My first thought upon hearing that today is “National Alan Day,” was that some dude named Alan made that up, and that he was probably Canadian. So I was right again.
“The name Alan is a masculine name meaning handsome, cheerful, harmony, and noble. The English language says the name Alan was brought to England during the 11th century by the people of Brittany. In fact, Alan is said to date back to the 6th century in Brittany among its people. Today, the people of Brittany are one of six Celtic nations found in the western France, otherwise known as Brittany Bretagne or Celtic Britons. However, this particular ethnic group are not typical French speaking people. Because of their strong Celtic heritage, Celtic Britons speak a Celtic language very similar to Cornish and Welsh. Besides a differing language from the French, they also have different customs.
It is very possible todays' National Day originates as a memorial for Canadian mathematician Alan Day (1941-1990). Day made significant contributions to algebraic discoveries known as the Lattice Theory. He became widely respected after publishing his thesis in 1968 on A characterization of modularity for congruence lattices of algebras. The publication was the beginning of a career in mathematical research and discoveries.”
It's also Red Planet Day, and National French Toast Day.
Now let’s get onto today’s history…
In Government…
October 13 is the official birthday of the US Navy, but on November 28, 1775, the Second Continental Congress formally established the Continental Navy.
We’ve always been told that America doesn’t, “negotiate with terrorists,” but that hasn’t always been the case. From Monticello:
“In 1784 Congress had appointed Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin as peace commissioners to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce with the principal states of Europe and the Mediterranean — including the Barbary states. Already in Europe, the commissioners quickly learned that the Europeans made peace with the Barbary powers through treaties that involved annual payments of tribute — sometimes euphemistically called annuities…
The Barbary challenge to American merchant shipping sparked a great deal of debate over how to cope with corsair aggression, actual or threatened. Jefferson's early view guided him in future years. In November 1784, he doubted the American people would be willing to pay annual tribute. ‘Would it not be better to offer them an equal treaty. If they refuse, why not go to war with them?’ A month later, having learned that a small American brig had been seized by a Moroccan corsair in the Atlantic, he emphasized the hard line: ‘Our trade to Portugal, Spain, and the Mediterranean is annihilated unless we do something decisive. Tribute or war is the usual alternative of these pirates. If we yield the former, it will require sums which our people will feel. Why not begin a navy then and decide on war? We cannot begin in a better cause nor against a weaker foe.’”
In 1795, the US paid $800,000 and a frigate as tribute to Algiers and Tunisian an effort to appease the Barbary pirates, which was after Jefferson’s term as Secretary of State (1790-1793), but before becoming Vice President (1795).
In the 19th Century, Olympia formed as the capital of the Washington Territory in 1853. Olympia is the capitol of Washington State, which became the 42nd state in the union on November 11, 1889.
The 19th Century is most remembered in the US for the Civil War and, in 1861, the Confederate congress officially admitted Missouri to the Confederacy. Ten years later, in 1871, Ku Klux Klan trials began in Federal District Court in South Carolina. It’s pretty incredible that the KKK was still brazen enough to rally in public, in daylight, in southern states as recently as the 1980s.
War also gripped the 20th Century, as there is nothing new under the sun. In 1914, following a WWI-induced closure, the New York Stock Exchange re-opened for bond trading. It’s fascinating how free markets benefit industries of war while war gives tyrannical governors the ability to manipulate free markets. Never let a crisis go to waste.
Finally in US government history today, in 2020 Joe Biden injured his foot playing with Major, the White House dog that is the canine version of Hunter Biden. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Joe had it coming, and I stand with Major.
In world government today…
1240: Mongol army lays siege to Kyiv
1520: Magellan begins crossing the Pacific
1717: Blackbeard christens the "Queen Anne's Revenge"
1720: Anne Bonny and Mary Read are sentenced to death
1821: Panama declares independence from Spain
1843: Hawaiian Independence Day
1893: First national election where women can vote (New Zealand)
1918: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany abdicated
1919: Lady Nancy Astor first female member of British House of Commons
1936: Pedro Muñoz Seca executed by the Republican army
1944: 40 Dutch men executed by Nazis
1958: Chad won autonomy from the French
1960: Mauritania won independence from the France
1966: Dominican Republic adopted constitution
1998: Albania adopted constitution
2000: Ukraine accusations of government murdering journalist
2018: French director Luc Besson me-tooed
2019: European parliament declared climate emergency
2019: UN declared Zimbabwe on the brink of man-made starvation
2022: “Operation Desert Light”
In Culture…
In 2022, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary word of the year was “gaslighting.” It’s super appropriate, and should be the word of the decade. Collins Dictionary’s word in 2022 was “permacrisis.”
That’s funny, the World Economic Forum is pushing “polycrisis.”
The Artsy Fartsy Stuff
Whistler v. Ruskin, the most famous trial in art history, ended on this day in 1878. Artist James McNeill Whistler was awarded a token farthing in compensation after suing the writer and critic John Ruskin for libel.
