 
NATIONAL All Our Uncles are Monkeys Day
 
NATIONAL Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day
 
NATIONAL Flossing Day
 
NATIONAL Systems Engineer Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1859 Charles Darwin publishes On Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The first printing of 1,250 copies sells out in a single day.
 
1871 National Rifle Association organized in New York City
 
1874 Joseph F Glidden receives a patent for barbed wire
 
1963 Jack Ruby fatally shoots Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John Kennedy, in the garage of the Dallas Police Department
 
2000 The US Supreme Court stepped into the bitter, overtime struggle for the White House, agreeing to consider George W. Bush’s appeal whether the extended Florida ballot counting violates federal law

Day 327 - This day in legal and military history

November 23
 
Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving postcard circa 1900

NATIONAL Eat a Cranberry Day
 
NATIONAL Cashew Day
 
NATIONAL Espresso Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1783 Annapolis, Maryland became the US capital until June 1784
 
1785 John Hancock is elected president of the Continental Congress for the second time
 
1889 The first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco
 
1909 The Wright brothers form a million-dollar corporation for the commercial manufacture of their airplanes
 
1921 President Warren G. Harding signs the Willis-Campbell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbids doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.
 
1936 First issue of Life magazine hit the newsstands
 
1942 The film Casablanca premieres in New York City
 
1945 Wartime meat and butter rationing ends in the United States
 
1992 The first Smartphone, IBM’s Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada
 
2000 In Florida, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency plea by Al Gore to force Miami-Dade County to resume manual vote counts

Day 326 - This day in legal and military history

November 22
 
NATIONAL Go For a Ride Day
 
NATIONAL Cranberry Relish Day
 
NATIONAL Juke Box Day [day before Thanksgiving]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1842 Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted. Ash fallout reached as far as 48 miles away.
 
1858 Denver, Colorado is founded
 
1906 The SOS distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin
 
1919 A Labor conference committee in the United States urges an eight-hour workday and a 48-hour week
 
1935 Pan Am inaugurates the first transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila
 
1963 Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, and Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president
 
1964 Almost 40,000 people pay tribute to John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death
 
1988 The first prototype of a B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bomber is unveiled for public viewing

1990 Margaret Thatcher announced her resignation as prime minister of the United Kingdom
 
1995 The first feature-length film created entirely with computer generated imagery, Toy Story, premiers
 
2000 Governor George Bush called on the US Supreme Court to stop the vote counting in Florida

Day 325 - This day in legal and military history

November 21
 
WORLD Hello Day  

WORLD Television Day
 
NATIONAL Entrepreneurs Day
 
NATIONAL False Confession Day
 
NATIONAL Stuffing Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1338 An archer named Robin Hood enlists in the service of King Edward III at the garrison on the Isle of Wight
 
1620 Leaders of the Mayflower expedition frame the “Mayflower Compact,” designed to bolster unity among the settlers
 
1789 North Carolina becomes the 12th state in the Union
 
1794 Honolulu Harbor was discovered
 
1904 Motorized omnibuses replace horse-drawn cars in Paris

1973 The 18-1/2 min gap in the Richard Nixon Watergate tapes was revealed
 
2014 The United States House of Representatives files a lawsuit against President Barack Obama for executive actions undertaken in relation to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act

Day 324 - This day in legal and military history

November 20
 
Universal Children's Day
 
NATIONAL Absurdity Day
 
NATIONAL Beautiful Day
 
NATIONAL Name Your PC Day
 
NATIONAL Peanut Butter Fudge Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1789 New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights
 
1945 The Nazi war crime trials begin at Nuremberg
 
1947 Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) marries Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey

May 2007

1962 President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing
 
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: The Soviets agree to remove their missiles from Cuba, and the US lifts naval quarantine of the island
 
1967 The US census reports the population at 200 million
 
1974 The United States files an antitrust suit to break up AT&T
 
1981 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released
 
2008 The Dow Jones Industrial Average sinks to its lowest level in 11 years in response to failures in the US financial system

