This Day in History

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<em class="date"> Oct 25, 1881: Pablo Picasso born </h2>Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, is born in Malaga, Spain.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1983: United States invades Grenada </h2>President Ronald Reagan , citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation's Marxist regime, orders the Marines to invade and secure their safety. There were nearly 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time, many of them students at the island's medical school. In little more than a week, Grenada's government was overthrown.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1994: Susan Smith reports a false carjacking to cover her murder </h2>Susan Smith reports that she was carjacked in South Carolina by a man who took her two small children in the backseat of her car. Although authorities immediately began searching for three-year-old Michael and one-year-old Alex, they could find no trace of them or of Smith's car. After nine days of intense national media attention, Smith finally confessed that the carjacking tale was false and that she had driven her Mazda into the John D. Long Lake in order to drown her children.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 2000: Russian military plane crashes into mountain </h2>On this day in 2000, a Russian military plane crashes into a mountain in Georgia , killing all 83 people on board. Poor visibility and pilot error caused the horrific crash.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1748: Henry Fielding becomes justice of the peace </h2>On this day, Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, is commissioned as justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex. In this role, he helped break up notorious criminal gangs.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1980: Australian rock gods AC/DC earn their first Top 40 hit with You Shook Me All Night Long </h2>On October 25, 1980, AC/DC earn their first pop Top 40 hit with You Shook Me All Night Long.  <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1948: Wrestling legend Dan Gable is born </h2>On October 25, 1948, wrestling legend Don Gable is born in the tiny town of Waterloo, Iowa . His father was a real-estate salesman and former high-school wrestling star; his mother was a homemaker. In high school, Gable ran track, swam and played football and baseball. He didnt devote himself to wrestling with his trademark single-minded ferocity until he was 16, when his older sister was raped and murdered in the familys living room. After that, he told an interviewer, he became a horse with blinders as far as wrestling was concerned because he wanted to give his parents something positive.   <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1972: Nixon suspends bombing of North Vietnam </h2> The White House orders a suspension of bombing above the 20th parallel as a signal of U.S. approval of recent North Vietnamese concessions at the secret peace talks in Paris.   <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1973: Nixon vetoes War Powers Resolution </h2> President Nixon vetoes the War Powers Resolution, which would limit presidential power to commit armed forces abroad without Congressional approval.   <em class="date"> Oct 25, 1944: First kamikaze attack of the war begins </h2> On this day in 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deploy kamikaze ( divine wind ) suicide bombers against American warships for the first time. It will prove costly--to both sides.     History.com

 

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<em class="date"> Oct 26, 1881: Shootout at the OK Corral </h2>On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona .  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1948: An abused wife gets revenge </h2>Betty Ferreri kills her husband, Jerry, in their Los Angeles , California , home with the help of house caretaker Alan Adron. When Jerry, a notorious womanizer, brought a young model to the couple's home in the upscale Hancock Park neighborhood, Betty became upset and threatened him with a large wrench. Although Jerry fled, Betty was worried that he would return in a violent state, so she asked for Adron's assistance. When Jerry later returned, he began dragging Betty by her hair. Adron shot him twice, but the gun jammed before he was dead, so Betty finished him off with a meat cleaver, striking him in the head 23 times.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1984: An Ozzy Osbourne fan commits suicide </h2>Nineteen-year-old John McCollum is found shot to death on his bed in Indio, California . Although it was quickly determined that the fatal wound was self-inflicted, McCollum's parents believed that singer Ozzy Osbourne was actually responsible because their son had been listening to Osbourne's album, Blizzard of Oz, which contains the song, Suicide Solution, when he killed himself.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1998: Hurricane Mitch slams into Central America </h2>Hurricane Mitch hits Central America on this day in 1998. The storm, the most deadly hurricane to hit the Western Hemisphere in more than 200 years, went on to kill thousands of people.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1825: Erie Canal opens </h2>The Erie Canal opens, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York , the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City .   Oct 26, 1984: Infant receives baboon heart </h2>At Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California , Dr. Leonard L. Bailey performs the first baboon-to-human heart transplant, replacing a 14-day-old infant girl's defective heart with the healthy, walnut-sized heart of a young baboon.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 2001: George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act </h2>On this day in 2001, President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11 , 2001.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1986: Buckner lets ground ball roll through his legs </h2>In the wee hours of the morning on October 26, 1986, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner lets an easy ground ball dribble between his legs and roll down the right-field line. It was just a routine fielding error, but it was a disaster for the Boston Red Sox: It was the 10th inning of the sixth game of the World Series; the game was tied; and, thanks to Buckners mistake, the runner on third had time to score, winning the game for the Mets and forcing a tiebreaking seventhwhich, in the final innings, the Mets also won. Even though Game 6 was tied because Bostons pitchers couldnt hold a two-run, two-out lead, and even though the Sox managed to fritter away a three-run lead in Game 7, people still blame Buckner for losing the championship. I cant remember the last time I missed a ball like that, he said, but Ill remember this one.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1966: Fire breaks out on U.S. aircraft carrier </h2>A fire breaks out on board the 42,000-ton U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany in the Gulf of Tonkin. The accident occurred when a locker filled with night illumination magnesium flares burst into flame. The fire spread quickly through most of the ship, resulting in 35 officers and eight enlisted men killed and a further 16 injured. The loss of life would have been much higher except for the valor of crewmen who pushed 300 500-pound, 1,000-pound, and 2,000-pound bombs that lay within reach of the flames on the hangar deck overboard. The fire destroyed four fighter-bombers and two helicopters, but it was brought under control after three hours. The fallen were returned to the United States for burial.  <em class="date"> Oct 26, 1942: The United States loses the Hornet </h2>On this day in 1942, the last U.S. carrier manufactured before America's entry into World War II , the Hornet, is damaged so extensively by Japanese war planes in the Battle of Santa Cruz that it must be abandoned.  history.com

