Happy Birthday Anniversary to
French Impressionist, Claude Monet, 1840

 

On this day in history, November 14, 1776, British press names patriot Ben Franklin leader of rebellion
Founding Father spent much of adult life living in London, celebrated by British society and science.



A Currier and Ives lithograph of Benjamin Franklin and his son William using a kite and key during a storm to prove that lightning was electricity, June 1752. Franklin achieved fame in the London scientific community for his research on electricity.

 

1851: 'Call me Ishmael' first appears in print in the United States, the opening line of a new novel by a former sailor. An earlier version of 'Moby Dick,' entitled 'The Whale,' had been published in England. The novel will flop on both sides of the Atlantic, but long after Melville's death, it will be hailed as a classic.

 

On This Day In History
November 14, 1776
English newspaper announces Benjamin Franklin has joined rebellion in America

On November 14, 1776, the St. James Chronicle of London carries an item announcing “The very identical Dr. Franklyn [Benjamin Franklin], whom Lord Chatham [former leading parliamentarian and colonial supporter William Pitt] so much caressed, and used to say he was proud in calling his friend, is now at the head of the rebellion in North America.”

Benjamin Franklin, joint postmaster general of the colonies (1753-1774), and his son William traveled to London together in 1757. There, for the next five years, William studied law, and Franklin studied social climbing. They had remarkable success for a candle-maker’s son and his illegitimate progeny. By the end of their sojourn, William had become an attorney and received an honorary Master of Arts from Oxford University, while his father reveled in honorary doctorates from Oxford and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The elder Franklin’s plans for his son’s advancement succeeded, and his son won the choicest of appointments, a royal governorship, in 1762.

Franklin then accompanied his son from London to Pennsylvania, only to return to London as Pennsylvania’s agent in 1764, where he lobbied for the placement of the colony under direct royal control. He soon added Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts to the list of colonies for which he served as spokesperson in Parliament.

In 1775, Franklin returned to America as the American Revolution approached; he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and, in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence. Ironically, his son William came out on the side of the British during the War of Independence and was imprisoned while serving as the Loyalist governor of New Jersey.

 

Trump Supporters, Counter protesters Clash At D.C. Rally Contesting Biden's Victory
November 14, 202012:21 PM ET

Thousands of President Trump's most fervent supporters were out in Washington, D.C., on Saturday for a day of rallying that echoed the false assertion that the presidential election was marked by fraud.

 

1943 - Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the German SS, ordered the imprisonment of Gypsies and "part-Gypsies."

 

On November 15, 1926, RCA established the first 1st formal 'national' radio network by taking over AT&T's 25 station Network.

Entrepreneur David Sarnoff made radio a household utility and played a leading role in establishing network radio with the formation of the National Broadcasting Company in September, 1926. With the creation of the Radio Corporation of America, he became a dominant force in electronic communications for more than 50 years.

As the National Broadcasting Network, NBC made its debut by going live on this day over 19 stations extending from the East Coast to Kansas City, Missouri.

Prior to this, radio broadcasting had been performed only on a regional basis.







Sarnoff with Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the radio.

 

On this day in history, November 15, 1956, Elvis makes big-screen debut in 'Love Me Tender'
King of rock exploded onto pop-culture scene in 1956 with five No. 1 hits, first national TV and film appearances, and relentless tour schedule.



Photo of Elvis Presley during the filming of "Love Me Tender" in Los Angeles.

 

On This Day In History
November 15, 1777
Articles of Confederation adopted

After 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress, sitting in its temporary capital of York, Pennsylvania, agrees to adopt the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union on November 15, 1777. Not until March 1, 1781 would the last of the 13 states, Maryland, ratify the agreement.

In 1777, Patriot leaders, stinging from British oppression, were reluctant to establish any form of government that might infringe on the right of individual states to govern their own affairs. The Articles of Confederation, then, provided for only a loose federation of American states. Congress was a single house, with each state having one vote, and a president elected to chair the assembly. Although Congress did not have the right to levy taxes, it did have authority over foreign affairs and could regulate a national army and declare war and peace. Amendments to the Articles required approval from all 13 states. On March 2, 1781, following final ratification by the 13th state, the Articles of Confederation became the law of the land.