Day 323 - This day in legal and military history

November 19
 
WORLD Toilet Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Men's Day
 
NATIONAL Guinness World Record Day
 
NATIONAL Have a Bad Day Day
 
NATIONAL Play Monopoly Day
 
NATIONAL Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1863 Abraham Lincoln delivers the “Gettysburg Address” at the dedication of the National Cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg
 
1969 Apollo 12 touches down on the moon
 
1985 In the largest civil verdict in US history, Pennzoil wins $10.53 billion judgement against Texaco
 
1990 Pop duo Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award after it is learned they did not do their own singing on their award-winning Girl You Know Its True album
 
1998 The US House of Representatives begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton
 
2001 President Bush signs the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, creating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

Day 322 - This day in legal and military history

November 18
 
NATIONAL Mickey Mouse Birthday
 
NATIONAL Housing Day
 
NATIONAL Push Button Phone Day
 
NATIONAL Adoption Day [Saturday before Thanksgiving]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1493 Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico
 
1820 US Navy Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer discovers Antarctica 

1861 Poet and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe writes the lyrics for the Battle Hymn of the Republic
 
1865 Mark Twain’s first story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is published in the New York Saturday Press
 
1883 At exactly noon on this day, standard time zones began when American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times
 
1921 New York City considers varying work hours to avoid long traffic jams
 
1928 Mickey Mouse makes his film debut in Steamboat Willie, the first animated talking picture
 
1936 The main span of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is joined
 
1978 Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones leads his followers to a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana
 
2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules the state’s ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional (the first such ruling in the US)

Day 321 - This day in legal and military history

November 17
 
WORLD Peace Day
 
WORLD Prematurity Day
 
NATIONAL Electronic Greeting Card Day
 
NATIONAL Homemade Bread Day
 
NATIONAL Take a Hike Day 

NATIONAL Petroleum Day
 
NATIONAL Unfriend Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1800 Congress meets in Washington, DC, for the first time
 
1869 The Suez Canal is formally opened
 
1913 The first ship sails through the Panama Canal
 
1918 US influenza deaths far exceed World War I casualties
 
1969 Soviet and US negotiators meet in Helsinki to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
 
1973 President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Florida, that “people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
 
1988 Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto becomes Prime Minister, the first woman to lead a modern Muslim state
 
2003 Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as governor of California

Day 320 - This day in legal and military history

November 16
 
INTERNATIONAL Tolerance Day
 
NATIONAL Button Day
 
NATIONAL Have a Party with Your Bear Day
 
NATIONAL Fast Food Day
 
NATIONAL Use Less Stuff Day
 
Great American Smoke-Out [third Thursday of November]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1864 Union General William T. Sherman departs Atlanta and begins his “March to the Sea”
 
1907 The Indian and Oklahoma territories are unified to make Oklahoma, which becomes the 46th state
 
1914 The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens
 
1920 Metered mail begins in Stamford, Connecticut with the first Pitney Bowes postage meter
 
1933 The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations
 
1973 President Nixon signed the bill authorizing the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline 

2004 President George W. Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state

Day 319 - This day in legal and military history

November 15
 
America Recycles Day
 
NATIONAL Clean Your Refrigerator Day

NATIONAL Philanthropy Day
 
NATIONAL I Love to Write Day
 
NATIONAL Raisin Bran Cereal Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1626 The Pilgrim Fathers, who settled in New Plymouth, buy out their London investors
 
1777 The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, the precursor to the US Constitution
 
1881 The American Federation of Labor is founded
 
1920 Forty-one nations open the first League of Nations session in Geneva
 
1960 The first submarine with nuclear missiles, the USS George Washington, takes to sea from Charleston, South Carolina
 
1969 A quarter of a million anti-Vietnam War demonstrators march in Washington, DC

Day 318 - This day in legal and military history

November 14
 
WORLD Diabetes Day
 
NATIONAL Operating Room Nurse Day
 
NATIONAL Spicy Guacamole Day
 
NATIONAL Pickle Day
 
NATIONAL Loosen Up, Lighten Up Day
 
NATIONAL Young Readers Day [second Tuesday of November]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1851 Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick is published in New York
 
1889 Nellie Bly set out to beat Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg's time of 80 days to travel around the world. She did it in 72.
 