 

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<em class="date"> Oct 27, 1904: New York City subway opens </h2>At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city's innovative new rapid transit system: the subway.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1962: The United States and Soviet Union step back from brink of nuclear war </h2>Complicated and tension-filled negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union finally result in a plan to end the two-week-old Cuban Missile Crisis . A frightening period in which nuclear holocaust seemed imminent began to come to an end.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1940: Mafia boss John Gotti is born </h2>John Joseph Gotti, Jr., the future head of the Gambino crime family and a man later nicknamed the Dapper Don due to his polished appearance and expensive suits, is born in the Bronx, New York . Gotti, the grandson of Italian immigrants, was raised in a poor family with 13 children. Growing up, he did errands for mobsters in his East New York neighborhood, joined a gang called the Fulton-Rockaway Boys and quit school at age 16. He racked up a series of arrests for petty crimes, but escaped real jail time until 1968, when he pled guilty to hijacking trucks near New Yorks Kennedy International Airport (then called Idlewild Airport). He served three years in prison.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1995: Avalanche buries homes in Iceland </h2>An unusually large avalanche buries homes and kills 20 people in Flateyri, Iceland, on this day in 1995. This disaster was the second deadly avalanche in the region that year  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1659: Quakers executed for religious beliefs </h2>William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, are executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1858: Teddy Roosevelt born </h2>Theodore Roosevelt, the future 26th president of the United States , is born in New York City . A dynamic and energetic politician, Theodore Roosevelt is credited with creating the modern presidency.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1994: U.S. prison population exceeds one million </h2>The U.S. Justice Department announces that the U.S. prison population has topped one million for the first time in American history. The figure1,012,851 men and women were in state and federal prisonsdid not even include local prisons, where an estimated 500,000 prisoners were held, usually for short periods. The recent increase, due to tougher sentencing laws, made the United States second only to Russia in the world for incarceration rates.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1932: Sylvia Plath is born </h2>On this day, poet Sylvia Plath is born in Boston. Her father, a German immigrant, was a professor of biology and a leading expert on bumblebees. An autocrat at home, he insisted his wife give up teaching to raise their two children. He died at home after a lingering illness that consumed the energy of the entire household and left the family penniless. Sylvia's mother went to work as a teacher and raised her two children alone   Oct 27, 1970: Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber release Jesus Christ Superstar </h2>From the late 1950s to the mid 1960s , it was common for original cast recordings of successful Broadway musicals to find their way up near the top of the pop album charts. Hit shows like West Side Story, The Sound of Music and Funny Girl, among several others, all spun off million-selling albums during this era, but by the late 1960s, the pop album charts had been decisively taken over by rock. It was in this environment that a young British composer and his lyricist partner managed to achieve a massive success by precisely reversing the old formula. On this day in 1970, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who would go on to become the most successful composer-lyricist team in modern theater history, released a double-LP concept album called Jesus Christ Superstar, which only later would become the smash-hit Broadway musical of the same name.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 1873: Joseph Glidden applies for a patent on his barbed wire design </h2>On this day in 1873, a De Kalb, Illinois , farmer named Joseph Glidden submits an application to the U.S. Patent Office for his clever new design for a fencing wire with sharp barbs, an invention that will forever change the face of the American West.  <em class="date"> Oct 27, 2004: Red Sox win first championship since 1918 </h2>On October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918, finally vanquishing the so-called Curse of the Bambino that had plagued them for 86 years. This is for anyone who has ever rooted for the Red Sox, the teams GM told reporters after the game. This is for all of Red Sox Nation, past and present.  history.com

