TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 11
1620 The Mayflower Compact was signed by Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower. It would provide the basis for all governments of the American colonies.
1675 German mathetician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function
1778 Indians, led by William Butler, massacre the inhabitants of Cherry Valley, N.Y.
1831 Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.
1851 The telescope was patented by Alvan Clark.
1887 Labor Activists were hanged in Illinois after being convicted of being connected to a bombing that killed eight police officers.
1889 Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union.
1909 Construction begins on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
1918 The German leaders sign the armistice ending World War I.
1919 The first two-minutes’ silence is observed in Britain to commemorate those who died in the Great War.
1920 Tomb of The Unknown Warrior buried in Westminster Abbey, London, simultaneously with a similar interment of a French unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in France, making both tombs the first to honour the unknown dead of the First World War
1921 The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is dedicated.
1922 Canada’s Vernon McKenzie urges to fight U.S. propaganda with taxes on U.S. magazines.
1923 Effort was being made by Congress to reduce the nation’s tax assessment for the following year. This possible tax reduction was expected to be as high as $323,000,000.
1926 Approval of numbered highways in the US . Under this system odd numbered highways run north to south while even numbered highways run east to west. Lower odd numbers are in the west, and higher odd number are in the east. Lower even numbers are in the south, and higher even numbers are in the north.
1940 The Jeep made its debut.
1944 Private Eddie Slovik is convicted of desertion and sentenced to death for refusing to join his unit in the European Theater of Operations.
1952 The first video recorder was demonstrated by John Mullin and Wayne Johnson in Beverly Hills, CA.
1953 The polio virus is identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1953 Americans took part in another celebration of Armistice Day, which marked the anniversary of the end date of World War I. This was the last of the official Armistice Days in the United States. The following year ( 1954 ), this holiday became Veteran’s Day
1954 This is the first time ever that the Veteran’s Day was declared a national celebration.
1973 Israel and Egypt sign a cease-fire.
1984 U.S. President Ronald Reagan accepted the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a gift to the nation from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
1988 Police in Sacramento, CA, found the first of seven bodies buried on the grounds of a boardinghouse. Dorothea Puente was later charged in the deaths of nine people, convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
1989 Jaguar becomes a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company.
1992 The Church of England approves the ordination of female priests
1993 Walt Disney Co. announced plans to build a U.S. history theme park in a Virginia suburb of Washington. The plan was halted later due to local opposition.
1993 Sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
1998 Israel’s Cabinet ratified a land-for-peace agreement with the Palestinians.
1999 House of Lords Act reforming Britain’s House of Lords, given Royal Assent; the act removed the right to hereditary seats (sitting members were permitted to remain).
2001 Journalists Pierre Billaud (France), Johanne Sutton (France) and Voker Handloik (Germany) killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy in which they were traveling.
2001 Jerry Falwell expressed his point of view regarding how to deal with el-Qaida (el-Qaeda) terrorist lead Osama Bin Laden. In his own way, Falwell made it clear that Bin Laden deserved a chance at heaven, but he no longer deserved a chance on earth.
2004 New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior dedicated at the National War Museum, Wellington.
2004 Yasser Arafat’s death through unidentified causes confirmed by Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas elected PLO chairman minutes later.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