1908 Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light
 
1910 Lieutenant Eugene Ely of the US Navy becomes the first man to take off in an airplane from the deck of a ship
 
1921 The Cherokee Indians ask the US Supreme Court to review their claim to one million acres of land in Texas
 
1922 The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins the first daily radio broadcasts from Marconi House
 
1935 Nazis deprive German Jews of their citizenship
 
1960 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is formed
 
1963 Iceland gets a new island when a volcano pushes its way up out of the sea five miles off the southern coast
 
1968 Yale University announces its plan to go co-ed
 
2002 Nancy Pelosi of California became the first woman to lead a party in Congress
 
2003 Sedna, the most distant object ever found in our solar system, was discovered by astronomers at the Mount Palomar Observatory in California

Day 317 - This day in legal and military history

November 13
 
WORLD Kindness Day
 
WORLD Orphans Day
 
NATIONAL Caregiver Appreciation Day
 
NATIONAL Sadie Hawkins Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1806 Pike’s Peak was discovered by Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike during an expedition to locate the source of the Mississippi River
 
1830 Publication of Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem "Old Ironsides" which saved the famed frigate from the scrap heap
 
1835 Texas officially proclaims its independence from Mexico and calls itself the Lone Star Republic until its admission to the Union in 1845
 
1851 The London-to-Paris telegraph begins operation
 
1862 Lewis Carroll writes in his diary, “Began writing the fairy-tale of Alice – I hope to finish it by Christmas”
 
1907 Paul Corno makes the first helicopter flight
 
1914 The brassiere, invented by Caresse Crosby, is patented
 
1927 New York’s Holland Tunnel officially opens for traffic
 
1940 The US Supreme Court rules in Hansberry v. Lee that African-Americans cannot be barred from white neighborhoods
 
1940 Walt Disney's Fantasia debuted
 
1941 The New York City public schools hold a practice air raid drill and 1.1 million children take part
 
1952 Harvard’s Paul Zoll becomes the first man to use electric shock to treat cardiac arrest
 
1956 The US Supreme Court unanimously strikes down two Alabama laws requiring racial segregation on public buses
 
1970 Powerful tropical cyclone Bhola strikes the Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), causing an estimated half-million deaths in a single night, the worst natural disaster of the 20th century
 
1971 The US space probe Mariner 9 went into orbit around Mars
 
1982 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC
 
1985 23,000 people die when the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupts, melting a glacier and causing a massive mudslide that buries Armero, Columbia

September 1985

Late November 1985

Armero, December 1985

Day 316 - This day in legal and military history

November 12
 
WORLD Quality Day
 
NATIONAL Chicken Soup for the Soul Day
 
NATIONAL Fancy Rat and Mouse Day
 
NATIONAL Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day
 
NATIONAL Happy Hour Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1775 General Washington forbade the enlistment of blacks
 
1912 Robert Scott’s diary and dead body were found in Antarctica
 
1954 The Ellis Island Immigration Station closes, after welcoming some 12,000,000 new Americans

1968 The US Supreme Court voids an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools
 
1990 Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, publishes a formal proposal for the creation of the World Wide Web

Day 315 - This day in legal and military history

November 11
 
Veterans Day
 
NATIONAL Origami Day 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1620 The Mayflower Compact was signed by Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, providing the basis for all governments of the American colonies
 
1839 The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia
 
1889 Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union
 
1918 German leaders sign the armistice ending World War I at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918
 
1921 The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery is dedicated and, escorted by 30 holders of the Medal of Honor, the "Unknown Soldier" is laid to rest
 
1933 The first of the great dust storms of the 1930s hits North Dakota
 
1935 Albert Stevens and Orvil Anderson set a new altitude record in South Dakota, when they float to 72,395 feet in a balloon
 
