This day in history

[Richard Frost]

1307 William Tell reputedly shoots apple off his son's head

1477 First English dated printed book "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers" by William Caxton at his press in London

1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope

1686 Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practising the surgery on several peasants.

1745 Pretender to the British throne, Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Carlisle

1820 Antarctica sighted by US Navy Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer

1852 State funeral of Duke of Wellington (St Paul's Cathedral, London)

1865 Mark Twain publishes "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"

1902 Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names the teddy bear after US President Teddy Roosevelt

1916 British General Douglas Haig finally calls off the 1st Battle of the Somme in World War I after more than 1 million soldiers had been killed or wounded. Over the top: Thousands of British soldiers scrambled out of their trenches and were dead within minutes

1939 The Irish Republican Army explodes three bombs in Piccadilly Circus

1963 Dartford-Purfleet tunnel under River Thames opens (Now known as the Dartford Tunnel).

1966 US Roman Catholic bishops ends rules against eating meat on Fridays

1984 The Soviet Union helps deliver American wheat during the Ethiopian famine

1987 31 people die in a fire at King's Cross, London's busiest tube station

1991 Muslim Shi'ites release hostages Terry Waite & Thomas Sutherland

2003 The Local Government Act 2003, repealing controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective

[macliam]

King's Cross was on my commute. I remember being really hacked off at finding King's Cross closed when i wanted to get home after a midweek post-work meal. I only learned later how lucky I had been as my normal time for leaving was at 7pm.

1626 - Saint Peter's Basilica was consecrated; it is the second largest religious building in Christendom.

1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the Nobel Prize money of £7,000 awarded to him a year earlier. He said: "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

1928 - Walt Disney released Steamboat Willie, the first "talkie" animated film to feature Mickey Mouse

1943 The RAF bombed Berlin, losing 9 aircraft and 53 crew, and causing light damage with 131 killed.

1963 - The first push-button (rather than rotary-dial) telephones were offered in the USA.

1978 - Jim Jones led hundreds of his cult followers in a mass murder-suicide in Guyana.

2005 - Jonah Lomu, iconic All Black player died of a heart attack at age 40 after battling kidney disease.

[Richard Frost]

20th November

1945: Nuremberg trials begin

Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II beginning on November 20, 1945.

The Nuremberg trials were conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions.

On October 1, 1946, 12 architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life, and three were acquitted. Of the original 24 defendants, one, Robert Ley, committed suicide while in prison, and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Gestapo; Alfred Jodl, head of the German armed forces staff; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior.

On October 16, 1946, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged. Goering, who at sentencing was called the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews,” committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia (but is now believed to have died in May 1945). Trials of lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany into the 1950s and resulted in the conviction of 5,025 other defendants and the execution of 806.

1272 Edward I proclaimed King of England after death of his father, Henry III. He would take two years to return to England from the Ninth Crusade.

1521 Arabs attribute shortage of water in Jerusalem to Jews making wine

1755 English minister William Pitt the Elder resigns

1815 Second Treaty of Paris: France and her allies agree France will pay indemnities after Battle of Waterloo, ending the Napoleonic Wars

1820 Whaling ship Essex attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific, only eight of the 20 crew men eventually survive (through cannibalism). Inspiration for the novel "Moby-Dick"

1917 1st successful tank use in battle, at the Battle of Cambrai in World War I as Britain uses the new technology to break through German lines

1917 Ukrainian Republic declared

1990 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher fails to defeat Michael Heseltine's bid for leadership of the Conservative Party

2002 "Die Another Day", 20th James Bond film released, directed by Lee Tamahori, starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry

2015 More than half of all trees in Amazon forest at risk of extinction according to data published in journal "Sciences Advances"

2016 Scotsman Andy Murray breaks through for a first season-ending ATP World Tour Finals tennis title with a 6-3, 6-4 win in London over 5-time defending champion Novak Đoković

2019 Britain's Prince Andrew announces he is stepping back from public duties after outcry from disastrous interview on his friendship with Jeffry Epstein

2019 Oxford Dictionaries word of the year is "climate emergency"

[Richard Frost]

1953 Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce the "Piltdown Man" skull, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax

The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson was responsible for the fraudulent evidence.

In 1912, Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man. In February 1912, Dawson contacted Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, stating he had found a section of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. That summer, Dawson and Smith Woodward purportedly discovered more bones and artefacts at the site, which they connected to the same individual. These finds included a jawbone, more skull fragments, a set of teeth, and primitive tools.

Smith Woodward reconstructed the skull fragments and hypothesised that they belonged to a human ancestor from 500,000 years ago. The discovery was announced at a Geological Society meeting and was given the Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man"). The questionable significance of the assemblage remained the subject of considerable controversy until it was conclusively exposed in 1953 as a forgery. It was found to have consisted of the altered mandible and some teeth of an orangutan deliberately combined with the cranium of a fully developed, though small-brained, modern human.

