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).