1938 Irving Berlin‘s “God Bless America” is performed for the first time by singer Kate Smith
 
1942 Congress approves lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37
 
1954 November 11 designated as Veterans Day [originally Armistice Day] to honor veterans of all US wars

Day 314 - This day in legal and military history

November 10
 
NATIONAL Forget-Me-Not Day
 
NATIONAL Marine Corps Day
 
NATIONAL Area Code Day
 
NATIONAL Sesame Street Day
 
NATIONAL Vanilla Cupcake Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1775 The US Marine Corps is founded
 
1951 Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States
 
1969 The PBS children’s program Sesame Street debuts
 
1970 The Great Wall of China opened to the world for tourism
 
1972 Hijackers divert a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes
 
1975 The iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald breaks in half and sinks in a storm at the eastern end of Lake Superior; all 29 crew members perish
 
1982 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened in Washington, DC

1983 Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0
 
1989 German citizens begin tearing down the Berlin Wall

Day 313 - This day in legal and military history

November 9
 
WORLD Freedom Day
 
NATIONAL Chaos Never Dies Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1620 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts
 
1872 Great Fire of Boston - 13 die and more than 775 buildings burn
 
1887 The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
 
1888 Jack the Ripper killed his last victim, Mary Jane Kelly
 
1921 USS Olympia arrives at the Washington Navy Yard from France carrying the body of the Unknown Soldier for internment at Arlington National Cemetery

1965 Nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada go dark in the worst power failure in history
 
1970 The Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge by the state of Massachusetts regarding the constitutionality of the Vietnam War
 
1979 NORAD goes on full alert when a computer glitch indicates a massive wave of incoming Soviet missiles
 
1989 The Berlin Wall is opened after dividing the city for 28 years

Day 312 - This day in legal and military history

November 8
 
NATIONAL Dunce Day
 
NATIONAL Cook Something Bold Day
 
NATIONAL X-Ray Day
 
NATIONAL Tongue Twister Day
 
NATIONAL Parents as Teachers Day
 
NATIONAL STEM Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
392 Theodosius of Rome passes legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire and ending the Olympic games
 
1731 Benjamin Franklin opened the first US library
 
1793 The Louvre opens to the pubic in Paris

1889 Montana becomes the 41st state of the Union
 
1892 Former President Cleveland beat incumbent Benjamin Harrison and became the only president to win non-consecutive terms
 
2000 A dispute begins over the US presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, centered on Florida.  A Supreme Court ruling on December 12 results in a 271-266 electoral victory for Bush.

Day 311 - This day in legal and military history

November 7
 
US General Election Day [first Tuesday after the first Monday of November]
 
NATIONAL Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day
 
NATIONAL Hug a Bear Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1307 William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head
 
1665 The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published
 
1805 Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean
 
1874 The Republican Party was first symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly magazine
 
1916 President Woodrow Wilson is re-elected in a race is so close that all votes must be counted before an outcome can be determined.  Results are not known until November 11.
 
1940 The Tacoma Bridge in Washington State collapses

1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to a fourth term by defeating Thomas Dewey
 
1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
 
1983 Bomb explodes in US Capitol, causing heavy damage but no injuries
 
2000 Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first First Lady (1993–2001) elected to public office in the US when she wins a US Senate seat
 
2000 Election Day in the US ends with the winner between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore still undecided

Day 310 - This day in legal and military history

November 6
 
NATIONAL Marooned without a Compass Day
 
NATIONAL Saxophone Day 

NATIONAL Nachos Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States
 
1861 Jefferson Davis is elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy
 
1866 Professor Arronax, Conseil, and Ned Land are taken aboard Captain Nemo's 'Nautilus' to begin "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
 
1923 As European inflation soars, one loaf of bread in Berlin is reported to be worth about 140 billion German marks
 
1986 The Iran arms-for-hostages deal is revealed, damaging the Reagan administration
 
1999 Australia’s voters reject a referendum to make the country a republic with a president appointed by Parliament
 
2012 The US territory of Puerto Rico votes for a non-binding resolution to become a US state

Day 309 - This day in legal and military history

November 5
 
Guy Fawkes Day
 
Daylight Savings Time Ends [first Sunday in November, change your clocks!]
 
