This day in history...

What would she say now?

 

On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signs top secret National Security Decision Directive 17, giving the CIA authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The first seeds of the Iran-Contra scandal are planted.


On November 23, 1959, Robert Stroud - the "Birdman of Alcatraz" - is placed in the notorious prison's general population, ending 43 years of solitary confinement. Stroud was nearing the end of a 7-year sentence in Leavenworth for murdering a bartender in 1916 when he killed a prison guard. He was sentenced to hang, but had the sentence commuted to life in solitary by President Woodrow Wilson. For the next 15 years, his only companions were canaries sent him by sympathetic prison visitors. When the birds were taken from him in 1931, he began educating himself in ornithology, eventually writing and publishing two books on the subject, the second after being transferred to Alcatraz. He died in a Missouri prison in 1973.


On November 23, 1963, the BBC debuts the science fiction drama Doctor Who. The show centers around an extraterrestrial "Time Lord" who appears to be human and is known simply as "The Doctor." He explores the universe in a time machine called the TARDIS, which is able to disguise itself as any common object in the area it visits. Its first appearance in London is as a police call box, but there its "chameleon feature" malfunctions, leaving it to permanently appear as the call box (below). Doctor Who continued on the BBC until 1989, but was revived in 2005 and continues in production. It is listed by Guinness as the longest running science fiction drama in history with 866 episodes produced, along with 12 spinoff programs. Along the way, 13 actors (also below) have portrayed The Doctor, the changes in portrayal written into the story line as the Time Lord's ability to regenerate after death. Interesting note, considering the show plot revolves around time travel: the start of the first episode was delayed 50 seconds when a BBC News report on the previous day's Kennedy assassination ran overtime.

 

On November 24, 1917, a bomb explosion kills nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department. Until 9/11, it is the largest loss of police lives in a single event in U.S. history. The bomb was left, wrapped up as a simple brown paper package, outside a church. A social worker found it and brought it to a nearby police station, where it exploded while being inspected. The perps were never caught; an anarchist terrorist group was implicated by some of its surviving members years later.


On November 24, 1832, the South Carolina legislature passes the Nullification Ordinance, declaring the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional and therefore null and void within its state's borders. The tariffs, it was believed, gave northern states an unfair advantage because they were much more punitive against agricultural products than industrial. Two weeks later, President Andrew Jackson issued the Nullification Proclamation, which offered both a carrot and a stick. The carrot was the lowering of the tariffs; the stick was a threat of sending federal troops into the state if SC did not revoke the Ordinance, which they did. The Supreme Court has since, on multiple occasions, rejected nullification moves by the states, but the Nullification Crisis of 1832 helped drive the wedge between north and south that eventually led to secession. (State Representative R.B. Rhett led the nullification movement)

 

On December 3, 1775, the USS Alfred, formerly the merchant ship Black Prince, becomes the first vessel commissioned into the newly-authorized Continental Navy. Either on this date or some time in the next couple of weeks, the Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union flag, precursor to the Stars and Stripes.


On December 3, 1910 at the Paris Motor Show, engineer Georges Claude demonstrates the first neon lighting. Neon gas was first drawn from the atmosphere in 1898 by British scientists, who then discovered its glowing properties when exposed to electricity in a near-vacuum tube. Claude, sometimes called "the Edison of France", displayed two 12-meter long neon tubes at the show. Patents and a neon lighting business followed, with several Parisian firms purchasing neon signs. In 1923, a Packard dealer in LA was the first U.S. company to get on board with neon signs. By the 1930's neon lighting was the predominant form of lit signing in the U.S.


On December 3, 1960, the musical 'Camelot' opens at Broadway's Majestic Theatre. With a stellar cast (Richard Burton as King Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guinevere and Robert Goulet as Sir Lancelot) ran for more than 800 performances and won four Tony Awards. The script was inspired by the 1958 novel The Once and Future King by Theodore H. White, who interviewed Jackie Kennedy a week after JFK's assassination. During the interview, Jackie compared the Kennedy White House to Camelot, and quoted lines from the show's title song as JFK's favorite from the show. Fans of the deceased president quickly picked up on the comparison, and 'Camelot' would permanently be tied to the Kennedy presidency. (Andrews and Burton in a cast photo)

 

On December 4, 1942, the return of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion to Lunga Point on Guadalcanal brings Carlson's March to an end. The Raiders were 2 battalions of volunteer Marines specially trained for commando/guerilla operations. In early November, the 2nd Battalion under Lt. Col. Evans Carlson (who had proposed and organized the Raiders shortly after the beginning of the war) had been sent to Aola Bay, 40 miles from Lunga Point, to protect engineers constructing an airbase. On November 4, Carlson and 2 companies of Raiders (about 500 men) set out on foot in pursuit of about 2,500 Japanese threatening the operation. Over the next 29 days, the Raiders fought a running off and on battle with the Japs, covering about 120 miles of land on foot, and killing 488 of the enemy, while wounding an estimated 1200. Raider casualties were 16 killed, 17 wounded. Carlson was awarded the Navy Cross for his performance. (note: It was Carlson, who was stationed in China before the war and admired the Communist army Table of Organization, who brought the phrase "gung ho!" into Marine lore. The term was the name of a Chinese industrial organization; Carlson told the Raiders it meant "strive for harmony.")


