On November 20, 1776, British troops drive George Washington's Colonial Army out of New Jersey. British General William Howe had taken NYC four days earlier. Washington witnessed the decisive battle from across the Hudson River at Ft. Lee in New Jersey. On the 19th, Howe dispatched Lord George Cornwallis with about 5,000 British and Hessian troops, ordering him to take New Jersey with as little bloodshed, and as quickly (due to the oncoming winter) as possible. Cornwallis crossed the Hudson in the morning hours of the 20th and his troops climbed paths up the Palisades to Ft. Lee (pictured in the watercolor below). Washington ordered the retreat, which would inspire Thomas Paine days later to write his pamphlet The American Crisis, which begins with the famed line,"These are the times that try men's souls."
If you've never been up that way it is really difficult to guage just how treacherous the terrain is. It doesn't look like much now with the "burbs" and houses and such but with a trained eye that can see what it looked like back then it is terrifying! Those men went through hell!
On November 21, 164 BCE, the Second Temple of Jerusalem is rededicated by Judas Maccabeus. The son of a Hebrew priest who was known as "The Hammer" for his ferocity in battle, Judas led the revolt against the Seleucid Empire, a Greek state that conquered Jerusalem 4 years before and - among other things - converted the temple into a Greek place of worship. In rededicating the temple to Judaism, Judas removed all of the Greek elements and annointed the temple, including the lighting of the traditional menorah. The rededication of the temple is now annually commemorating by the Festival of Hanukkah. On November 21, 1894, Lushunkou, Manchuria (known as Port Arthur to the western world) falls to the Japanese, a crucial victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. A crucial port city and naval base to China's Qing Dynasty, Luchunkou fell surprisingly quickly to the Japanese, despite its defenses of roughly equal numbers (13,000 to the invader's force of 15,000). The city's defenses were breached in a little over 24 hours, and house-to-house fighting ensued that saw the Chinese suffer some 4,000 casualties to only 29 deaths for the Japanese, along with about 230 wounded. News of the victory gave the Japanese great prestige in the west, which quickly deteriorated when word leaked out that the victors had massacred Chinese civilians who did not escape the city during the fight.
On November 22, 1990, Margaret Thatcher withdraws from contention for leadership of Great Britain's Conservative Party, effectively ending her 12-year administration as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She officially stepped down six days later. Thatcher entered politics as a member of Parliament's House of Commons in 1959, eventually being elevated to the House of Lords, then various "shadow" ministeries (an organizational structure among minority parties in Parliament with no real authority), before becoming Secretary of Education and Science in 1970, Leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, and finally Prime Minister when the Conservatives won the majority in 1979. Never especially popular among the British people, Thatcher was nevertheless highly respected on the world political stage, earning the nickname "The Iron Lady" from the Soviets for her unyielding stances. Thatcher was the UK's first female Prime Minister and longest-serving PM of the post-WWII era (Thatcher with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, 1988). On November 22, 1935, Pan American Airlines initiates the first transpacific air service. The China Clipper, the first of three Martin M-130 "flying boats" ordered by Pan Am for the new service, lifts off from Alameda, CA (a suburb of San Francisco) with a cargo of 110,00- pieces of airmail. It would make stops at Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island and Guam before completing its run in Manila, Philippines, six days later. The China Clipper and its two sister aircraft would continue the transpacific run delivering cargo and mail until October, 1936, when passengers were carried for the first time. Side note: Fred Noonan, who would disappear along with Amelia Earhart in 1937, was navigator on this first transpacific flight. On November 22, 1968, The Beatles release their self-titled and only double album. Contrasting with the hyper-busy artwork on the cover of their previous album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the cover of The Beatles is stark white, with only the name of the band/album and an individual serial number for each copy breaking up the image. The work would soon become colloquially known as "The White Album." Certified platinum 24 times over by the RIAA, the White Album's 30 selections include "Back In the USSR," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Revolution," "Birthday," and "Helter Skelter." But the album's production was also marked by the first sparks of dissension among the Fab Four, much of which was triggered by John's new partner, Yoko Ono. (the first 4 copies of the White Album, serial numbers 0000001-0000004, were given to the four band members. In 2015, number 0000001, which originally went to Ringo Starr, was sold at auction for a world record $790,000).