The Piltdown hoax is prominent for two reasons: the attention it generated around the subject of human evolution, and the length of time, 41 years, that elapsed from its alleged initial discovery to its definitive exposure as a composite forgery.

164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah

1272 Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.

1924 British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin cancels Labour contract with USSR

1931 Horror film "Frankenstein" is released, starring Boris Karloff as the monster, directed by James Whale and based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus"

1938 Nazi forces occupy western Czechoslovakia and declare inhabitants to be German citizens

1940 Nazi occupiers forbid building schools in Netherlands

1941 German troops occupy Rostov-on-Don, Southern Russia

1943 7 Belgian ministers in London criticise King Leopold III for surrendering to Germany

1974 Birmingham pub bombings: 21 civilians killed when bombs explode at two pubs in Birmingham, England (deadliest attack in England during "the Troubles")

2002 NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

2004 The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, unleashing massive protests and controversy over the election's integrity.

2019 Elon Musk launches Tesla's electric Cybertruck with shatterproof windows that when demonstrated on stage shatter

[Richard Frost]

1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible.

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy rarely accompanied her husband on political outings, but she was beside him, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, for a 10-mile motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas on November 22. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46.

Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States at 2:39 p.m. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband’s blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington.

The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that Monday, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy’s body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral. Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave.

Lee Harvey Oswald, born in New Orleans in 1939, joined the U.S. Marines in 1956. He was discharged in 1959 and nine days later left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. He worked in Minsk and married a Soviet woman and in 1962 was allowed to return to the United States with his wife and infant daughter. In early 1963, he bought a .38 revolver and rifle with a telescopic sight by mail order, and on April 10 in Dallas he shot at and missed former U.S. Army general Edwin Walker, a figure known for his extreme right-wing views. Later that month, Oswald went to New Orleans and founded a branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro organization. In September 1963, he went to Mexico City, where investigators allege that he attempted to secure a visa to travel to Cuba or return to the USSR. In October, he returned to Dallas and took a job at the Texas School Book Depository Building.

Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street near his rooming house in Dallas. Thirty minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theatre by police responding to reports of a suspect. He was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found Ruby guilty of “murder with malice” and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be disputed by some.

1830 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1922 British Labour party elects Ramsay MacDonald as leader

1924 Britain orders Egyptians out of Sudan

1967 UN Security council passes resolution 242; Israel must give back occupied land

1968 Terence O'Neill, then Northern Ireland Prime Minister, announced a package of reform measures granting concessions to the Catholic minority, in response to protest movement

1971 A member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is killed in a premature bomb explosion in Lurgan, County Armagh

1975 Drummuckavall Ambush: 3 British Army soldiers are killed and one captured when the Provisional Irish Republican Army attack a watchtower in South Armagh, North Ireland

1975 Juan Carlos I proclaimed King of Spain as monarchy restored after 31 years

1990 Margaret Thatcher announces her resignation as British Prime Minister

2004 The Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine, resulting from the presidential elections

2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany

2017 Ratko Mladic the "Butcher of Bosnia" is convicted of genocide and other atrocities during the Bosnian war and jailed for life in The Hague

2020 G20 virtual two-day summit ends with pledge to ensure affordable access to vaccines for all

[Richard Frost]

1499 Flemish pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from Tower of London. Invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV

1584 English parliament expels Jesuits

1644 "Areopagitica", a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published

1867 The Manchester Martyrs are hung at Salford Gaol, Manchester, England for shooting a police officer

1869 The clipper Cutty Sark is launched In Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving

1955 Britain transfers the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean to Australia

2013 "The Day of the Doctor" 50th anniversary episode of "Doctor Who" screens on BBC One, 1st episode to feature 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi

2019 Sumatran rhino officially declared extinct in Malaysia after last known specimen, 25-year-old Iman, dies of cancer in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

[Richard Frost]

24 November 1859

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a ground breaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and the English economist Thomas Malthus, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his studies in variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of organic evolution.

The idea of organic evolution was not new. It had been suggested earlier by, among others, Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished English scientist, and Lamarck, who in the early 19th century drew the first evolutionary diagram—a ladder leading from one-celled organisms to man. However, it was not until Darwin that science presented a practical explanation for the phenomenon of evolution.

Darwin had formulated his theory of natural selection by 1844, but he was wary to reveal his thesis to the public because it so obviously contradicted the biblical account of creation. In 1858, with Darwin still remaining silent about his findings, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace independently published a paper that essentially summarized his theory. Darwin and Wallace gave a joint lecture on evolution before the Linnean Society of London in July 1858, and Darwin prepared On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for publication.

