On October 27, 1962, an unknown Soviet naval officer (possibly; probably?) averts nuclear war. At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet navy has 4 conventionally powered, but nuclear torpedo-armed, submarines patrolling international waters in the region. An American task force detects one of the subs, designated B-59, which had been patrolling in deep water and out of radio contact for several days, and began dropping detection buoys. With no confirming info, the sub's commander assumed war had broken out and orders an attack. But the sub's executive officer, Vasily Arkhipov (in an unusual command structure, he's exec of this one boat but commodore of the 4-boat flotilla), talks him out of it and also convinces him to surface the sub, an act that effectively ends the boat's patrol by giving up its position. Arkhipov, who enjoyed a solid reputation in the Soviet navy, was not reprimanded for his actions; he later received admiral's stars and was appointed commander of the Soviet Naval Academy. On the anniversary of the Crisis in 2002, several surviving Kennedy Administration officials, including Defense Secretary McNamara, agreed the U.S. would almost certainly have retaliated with a nuclear strike had Arkhipov not disobeyed his captain's orders. On October 27, 1810, the U.S annexes the West Florida territory. The territory's ownership had been in dispute despite the 1795 Treaty of Madrid, which established borders between the U.S. and Spanish colonies in North America. The annexation gives the U.S. ownership of the present-day Florida Panhandle, the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast, and the portion of eastern Louisiana now known as the Florida Parishes. On October 27, 2006, the last Ford Taurus rolls off the assembly line of Ford's Hapeville, Georgia plant. The Taurus had been introduced in 1985 to compete with the fuel efficient mid-size family cars being produced by the top Japanese automakers. It also offered a futuristic, streamlined appearance that stood out from Ford's usual offerings. Sales that first year exceeded 260,000, and in the mid-90's the Taurus wrestled the title of top-selling car in America away from the Honda Accord/Toyota Camry stranglehold for five consecutive years. The last Taurus went to Truett Cathy, founder of Chik-Fil-A and a noted car collector.
On October 28, 1992, Gary Dodd, mayor of Duluth, Minnesota, cuts the ribbon dedicating the Leif Erickson Tunnel on Interstate 35. The opening of the tunnel not only completes I-35, which runs from Laredo, TX to Duluth, it completes the Interstate Highway System as first unveiled in 1956. The Duluth portion of I-35 was originally designed with a large section bordering Lake Superior, calling for the destruction of numerous lakeside properties and loss of water access. But by the time the project came up for final approval in the mid-60's, nationwide distaste for the entire highway system was growing, mostly because of the negative effects it was having on urban neighborhoods. In 1970, state officials and two citizens watchdog groups hit on the idea of a tunnel running beneath a lakeside park. The concept would be honored for its aesthetic design by the Federal Highway Administration. On October 28, 1998, President Bill Clinton signs the Digital Millenium Copyright Act into law. The DMCA's seed was planted when a successful singer/songwriter, one Prince Rogers Nelson of Minneapolis, MN saw a video on a new internet service called YouTube that featured a baby dancing to one of his compositions. With content industries like Hollywood and the music business solidly behind it, Congress crafted the DMCA to ensure that copyright law gave artists the same control over their content as it appeared on the internet as it did with other technologies.
On November 1, 1896, National Geographic magazine shocks the world with a photo of a bare breasted Zulu woman. The magazine was founded in 1888 by the National Geographic Society as a scholarly journal. Early in its history, the publication's editors decided they would show the world as it really was and as its cameras captured it, leading to the photo of a Zulu tribal wedding, in which by tradition, the bride goes topless. With the photo's publication, the editors also hoped they made the point that nudity need not be pornographic in nature, but can have a legitimate academic place in studying the world's cultures. (This may or may not be the photo, it is elusive.) On November 1, 1938, Seabiscuit shocks the sports world by beating War Admiral in a match race dubbed "The match of the century." Seabiscuit was small by thoroughbred standards and a late bloomer, winning only a few minor races as a 2 and 3-year old, before rattling off 11 wins as a 4-year old in 1937 and earning the honor of top money winner that year. Race fans began calling for a showdown with 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral, and the two were scheduled to meet in 3 stakes races earlier in the year, but one or the other scratched each time. After months of negotiations, the owners agreed to a match race at Pimlico Race Track in Maryland, the Admiral's home course. Despite being the heavy betting underdog, Seabiscuit sprinted to a 4-length win, propelling him to Horse of the Year honors. Seabiscuit vs. War Admiral - 1938 Match Race (Pimlico Special) - YouTube
On November 2, 1920, KDKA AM in Pittsburgh signs on as America's first commercial radio station. Its first broadcast is results of that day's Presidential election. Stations in Detroit, Springfield, Mass and San Jose, CA claim to have taken to the air earlier, but historians generally accept KDKA's claim to being first. On Nov. 2, 1936, the British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the first regular television broadcast. The BBC station (now BBC1), it is considered a "high definition" station, HD in that day being defined as at least 200 lines of resolution. Modern HDTV has a minimum 720 lines. On November 2, 1889, North and South Dakota are admitted into the Union as the 39th and 40th states. Originally established as the Dakota Territory in 1861, the territory was divided into two states of roughly equal size in a political compromise in order to avoid giving either party additional control over Congress. A friendly rivalry quickly developed between the two territories; on their admission to the Union, President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the documents before signing them so no one could tell which territory received statehood first (official government rolls place North Dakota first, going in alphabetical order). SD is larger than ND by 7,000 square miles. Had they been admitted as one state, Dakota would be 4th largest in the Union, between California and Montana).