On November 26, 1983, six men break into the Brinks-Mat warehouse at London's Heathrow Airport and make off with about £26 million in gold bars. The warehouse was jointly rented by the U.S-owned Brink's Securities and the U.K.'s Mat Transport Company. The thieves' intended target was a vault containing about £1 million in Spanish pesetas. They didn't know until they made their move (a guard on-site was complicit in the robbery and let them in) that a shipment of gold bars had arrived the night before, intended for air transport to Hong Kong the following day, and was in unprotected storage. Two days later, a couple living in Somerset noticed a heated up crucible on a neighbor's property and suspected the stolen gold was going to be melted down there. They reported it, but local police said they had no jurisdiction in the case, and it wasn't until 2 years later that proper authorities searched the property and made the arrests. Little of the gold (worth about $139 million today) was ever recovered, but 57 money laundering suspects would see their assets frozen over the next decade, and 8 more suspects were murdered between 1990 and 2015. On November 26, 1965, France joins the space race, launching Asterix into Earth orbit. France would be the third nation to successfully conduct an orbital launch (after the US and USSR) and the sixth country to put a satellite in orbit (Great Britain, Canada and Italy had funded satellites deployed by US rockets). Intended to study the atmosphere, Asterix developed a problem shortly after achieving orbit, and (depending on the source) either stopped transmitting data after a few days or never transmitted at all. It is still in orbit, at an altitude which assures it probably will stay in orbit for centuries.
On November 27, 1942, the French fleet is scuttled. The Armistice of 1940 between Nazi Germany and France left the Vichy France government in charge of the nation's navy, which was to be disarmed and anchored at port. When the Allies invaded French territories in North Africa in November, 1942, the Nazis feared the Allies would make a secret agreement to take control of the bulk of the French fleet, 164 vessels anchored at the port of Toulon. The Nazis hastily concocted a plan to seize the ships for themselves in early November, but seeing German troops beginning to encircle Toulon, the Vichy government ordered the entire fleet scuttled. Seventy-seven ships were destroyed, including the fleet's 3 battleships (Dunkerque below) and 7 heavy cruisers. The Germans seized 39 small ships, none of significance. On November 27, 1968, Penny Ann Early becomes the first female to play professional men's basketball. Obviously, it was a publicity stunt. Early had only weeks before become one of America's first licensed jockeys, but the first 3 times she was slated to compete at Louisville's legendary Churchill Downs, her male counterparts boycotted and forced her entries to be scratched. Enter Joseph and Mamie Gregory, owners of the American Basketball Association's Kentucky Colonels. They signed Early to a short-term contract and ordered coach Gene Rhodes to get her in a game. Rhodes was reluctant to cooperate but on Nov. 27 in a home game against the Los Angeles Stars, Early checked in to the game (below) wearing a mini skirt and turtle neck sweater with the number 3 (for the 3 boycotts). Early inbounded the ball to a teammate, who quickly called time out, and Rhodes removed her from the game. End of pro basketball career. Early would eventually compete as a jockey and worked with racehorses until her death by suicide last year at age 80. (at 5-foot-3 and 112 pounds, Early is also officially the smallest player in American pro basketball history) On November 27, 1896, German composer Johann Straus conducts the first public performance of his Also sprach Zarathustra. Few people today are familiar with the 33-minute work, other than its opening minute, which has become one of the most used orchestral works in pop culture history, most famously as the theme for Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
On December 2, 1860, abolitionist John Brown is hanged for leading a raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (in the region that will later be West Virginia). Brown intended to arm his fellow abolitionists and start an insurrection of slaves with the arms stolen in the October 16, 1859 raid. He was captured two days later by a force of U.S. Marines under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee (yes, that one). The official capital charge against Brown would be treason, making him the first person executed for that offense in U.S. history.