Less than five years after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, enough leading Americans decided that the system was inadequate to the task of governance that they peacefully overthrew their second government in just over 20 years. The difference between a collection of sovereign states forming a confederation and a federal government created by a sovereign people lay at the heart of debate as the new American people decided what form their new government would take.

In 1787, an extra-legal body met in seclusion during Philadelphia’s summer heat to create this new government. On March 4, 1789, the modern United States was established when the U.S. Constitution formally replaced the Articles of Confederation.

Between 1776 and 1789, Americans went from living under a sovereign king, to living in sovereign states, to becoming a sovereign people. That transformation defined the American Revolution.

 

15 Nov 1966

Veteran Essex class carrier USS Wasp recovered astronauts Captain James Lovell and Major Edwin Aldrin from the Gemini XII space mission in the Atlantic Ocean.

 

11/16/2020 President Trump is still refusing to admit defeat in 2020 election.

 

November 16 commemorates the day in 2006 that Milton Friedman passed away in San Francisco as a result of heart failure at the age of 94.

Up to the day he passed, Friedman was still a working economist performing original economic research; his last column was published in The Wall Street Journal the day after his death.

One of the most brilliant men in any field of the 20th century (and certainly in the history of economics), Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976 for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history, and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. He served as an advisor to both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

One of the key aspects of Friedman's career was his ability to explain complex monetary concepts in reasonably simple terms. For example, about inflation he pulled away the curtain by revealing that since only the government can print money, the government (and its spending) is the only possible cause of inflation. "Rapid increases in the quantity of money produce inflation. Sharp decreases produce depression."

Specifically on The Great Depression, Friedman was sharply critical of the government, stating, "The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government."
~ Milton Friedman, Two Lucky People

Rest in Peace, Mr. Friedman





There is also an excellent documentary series (I saw it quite some time ago on Prime Video) called 'Free to Choose.' I highly recommend it.

 

On This Day In History
November 16, 1961
President Kennedy increases military aid to Saigon

President John F. Kennedy decides to increase military aid to South Vietnam without committing U.S. combat troops.

Kennedy was concerned at the advances being made by the communist Viet Cong, but did not want to become involved in a land war in Vietnam. He hoped that the military aid would be sufficient to strengthen the Saigon government and its armed forces against the Viet Cong. Ultimately it was not, and Kennedy ended up sending additional support in the form of U.S. military advisors and American helicopter units. By the time of his assassination in 1963, there were 16,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam.

 

1972: UNESCO protects landmarks. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) creates its World Heritage program to protect cultural, historic, scientific, and natural heritage sites. The program will grow to include more than 1,000 areas around the world.

 

16 Nov 1941
The Japanese carrier fleet exercised in the Kurile Islands while the Obsolete Japanese battleship Settsu began to sail around the Inland Sea in Japan to generate fake radio communication messages at different ports.

16 Nov 1943
The first XP-80 prototype jet fighter airframe was delivered to Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards Air Force Base) in Lancaster, California.

 

On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal opened for maritime traffic. Construction began 10 years earlier, in 1859, the result of a partnership between Egyptian khedive Saʿīd Pasha and France's Suez Canal Company.

By connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas, the canal drastically reduced shipping times to and from the far east, as cargo ships no longer had to sail around the southern tip of Africa to reach Europe.

The Convention of Constantinople established the treaty concerning the use of the Suez Canal, which was signed on 29 October 1888 by the United Kingdom, the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The Khedivate of Egypt, through whose territory the Canal ran and to which all shares in the Suez Canal Company were due to revert when the company's 99-year lease to manage the canal expired, was not invited to participate in the negotiations and did not sign the treaty.