On November 3, 1911, the Chevrolet Motor Car Company is founded. Although race driver/engineer Louis Chevrolet is the face of the company, former General Motors CEO William Durant is the driving force behind the bow-tie (the familiar logo appeared in 1914, supposedly a stylized version of the Swiss cross to honor Louis Chevrolet's heritage). Durant quickly leveraged his position with Chevy to get back into the executive office of GM in 1918, bringing Chevrolet with him. By 1929, the Chevrolet International (below) had surpassed the Ford Model T as the top selling car in America. On November 3, 1946, Japanese emperor Hirohito assents to a new American-written Constitution for Japan. Written by lawyers with the post-WWII Army of Japanese occupation, the new constitution creates a bicameral legislative governing body, while reducing the emperor - previously the supreme ruling authority of the nation - to a figurehead. Most impactful in the new constitution is Article 9, by which Japan renounced its right to declare war. Seventy-five years later, the new Japanese Constitution is the oldest unchanged governing document in the world, having never been amended. (below; preamble to the Constitution of Japan) On November 3, 1868, voters in New Orleans make John Willis Menard (Republican) the first African-American voted to the U.S. House of Representatives. Menard, however, would never serve. His opponent, Caleb Hunt, contested the results, and House members were unable to resolve the dispute. Menard was permitted to make his case on the House floor, becoming the first African-American to address Congress, but eventually President James Garfield decided that the seat would remain vacant for the duration of the session, reportedly saying America was not ready to accept a black Congressman. Menard moved to Florida and eventually served in that state's legislature.
On November 4, 1493, Christopher Columbus' second expedition to the "New World" makes landfall in the Windward Islands, on modern-day Guadeloupe. Columbus' historic expedition a year earlier had approached the Caribbean Sea on a more northerly course, making landfall in what we know as the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispanola. On this second voyage (17 ships and about 1,200 men, with the mission of establishing Spanish colonies), Columbus sails a more southerly track, and will eventually discover Puerto Rico and Jamaica, along with further explorations of Cuba and Hispanola. For some time (undetermined) in 1847, Scottish obstetrician James Y. Simpson and his assistants had been self-medicating with a variety of chemicals, trying to find a useful alternative to ether as an anesthetic. On the night of November 4, a local pharmacist gave Simpson a few samples of a compound that had previously been used only as a veterinary anesthetic, called chloroform. Witnesses report Simpson and the others demonstrated a brief sensation of euphoria on inhaling the chemical, then passed out, not to awaken until the following morning. He would soon be using chloroform as an anesthetic during deliveries On November 4, 1928, notorious New York City gambler Arnold Rothstein is found shot to death at the service entrance of the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan. A trail of blood led back to a suite where a poker game was underway. Rothstein had been legendary in northeast US gambling circles with a winning streak in numbers games and sports betting that went back more than a decade, accumulating personal worth in excess of $50 million. Many believed his luck came thanks to his rigging the results, most famously as the mastermind of the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series scandal (Rothstein publicly denied involvement in the scandal, but privately, friends said he enjoyed the notoriety of being tied to the fix). His demise came after a sudden run of bad luck that supposedly culminated in a card game a month before his death in which he lost more than $300,000. No one was convicted of his murder.