Published on November 24, 1859, Origin of Species sold out immediately. Most scientists quickly embraced the theory that solved so many puzzles of biological science, but orthodox Christians condemned the work as heresy. Controversy over Darwin’s ideas deepened with the publication of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), in which he presented evidence of man’s evolution from apes.

By the time of Darwin’s death in 1882, his theory of evolution was generally accepted. In honour of his scientific work, he was buried in Westminster Abbey beside kings, queens, and other illustrious figures from British history. Subsequent developments in genetics and molecular biology led to modifications in accepted evolutionary theory, but Darwin’s ideas remain central to the field.

1434 River Thames in London freezes over

1655 English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell bans Anglicans

1715 London's Thames River freezes over

1877 English author Anna Sewell sells her manuscript "Black Beauty" to Norwich publisher for £40, the novel is published soon after

1940 The Blitz: Luftwaffe bombs Bristol city centre, killing 200 people in the first German raid on the city. German aircraft dropped 10,000 bombs on London in one of the worst nights ever during the Battle of Britain. Buckingham Palace took a direct hit.

1950 UN troops begin an assault intending to end Korean War by Christmas

1971 A British Army bomb-disposal specialist is killed by a bomb in Lurgan, County Armagh

1971 A woman is killed after members of the Irish Republican Army carry out an attack on British soldiers in Strabane, County Tyrone

1972 Taoiseach Jack Lynch met with British Prime Minister Edward Heath in London to give Irish approval to Attlee's paper that said new arrangements should be 'acceptable to and accepted by the Republic of Ireland'

1974 Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev agree to a framework for the SALT-II treaty to reduce each side's number of nuclear weapons, at the Vladivostok Summit

1983 "The Colour of Magic" by Terry Pratchett published by Colin Smythe in the UK, 1st book in the Discworld series

1993 11 year old Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are convicted of the murder of English 2 year old James Bulger

2019 Data leaked from Chinese high-security Muslim Uighur security camps, housing 1 million people, show systematic brainwashing in western Xinjiang region

2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy candidates overwhelmingly win district council elections in strong rebuke to Hong Kong leaders

2021 At least 27 migrants drown after their boat capsizes in the English Channel trying to reach the UK

[Richard Frost]

25 November

1034 Malcolm II, King of Scots (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda) (b. 980) dies; Donnchad, the son of his second daughter Bethóc and Crínán of Dunkeld, inherits the throne.

1120 'The White Ship' capsizes near the Normandy coast while crossing the English Channel transporting many nobles, including the heir to the English throne, from France to England; about 300 die, only 1 survivor

1783 Britain evacuates New York city, its last military position in the United States

1913 The Irish Volunteers founded in Dublin to "secure the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland"

1940 SS Patria carrying illegal immigrants sinks in port of Haifa, 200 die

1947 New Zealand accedes to Statute of Westminster, becomes a dominion

1971 British Labour Party leader Harold Wilson proposes Britain should work towards a withdrawal from Northern Ireland, and after 15 years; the Republic of Ireland could rejoin the British Commonwealth

1974 Irish Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following deaths of 21

1990 Lech Wałęsa wins Poland's first popular election

2005 Polish Minister of National Defence Radek Sikorski opens Warsaw Pact archives to historians showing maps of possible nuclear strikes against Western Europe, including the nuclear annihilation of 43 Polish cities by Soviet-controlled forces.

[Richard Frost]

1865: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published
Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) captures the imaginations of adults and children with his story of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world. It will quickly become a hit and later inspire adaptations for the stage, films and TV.

[Richard Frost]

1095: At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called for the Crusade against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Byzantine Empire and gave cloth crosses to the knights to be sewn into their armour which gave the Crusades their name.

The Crusades (1096 – 1291)
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character fought from 1096 to 1291 by most of the Christian Europe against the Muslims in the Middle East. However, the Crusades were also launched against the pagan Slavs, Jews, Orthodox Christians, Albigenses, Hussites as well as against political enemies in Europe (such as the Crusade against Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II). The appeal of the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Comnenus to the Pope for military assistance against the Seljuk Turks resulted in the convocation of the Council of Clermont by Pope Urban II in November 1095.

At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called for the Crusade against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Byzantine Empire and gave cloth crosses to the knights to be sewn into their armour which gave the Crusades their name.

After the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II travelled throughout France preaching and organizing the Crusade. Although he expected his call for the Crusade will be responded only by knights and warriors the majority of those who took up his call were the poor peasants without any fighting skills.

The appeal of the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Comnenus to the Pope Urban II is widely regarded as the immediate cause for the Crusades but the real cause for the Crusades laid in Papacy’s and Western Europe’s own interests. The Papacy saw an opportunity to establish its dominance over the Holy Land, while the Crusaders were primarily led by economic, political and social motives. The best evidence for that is the fact that the Crusaders were primarily concentrated on capturing of Palestine instead of helping the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks of Anatolia.