The signatories comprised all the great European powers of the era, and the treaty was interpreted as a guaranteed right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

 

1973: "I'm not a crook" 'People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.' Nixon offers this declaration at a press conference where he had come to defend his record amid the Watergate Scandal and allegations of financial impropriety. The quote will become one of his most infamous lines.

 

On This Day In History
November 17, 1968
TV viewers become outraged as football game is cut off to air “Heidi”
On November 17, 1968, the Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets—and no one sees it, because they’re watching the movie Heidi instead. With just 65 seconds left to play, NBC switched off the game in favor of its previously scheduled programming, a made-for-TV version of the children’s story about a young girl and her grandfather in the Alps. Viewers were outraged, and they complained so vociferously that network execs learned a lesson they’ll never forget: “Whatever you do,” one said, “you better not leave an NFL football game.”

The game between the Jets and the Raiders was already shaping up to be a classic: It featured two of the league’s best teams and 10 future Hall of Fame players. By the game’s last minute the two teams had traded the lead eight times. The game’s intensity translated into an unusual number of penalties and timeouts, which meant that it was running a bit long.

With a little more than a minute left to play, the Jets kicked a 26-yard field goal that gave them a 32-29 lead. After the New York kickoff, the Raiders returned the ball to their own 23-yard line. What happened after that will go down in football history: Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw a 20-yard pass to halfback Charlie Smith; a facemask penalty moved the ball to the Jets’ 43; and on the next play, Lamonica passed again to Smith, who ran it all the way for a touchdown. The Raiders took the lead, 32-36. Then the Jets fumbled the kickoff, and Oakland’s Preston Ridlehuber managed to grab the ball and run it two yards for another touchdown. Oakland had scored twice in nine seconds, and the game was over: They’d won 43-32.

But nobody outside the Oakland Coliseum actually saw any of this, because NBC went to commercial right after the Jets’ kickoff and never came back. Instead, they did what they’d been planning to do for weeks: At 7 PM, they began to broadcast a brand-new version of Heidi, a film they were sure would win them high ratings during November sweeps. Before the game began, network execs had talked about what they’d do if the game ran over its scheduled time, and they decided to go ahead with the movie no matter what. So, that’s what NBC programmer Dick Cline did. “I waited and waited,” he said later, “and I heard nothing. We came up to that magic hour and I thought, ‘Well, I haven’t been given any counter-order so I’ve got to do what we agreed to do.’”

NBC execs had actually changed their minds, and were trying to get in touch with Cline to tell him to leave the game on until it was over. But all the telephone lines were busy: Thousands of people were calling the network to urge programmers to air Heidi as scheduled, and thousands more were calling to demand that the football game stay on the air. Football fans grew even more livid when NBC printed the results of the game at the bottom of the screen 20 minutes after the game ended. So many irate fans called NBC that the network’s switchboard blew. Undeterred, people started calling the telephone company, the New York Times and the NYPD, whose emergency lines they clogged for hours.

Shortly after the Heidi debacle, the NFL inserted a clause into its TV contracts that guaranteed that all games would be broadcast completely in their home markets. For its part, NBC installed a new phone–the “Heidi Phone”–in the control room that had its own exchange and switchboard. Such a disaster, the network assured its viewers, would never be allowed to happen again.

 

17 Nov 1941

Japanese special envoy Kurusu Saburo arrived in Washington DC and, along with Japanese Ambassador Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, met with US Secretary of State Cordell Hull to negotiate a peaceful outcome to disagreements concerning trade and Japan's aggressiveness in the Western Pacific.

This coincided with a cable sent from Joseph Grew, the US Ambassador to Japan, reiterating that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor should negotiations between Japan and the US break down.

 

On November, 18, 1928, Walt Disney sowed the seed that would grow into one of the largest entertainment enterprises in history, when Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions, released Steamboat Willie, Disney's short, animated caroon featuring his future flagship character Mickey Mouse, with his companion Minnie.

The short was a massive success, launching Mickey into the public consciousness and propelling Disney's soon snowballing domination of the animation market.

There is no definitive date to indicate the turning point of the Disney conglomerate when its senior management started turning it into the woke mess that it is today.