On November 5, 1916, labor unrest turns violent in Everett, WA. Shingle workers in the depressed city had been striking for about five months. On the 5th, about 300 members of the International Workers of the World boarded two boats in Seattle and sailed to Everett to support union demonstrators. Snohomish County Sheriff Donald McRae, who had been overly aggressive to demonstrators throughout the strike, got wind of the arrivals and hastily deputized about 200 armed citizens to meet them. McRae met the first boat at the dock personally and was confronting the "Wobblies" as they tried to disembark when a single shot rang out. About 10 minutes of fierce gunfire ensued, resulting in the deaths of 5 protesters, two police, and nearly 50 wounded on both sides. Seventy-five Wobblies were arrested as a result of the "Everett Massacre", though all would eventually be acquitted. On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony, a key figure in the fight for women's suffrage in the U.S., is arrested for attempting to vote in a local election in her home town of Rochester, NY. She would be fined $100, and although she never paid the fine, no further action resulted against her. Anthony died in 1906, 14 years before women were finally granted the right to vote in the U.S. On November 5, 1943, a single airplane drops several bombs on Vatican City, damaging several buildings but causing no human casualties. The Vatican was officially neutral in WWII, and both sides had issues general orders to their air crews to respect its neutrality. A monsignor in Rome reported that the plane could be heard circling the city for several hours before the attack, and that it made its bomb run just as an Allied squadron flew over the city. Although originally thought to be German, an American monsignor a year later informed the Vatican that the attacker had been an American. November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day in England, a decidedly anti-Catholic commemoration, and the monsignor indicated that the pilot (never identified) probably acted alone in sympathy for his English allies.
On November 6, 1528, Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is the first European to set foot in what is modern-day Texas. Cabeza de Vaca's voyage to the New World is an odyssey in every sense of the word. He departed Spain in April of the previous year with 5 ships and 600 men, 150 of whom promptly jumped ship when he landed in Hispaniola to resupply. He continued into the Gulf and landed in what is now Tampa Bay, where the expedition continued north on foot. Whittled down to 300 men by disease and unfriendly natives, de Vaca had his men cobble together several rafts and put back out to sea in September 1528, continuing west. He was down to one raft and about 80 men when they were blown ashore by bad weather near present-day Galveston. The expedition continued inland, encountering more unfriendly natives, and de Vaca was down to four men by the time he met up with other Spanish explorers north of Mexico City in July, 1536. Word of de Vaca's trials inspired further exploration of the Texas area. On November 6, 1986, a Boeing Chinook transport helicopter carrying offshore oilfield workers in the Brent Oilfield crashes short of the runway at Sumburgh Airport in the Shetland Islands, falling into the sea. 43 passengers and 2 crewmembers die in the worst helicopter disaster in history. Investigators determined that the transmission in the forward engine failed, causing the massive aircraft's two propellers to collide. In the aftermath, most of the world's major oil companies discontinued use of the Chinook, saying it was too large for offshore support. On November 6, 1947, the NBC television network brings Mutual Radio Network's successful radio program, Meet the Press, to television. Mutual had debuted the radio version of the show two years earlier. James Farley, campaign manager for Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal era of his administration, is the first television guest, and reporter and program co-producer Martha Roundtree moderates the panel of journalists in the 30-minute live press conference-style interview. In 1975, President Gerald Ford took his seat in the guest chair, becoming the first president to appear on a live television news program. Meet the Press expanded to an hour in 1982, and on its 74th anniversary today, continues its tradition of live panel interviews with prominent political figures of the day, as the longest continuously running television program in history. (title card shot of the November, 1975 episode featuring President Ford)
On November 7, 1811, Indiana militia commanded by Governor William Henry Harrison win the Battle of Tippecanoe. Two years earlier, the Treaty of Fort Wayne allowed the Indiana Territory to acquire 3 million acres of native American land. Although a number of tribes signed the treaty, it was opposed by Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who promised he and his tribe would align with American interests if the treaty were nullified. Harrison refused, and Tecumseh began recruiting other tribes to support him in an alliance with the British. The new confederation headquartered itself at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers. It was there that Harrison and about a thousand militia defeated the Shawnee, under the command of Techumseh's brother, who was more a spiritual leader than military (Tecumseh was away recruiting for the confederation). The victory vaulted Harrison into the national spotlight, blazing a political path that ended in the White House in 1840. On November 7, 1665, the first edition of The Oxford Gazette is published. Within a year its name will be changed to The London Gazette. It is still in publication today and is believed to be the oldest continuously running publication in existence. The Gazette's circulation is small and its primary function today is as one of the official journals of record for the UK Government, publishing any official records that are required to be made public by law. (below: a reprint of the September, 1666 front page reporting on the Great Fire of London) On November 7, 1980, the "King of Cool", actor Steve McQueen, dies of mesothelioma at age 50. McQueen starred in some of the classic action/adventures of the 60's and 70's, most notably "The Great Escape", "The Magnificent Seven" and "Bullitt", which culminated in one of the most spectacular car chase scenes ever filmed (below). McQueen was also an avid race car driver. Its believed his mesothelioma may have been contracted through exposure to the asbestos in the fire resistant race suits he wore in his hobby. [HD] Greatest Hollywood Car Chase of All Time - Bullitt (1968) - YouTube