In 1956, photography began on "... & God Created Women,” or “Et Dieu... créa la femme.” In 1988, Pablo Picasso’s "Acrobat & Harlequin" sold for $38.46 million.
Firsts & Other Milestones
Robert Byrd headed to the South Pole on this day in 1929. It was his first successful trip over the South Pole. From History.com:
“At 3:29 p.m. on November 28, 1929, Byrd, the pilot Bernt Balchen, and two others took off from Little America in the Floyd Bennett, headed for the South Pole. Magnetic compasses were useless so near the pole, so the explorers were forced to rely on sun compasses and Byrd’s skill as a navigator. At 8:15 p.m., they dropped supplies for a geological party near the Queen Maud Mountains and then continued on. The most challenging phase of the journey came an hour later, when the Floyd Bennett struggled to gain enough altitude to fly safely above the Polar Plateau. They cleared the 11,000-foot pass between Mount Fridtjof Nansen and Mount Fisher by a few hundred yards and then flew on to the South Pole, reaching it at around 1 a.m. on November 29. They flew a few miles beyond the pole and then to the right and the left to compensate for any navigational errors. Byrd dropped a small American flag on the pole, and the explorers headed for home, safely landing at Little America at 10:11 a.m.”
Other firsts today include:
1814: The Times of London was first printed by automatic, steam powered presses making newspapers available to a mass audience
1895: America's first auto race organized by The "Chicago Times-Herald"organized - Chicago to Evanston and back; 6 cars, 55 miles, Frank Duryea wins averaging 7 MPH
1907: Louis B. Mayer’s first movie theater
The Science
The Royal Society of London was inspired during a lecture by Sir Christopher Wren, Professor of Astronomy at England's Gresham College on this day in 1660. In 1967, Cambridge University postgraduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell and her supervisor Antony Hewish detected the first radio pulsars.
Speaking of radio, Graucho Marx performed on radio for the first time on this day in 1932, and in 1960, CBS radio expanded their hourly news coverage from five to ten minutes. The pendulum has swung the other way now in the age of information saturation.
All the World’s a Stage
Hamilton set a new record on this day in 2016, earning the most money ever earned in a single week on Broadway. It was $3.3M.
On the silver screen, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" premiered in New Zealand in 2012 and, on the literal idiot box, the final episode of "Beavis & Butt-head" aired on MTV in 1997.
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
The Grand Ole Opry got its start on this day in 1925, premiering WSM Barn Dance on WSM radio in Nashville. It’s also a big day for The Beatles, as "She Loves You" returned to number one on the UK charts and reached 1 million copies sold in 1963. Exactly five years later in 1968, John Lennon was fined £150 for unauthorized drug possession, and in 1974 John Lennon played his final concert appearance as a guest of Elton John in Madison Square Garden.
Also on this day, the debut album by The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi); topped music charts and became the best-selling blues record of all-time in 1978, and in 1989, Queen Latifah released her debut hip hop album "All Hail the Queen.”
In Death & Destruction…
In 1745, French troops and Indian forces attacked Saratoga, NY, killing many and taking prisoners. In 1933, Bonnie and Clyde were indicted by a Dallas grand jury for the murder of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis in January of that year, and in 1994, Jeffrey Dahmer was “clubbed to death.” Sure, okay, we will go with clubbed to death.
There was a lot of death today D&D:
1729: 138 Frenchmen, 35 women, 56 children killed by Natchez Indians in Mississippi.
1908: 154 men die in coal mine explosion at Marianna, Pennsylvania
1942: 492 killed in a fire that destroys Cocoanut Grove nightclub
1972: 2 killed, IRA members killed in a premature bomb explosion
1987: 159 die when South African Airways Boeing 747 crashes into Indian Ocean
2012: 54 killed, 120 injured by two car bombs in Damascus, Syria
2016: 71 killed in plane crash near Medellin, Colombia – another football team
2019: 25 protestors killed by Iraqi security forces in Nasiriya
2020:110 killed in attack on Koshobe village in north-east Nigeria by Boko Haram
Reminder: Last year was rough…
2022: 50 million birds killed by outbreak of avian flu across the US
2022: 400-5000 immigrants reported to have died in building of world cup venues
2022: 451 protesters and 60 security forces killed in Iran protests
Today’s Birthdays…
1820: Friedrich Engels (Marxist Mark and the funky bunch)
1929: Berry Gordy (Flint Michigan water drinking enthusiast, Joe Jackson’s therapist, and alleged father to Diana Ross’ baby Michael Jackson)
1950: Ed Harris
1959: Judd Nelson (Ear Muffs)
1969: Jon Stewart
1967: Anna Nicole Smith
1979: Chamillionaire
1987: Karen Gillian
Deaths Today…
1859: Washington Irving
1939: James Naismith
1954: Enrico Fermi
1976: (Catherine) Rosalind Russell, American stage and screen actress (His Girl Friday; Auntie Mame; Gypsy), dies of breast cancer at 69
2010: Leslie Neislon (Canadian actor)
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