Wasn't at the computer Friday, so I'm going to backtrack for two New Orleans-TDIH's: On November 29, 1972, the Rault Tower in New Orleans is severely damaged in a fire. Just 5 years old, the Rault Tower was a combination office/apartment structure in the heart of downtown Nola, with a swanky club that included a women's spa on the top 3 of its 17 floors. This fire would be one of several "high-rise" fires in the early 70's that hastened the design and installation of sprinkler systems in skyscrapers around the country. New Orleans residents watched in horror as the fire was covered on live local TV; at its height, the cameras revealed 5 women trapped in the 16th floor spa, too high for the fire department's ladders to reach. One by one, the women jumped to escape the flames; incredibly, one survived the fall. Weeks later, Mark Essex would set fire to the Howard Johnson hotel just down the block from the Rault Tower, then proceed to shoot firefighters and police who responded. When the state fire marshall ruled the Rault Tower fire an arson, it was soon learned that Essex had been seen in the building the morning of the fire, though he was never definitively identified as the arsonist. The building re-opened as a hotel two years later, but is now vacant. On November 29, 1987, the New Orleans Saints beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-16 to clinch the first winning record in the franchise's 21st season. The Saints pulled off two goal line stands in the fourth quarter to preserve the victory (the first and more celebrated is below; the second came on an interception at the goal line on the game's final play). In a season shortened by one game due to an early-season players' strike, the Saints had technically clinched the winning record with their 8th win by beating the Tampa Bay Bucs the week before. But the win over the Steelers gave the team its 9th win of the season, a mark never before reached. The Saints would end the season 12-3, winning their last 9 games, before losing to the Vikings in their first-ever playoff game.
On December 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt designates the U.S. to be the "international police" of the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt was responding to a months-long naval blockade of Venezuela by several European nations over failure to pay foreign debt. When the International Court sided with the Europeans, Roosevelt feared an invasion, and articulated his stance of protector of the west. Seen at the same time as an extension of and a departure from the Monroe Doctrine, the "Roosevelt Corollary" would set the stage for U.S. interventions in the Dominican Republic (1905), Cuba (1906), Nicaragua (1909), Haiti (1915) and the Dominican Republic again in 1916, before Presidents Coolidge and Hoover put America back into a more isolationist stance in the 1920's. . On December 6, 1912, a German archeological team examing the 14th century BC workshop of Egyptian sculptor Thutmose discovers an unidentified bust of a crowned women, carved in limestone and painted with stucco. Although there is no identifying description on the work, other reliably identified works soon confirm it is a bust of Nefertiti, wife of the pharoah Ahkenaten. Sensing he had a truly special piece on his hands, team leader Ludwig Borchardt hid the bust from the Egyptian government and spirited it to Germany, where it remains to this day, now displayed in Berlin's Egyptian museum. Considered second only to King Tut's burial mask in importance of ancient Egyptian art, the Nefertiti bust has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the ten most valuable works of plundered art of all time. The Egyptian government has tried to reclaim ownership of the bust by legal means for almost 100 years, though the Germans maintain it was fairly kept according to the terms of the original excavation agreement. On December 6, 1941, the British and Canadian governments jointly establish Special Training School 106 near Toronto, Canada. Built on farm land (1943 aerial photo of the site) and also known as Camp X, the school was run by England's MI6 (military intelligence) as a school of covert, behind-the-enemy-lines operations. While its existence by its nature was highly secret, there was an even more secret purpose, that of training American agents to operate behind enemy lines. Sensing a need for men and women with covert skills even before American entered the war, FBI Directer J. Edgar Hoover and Col. Bill Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) were brought in on the secret of Camp X, and clandestinely (America was denied open access to the camp by the Neutrality Act) sent about a dozen agents through the school. Camp X was closed in 1944; a memorial exists on the site today. As a nod to the farm where the camp was established, the CIA's recruit training facility is informally called "The Farm."