 

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<em class="date"> Oct 28, 1965: Gateway Arch completed </h2>On this day in 1965, construction is completed on the Gateway Arch, a spectacular 630-foot-high parabola of stainless steel marking the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront of St. Louis, Missouri .  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1992: Leif Erickson Tunnel completes 1,593-mile I-35 </h2>On this day, Duluth, Minnesota mayor Gary Doty cuts the ribbon at the mouth of the brand-new, 1,480-footlong Leif Erickson Tunnel on Interstate 35. With the opening of the tunnel, that highwaywhich stretches 1,593 miles, from Mexico all the way to Canadawas finished at last. As a result, the federal government announced, the Interstate Highway System itself was 99.7 percent complete.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to an end </h2>The Cuban Missile crisis comes to a close as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agrees to remove Russian missiles from Cuba in exchange for a promise from the United States to respect Cuba's territorial sovereignty. This ended nearly two weeks of anxiety and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that came close to provoking a nuclear conflict. The consequences of the crisis were many and varied. Relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union were on shaky ground for some time after Khrushchev's removal of the missiles, as Fidel Castro accused the Russians of backing down from the Americans and deserting the Cuban revolution. European allies of the United States were also angered, not because of the U.S. stance during the crisis, but because the Kennedy administration kept them virtually in the dark about negotiations that might have led to an atomic war.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1961: Chuck Berry goes on trial for the second time </h2>The second so-called Apache trial begins for rock-and-roller Chuck Berry. Although his earlier conviction for transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes in violation of the Mann Act was thrown out on appeal, the prosecution decided to retry Berry.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1999: Cyclone intensifies near India </h2>On this day in 1999, a powerful cyclone in the Indian Ocean suddenly intensifies to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. The next day it struck India, killing more than 10,000 people. It was the deadliest storm in the Indian Ocean since a 1991 storm that killed more than 130,000 people.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1886: Statue of Liberty dedicated </h2>The Statue of Liberty , a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States , is dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland .  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1919: Congress enforces prohibition </h2>Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson 's veto. The Volstead Act provided for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , also known as the Prohibition Amendment.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1998: President Bill Clinton signs the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law </h2>According to an ABC news report, it was none other than the pop icon Prince himself who happened upon a 29-second home video of a toddler cavorting to a barely audible background soundtrack of his 1984 hit Let's Go Crazy and subsequently instigated a high-profile legal showdown involving YouTube, the Universal Music Group and a Pennsylvania housewife named Stephanie Lenz. Like the lawsuits that eventually shut down Napster, the case involved a piece of federal legislation that has helped establish a legal minefield surrounding the use of digital music in the age of the Internet. That legislation, called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on this day in 1998.  <em class="date"> Oct 28, 1922: Princeton-Chicago football game is broadcast across the country </h2>On October 28, 1922, hundreds of young men gather around radios in Western Union offices, speakeasies and a Princeton University physics lab to hear the first-ever cross-country broadcast of a college football game. Telephone lines carried a play-by-play of the matchupbetween Coach Amos Alonso Staggs formidable Chicago Maroons (frequent Big Ten champs in those days) and the well-regarded Princeton Tigersfrom Chicagos Stagg Field to radio receivers up and down the East Coast. After Princetons unlikely victory, her fans were just as unruly as they would have been if theyd seen the game for themselves: They thronged the towns main street, lit bonfires and stole into Nassau Hall to ring the Universitys bell, a celebration usually reserved for victories over Princetons Big Three rivals Harvard and Yale.   Oct 28, 1964: U.S. officials deny any involvement in bombing of North Vietnam. </h2>U.S. T-28 airplanes flown by Thai pilots bomb and strafe North Vietnamese villages in the Mugia Pass area. North Vietnam charged publicly that U.S. personnel participated in the raids, but U.S. officials denied that any Americans were involved.  history.com