NATIONAL Gunpowder Day
 
NATIONAL Zero Tasking Day
 
NATIONAL Love Your Red Hair Day
 
NATIONAL Doughnut Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1605 Guy Fawkes is betrayed and arrested in an unsuccessful attempt by Catholics to blow up British Parliament in the “Gunpowder Plot”
 
1639 First post office in the colonies opened in Massachusetts
 
1872 Susan B. Anthony is arrested and fined $100 for trying to vote
 
1911 Calbraith P. Rodgers ends the first transcontinental flight – 49 days from New York to Pasadena, California
 
1930 Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Babbit
 
1935 Parker Brothers company launches “Monopoly,” a game of real estate and capitalism

1979 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared US “The Great Satan”
 
2009 US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 29 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a US military installation

Day 308 - This day in legal and military history

November 4
 
NATIONAL King Tut Day
 
NATIONAL Use Your Common Sense Day
 
NATIONAL Chicken Lady Day
 
NATIONAL Candy Day
 
NATIONAL Book Lovers Day [first Saturday of November]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1854 The first lighthouse on the West Coast was built at Alcatraz Island
 
1880 James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio, patented the first cash register
 
1922 The US Postmaster General orders all homes to get mailboxes or relinquish delivery of mail
 
1923 The tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun is discovered in the Valley of the Kings

1992 Carol Moseley Braun becomes the first African-American woman elected to the US Senate
 
2008 Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is elected the 44th and first African-American president of the United States

Day 307 - This day in legal and military history

November 3
 
NATIONAL Housewife Day
 
NATIONAL Sandwich Day
 
NATIONAL Jellyfish Day 

NATIONAL Love Your Lawyer Day
 
NATIONAL Cliche Day
 
NATIONAL Fountain Pen Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1507 Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini (“Mona Lisa”)
 
1883 The US Supreme Court declares American Indians to be “dependent aliens”
 
1921 Milk drivers on strike dump thousands of gallons of milk onto New York City’s streets
 
1952 Clarence Birdseye marketed the first frozen peas
 
1964 For the first time, residents of Washington, DC are allowed to vote in a presidential election

Day 306 - This day in legal and military history

November 2
 
All Souls Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Project Management Day
 
NATIONAL Use Less Stuff Day
 
NATIONAL Deviled Egg Day
 
NATIONAL Look for Circles Day
 
NATIONAL Plan Your Epitaph Day
 
NATIONAL Men Make Dinner Day [first Thursday of November]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1889 North Dakota becomes the 39th state and South Dakota becomes the 40th state
 
1903 London’s Daily Mirror newspaper is first published
 
1920 The first radio broadcast in the United States is made from Pittsburgh
 
1947 Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose flies for the first and last time
 
1948 Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey to the surprise of pollsters and newspapers, in the greatest presidential upset in history [until, perhaps, 2016]

1960 A British jury determines that Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence is not obscene
 
1983 President Ronald Reagan signs a bill establishing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
 
2000 An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first residents of the international space station

Day 305 - This day in legal and military history

November 1
 
All Saints Day
 
WORLD Vegan Day
 
NATIONAL Extra Mile Day
 
NATIONAL Authors Day
 
NATIONAL Cook for your Pets Day
 
NATIONAL Family Literacy Day
 
NATIONAL Vinegar Day
 
NATIONAL Brush Day
 
NATIONAL Deep Fried Clams Day
 
NATIONAL Stress Awareness Day [first Wednesday in November]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
79 The city of Pompeii is buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
 
1512 Michelangelo’s painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling is exhibited for the first time
 
1755 Earthquake, fires, and tsunami destroyed Lisbon, Portugal and claimed 70,000 lives
 
1765 The Stamp Act goes into effect in the British colonies
 
1870 The US Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations
 
1936 The Rodeo Cowboys Association is founded

1945 John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of Ebony magazine
 
1967 The first issue of Rolling Stone hits the streets
 
1968 The Motion Picture Association of America officially introduces its rating system to indicate age-appropriateness of film content
 
1982 Honda opens a plant in Marysville, Ohio, becoming the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the US
 
1993 The Maastricht Treaty was enacted, establishing the European Union