On December 4, 1991, Pan American Airways (Pan Am) ceases operations. Formed in 1927 by two former Army Air Corps officers, Pan Am began as a passenger and mail service between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba. During the 1930's the company began amassing a fleet of flying boats and greatly expanded its area of service, first to South America, then with transatlantic and transpacific destinations. By the late 50's, Pan Am was one of the world's leading carriers, servicing every continent but Antarctica, and was considered the unofficial national carrier of the U.S. Increased competition and poor financial decisions began to hurt, and eventually bankrupt the airline, though it was still considered one of the most recognizable brands in the industry when it closed.


On December 4, 1971, the Montreux Casino in Switzerland is completely destroyed by fire. On the final night before its annual winter closure, the facility's arena was hosting a performance by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention when an audience member fired a flare gun, which caught the ceiling on fire and "burned the place to the ground." Incredibly, there were no fatalities; famed Montreux Jazz Festival director "Funky" Claude Nobs is credited with pulling many patrons from the burning building. In a hotel across Lake Geneva from the Casino, members of the British rock band Deep Purple were witnesses. They were scheduled to record a new album, to be titled "Machine Head", in the arena the following day, and ended up scrambling for a new location. They "ended up in the Grand Hotel" a week later, establishing a recording studio in a stairwell, with equipment from the Rolling Stones Mobile recording truck (the "Rolling truck Stones thing"), and the first thing they recorded was a riff guitarist Richie Blackmore improvised a week earlier as he watched the "Smoke on the Water." Lyrics by singer Ian Gillian came later, and "Smoke on the Water" would achieve rock and roll immortality, especially for that guitar riff, listed as number 4 on Total Guitar magazine's list of Greatest Guitar Riffs. The casino, meanwhile, was rebuilt in 1975; a sculpture with the band's name, the song title and the riff's musical notes, is out front.
Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water (1972) - YouTube

 

On December 5, 1952, a combination of unusually cold weather, windless conditions and air pollution creates a heavy smog over the city of London. For 4 days, the city is cloaked in near-zero visibility, the smog even creeping indoors. By the time it finally lifts thanks to a warm front on the 9th, The Great Smog of 1952 has claimed 4,000 lives, killed by respiratory infections. Further research of the event suggests the death toll at the time was underestimated by at least half, and that it may have reached 12,000. Non-fatal illnesses exceeded 100,000. The incident spurred Parliament to pass its Clean Air Act of 1956.


On December 5, 1848 in an address to Congress, President James Polk confirms the discovery of gold near Sacramento, CA. The strike had actually occurred in March on property belonging to lumber mill owner John Sutter, who did his best to keep the discovery secret. Polk's revelation sparked the migration to California, which had begun as a trickle in the previous months, to a full blown Gold Rush within a month, with prospective gold miners from all over the world sailing into San Francisco, the nearest port to Sacramento.


On Friday 5 December 1766, an auction took place in London of what was advertised as “the genuine household furniture, jewels, plate, fire-arms etc… the property of a noble personage (deceas’d)”. It is the first sale conducted by James Christie, who quickly realized he would not become prosperous selling household products. Within a few months, Christie conducted his first auction of an art collection. By 1803, Christie's was the leading auction house in London. Today, Christie's has 85 offices in 43 countries, and annually moves more than $7 billion dollars in merchandise.

 

On December 8, 1991, Kimberly Bergalis of Ft. Pierce, FL dies of complications from AIDS at age 23. A CDC investigation (Bergalis was diagnosed in January of '90) determined that she was infected by her dentist, Dr. David Acer, during an extraction prodecure two years earlier. Acer, who knew he was HIV positive at the time of the procedure, had died of AIDS himself a year earlier. Bergalis is considered the first person to have died from AIDS after being infected during a medical procedure, though the exact nature of her infection has been called into question. In all, 6 AIDS-related deaths in Florida would be attributed to medical infection by Dr. Acer.


The Franks had a thing for calling out the physical imperfections of their royalty....on December 8, 788, Louis the Stammerer is crowned King of the Western Frankish kingdom, succeeding his father, Charles the Bald. Louis died of an illness less than two years after his coronation. His youngest son, Charles the Simple, would later be crowned king, the throne being passed over by his older brother,Grunthos the Flatulent. Actually, that last one is a character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

On December 8, 1993, the heavy metal band Metallica becomes the first musical act to perform on all 7 of Earth's continents. The band plays to a select audience of 120 in a dome near Carlini Scientific Base on Antarctica. The audience is a collection of scientists from the base and South Americans who won a contest for the privilege of attending the show. In order to avoid possible sound damage to the fragile environment, Metallica performs without external amplifiers; all attendees listen via headsets.