 

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<em class="date"> Oct 29, 1998: John Glenn returns to space </h2>Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1971: Guitarist Duane Allman dies in motorcycle accident </h2>Duane Allman, a slide guitarist and the leader of the Allman Brothers Band, is killed on this day in 1971 when he loses control of his motorcycle and drives into the side of a flatbed truck in Macon, Georgia . He was 24 years old. After Allman's death, his band continued to tour and record and it is still together today. In 2004, Rolling Stonedeclared that the Allman Brothers were the 52nd-greatest rock band of all time.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1925: Dominick Dunne, chronicler of high-profile crimes, is born </h2>On this day in 1925, Dominick Dunne, a best-selling author, journalist and TV personality who often covered high-profile murder cases, is born in Hartford, Connecticut .  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1948: Killer smog claims elderly victims </h2>Killer smog continues to hover over Donora, Pennsylvania , on this day in 1948. Over a five-day period, the smog killed about 20 people and made thousands more seriously ill.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1929: Stock market crashes </h2>Black Tuesday hits Wall Street as investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, and stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the tremendous volume of trading. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression .  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1966: 96 Tears becomes a #1 hit for the enigmatic and influential ? and the Mysterians </h2>To this day, no one can say with absolute certainty who the leader of ?(Question Mark) and the Mysterians really is. Is heas literalists would have us believethe former Rudy Martinez, a Mexican-born and Michigan -raised earthling who legally changed his name to a punctuation mark? Or is he truly the space alien he claims to bea claim from which he has never backed down? What is abundantly clear is that ? has managed to maintain an intriguing air of mystery about him during his 40-plus years in the public eye, and that air of mystery has in turn helped earn him recognition among fans as one of the flat-out coolest individuals ever to cut a hit record. Known to his friends as Q, the man officially named ? rose to fame with his band the Mysterians when their song 96 Tears came out of nowhere to reach the top of the Billboard pop chart on this day in 1966.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1858: The first store opens in the frontier town of Denver, Colorado </h2>On this day in 1858, the first store opens in a small frontier town in Colorado Territory that a month later will take the name of Denver in a shameless ploy to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Gover nor James W. Denver.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1948: Sandy Saddler beats Willie Pep for the first time </h2>On October 29, 1948, featherweight boxers Sandy Saddler and Willie Pep meet for the first time in the ring at Madison Square Garden. Saddler, a strong puncher, knocked out the diminutive Pep in the fourth round. The two fought four times in allSaddler won threeand the matchups were increasingly bitter. The last one, in 1951, disintegrated into such a melee that both men were suspended from boxing for months.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1971: U.S. troop strength reaches five-year low </h2>The total number of U.S. troops remaining in Vietnam drops to 196,700--the lowest level since January 1966. This was a result of the Vietnamization program announced by President Richard Nixon at the June 1969 Midway Conference. U.S. troops were to be withdrawn as the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the war. The first withdrawal included troops from the 9th Infantry Division, who departed in August 1969. The withdrawals continued steadily, and by January 1972 there were less than 75,000 U.S. troops remaining in South Vietnam.  <em class="date"> Oct 29, 1942: The British protest against the persecution of Jews </h2>On this day in 1942, leading British clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register their outrage over the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany .  history.com

 

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<em class="date">Oct 30, 1938: Welles scares nation </h2>Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of &quot;War of the Worlds&quot;a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 1, 1512: Sistine Chapel ceiling opens to public </h2>The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, one of Italian artist Michelangelo's finest works, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 2, 1947: Spruce Goose flies </h2>The Hughes Flying Boatthe largest aircraft ever builtis piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 3, 1964: D.C. residents cast first presidential votes </h2>On this day in 1964, residents of the District of Columbia cast their ballots in a presidential election for the first time. The passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 gave citizens of the nation's capital the right to vote for a commander in chief and vice president. They went on to help Democrat Lyndon Johnson defeat Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, the next presidential election.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 5, 1994: George Foreman becomes oldest heavyweight champ </h2>On this day in 1994, George Foreman, age 45, becomes boxing's oldest heavyweight champion when he defeats 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas . More than 12,000 spectators at the MGM Grand Hotel watched Foreman dethrone Moorer, who went into the fight with a 35-0 record. Foreman dedicated his upset win to &quot;all my buddies in the nursing home and all the guys in jail.&quot;

 

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<em class="date">Nov 6, 1962: U.N. condemns apartheid </h2>On this day in 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calling on all its members to end economic and military relations with the country.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 7, 1991: Magic Johnson announces he is HIV positive </h2>On this day in 1991, basketball legend Earvin &quot;Magic&quot; Johnson stuns the world by announcing his sudden retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers, after testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, many Americans viewed AIDS as a gay white man's disease. Johnson (1959- ), who is African American and heterosexual, was one of the first sports stars to go public about his HIV-positive status.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 8, 1895: German scientist discovers X-rays </h2>On this day in 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible. Rontgen's discovery occurred accidentally in his Wurzburg, Germany, lab, where he was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-rays because of their unknown nature.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 9, 1938: Nazis launch Kristallnacht </h2>On this day in 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust , German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and was later dubbed &quot;Kristallnacht ,&quot; or &quot;Night of Broken Glass,&quot; after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards vandalized. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of whom were then sent to concentration camps for several months; they were released when they promised to leave Germany. Kristallnacht represented a dramatic escalation of the campaign started by Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he became chancellor to purge Germany of its Jewish population.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 10, 1969: Sesame Street debuts </h2>On this day in 1969, &quot;Sesame Street,&quot; a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut. &quot;Sesame Street,&quot; with its memorable theme song (&quot;Can you tell me how to get/How to get to Sesame Street&quot, went on to become the most widely viewed children's program in the world. It has aired in more than 120 countries.

 

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<em class="date-loc">On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as &quot;the Great War.&quot; Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, November 11th became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 12, 1954: Ellis Island closes </h2>On this day in 1954, Ellis Island , the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor off the New Jersey coast and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 13, 1982: Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated </h2>Near the end of a weeklong national salute to Americans who served in the Vietnam War , the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington after a march to its site by thousands of veterans of the conflict. The long-awaited memorial was a simple V-shaped black-granite wall inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict, arranged in order of death, not rank, as was common in other memorials.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 14, 1851: Moby-Dick published </h2>On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper &amp; Brothers in New York . Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: &quot;Call me Ishmael.&quot; Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a flop.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 15, 1867: First stock ticker debuts </h2>On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City . The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or messenger.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 17, 1558: Elizabethan Age begins </h2>Queen Mary I, the monarch of England and Ireland since 1553, dies and is succeeded by her 25-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 18, 1991: Terry Waite released </h2>Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon free Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite after more than four years of captivity. Waite, looking thinner and his hair grayer, was freed along with American educator Thomas M. Sutherland after intense negotiations by the United Nations.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 19, 1863: Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address </h2>On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania , during the American Civil War , President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War .

 

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<em class="date">Nov 20, 1945: Nuremberg trials begin </h2>Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II .

 

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<em class="date">Nov 21, 1980: Millions tune in to find out who shot J.R. </h2>On this day in 1980, 350 million people around the world tune in to television's popular primetime drama &quot;Dallas &quot; to find out who shot J.R. Ewing, the character fans loved to hate. J.R. had been shot on the season-ending episode the previous March 21, which now stands as one of television's most famous cliffhangers. The plot twist inspired widespread media coverage and left America wondering &quot;Who shot J.R.?&quot; for the next eight months.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy assassinated </h2>John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States , is assassinated while traveling through Dallas , Texas , in an open-top convertible.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 23, 1936: First issue of Life is published </h2>On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White.

 

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<em class="date-loc">In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 25, 1952: Mousetrap opens in London </h2>&quot;The Mousetrap,&quot; a murder-mystery written by the novelist and playwright Agatha Christie, opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. The crowd-pleasing whodunit would go on to become the longest continuously running play in history, with more than 10 million people to date attending its more than 20,000 performances in London's West End.

 

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<em class="date">Nov 26, 1941: FDR establishes modern Thanksgiving holiday </h2>President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.