It’s World Adoption Day, everyone! Adoption is one of the most selfless acts, and we want to give a huge shout out to those who sacrifice to love on the children who need it most in our society. My friend Hannah has 14 adopted children — she’s such an overachiever!
Profoundly, it’s also World Freedom Day, and adoption delivers freedom to children every day!
It’s also National Microtia Awareness Day, and I am glad for that because I had no idea about this congenital birth defect. From the National Day Calendar:
“Approximately one child in every 9,000 is born with Microtia. Microtia occurs when the ear or ears do not fully develop during the 1st trimester of pregnancy. While Microtia is diagnosed at birth, there is no understanding of why Microtia occurs. Those born with Microtia face hearing loss, facial challenges, and the longing for social acceptance.”
Finally, it’s National Scrapple Day, another thing I didn’t know existed. Scrapple is hailed as the first pork dish invented in America and, in my opinion, this is one of the less appealing dishes we’ve spotlighted on Today’s History. Scrapple appears to be a kind of pork bread loaf where pork trimmings are combined with cornmeal, wheat flour, and savory spices, formed into a loaf, and pan-fried or boiled. I won’t be making this one, but if you want to give it a shot try this one from The Spruce Eats — it’s the least gross looking one I can find.
Now let’s get onto today’s history…
In Government…
There is no notable election history today, but don’t get too excited – it pops up again tomorrow. What is very strange is the number of heads of state that died on this day. We haven’t seen anything like this yet. All of these leaders died on November 10:
1837: British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald
1940: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
1952: Israeli President Chaim Weizman
1953: Saudi King Ibn Saud
1970: French President Charles de Gaulle
2005: Indian President K. R. Narayanan
2020: Mali President Amadou Toumani Touré no
In less morbid US history, in 1620, after about two months at sea following a month of delays off the English coast, the Mayflower finally spotted land when Cape Cod came into view.
Moving into the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt became the first US President to visit another country in 1906 when he made a state visit to Puerto Rico and Panama. In 1979, NORAD experienced a false alarm of a Soviet ballistic missile attack after a technician failed to code a test properly. Yikes!
Five years later in 1984, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was completed. I went there shortly after it opened with my father when I was a child.
Nixon’s disgraced VP, Spiro Agnew, was born on this day in 1918 and, in 2011, Joel J. Tyler – the judge who pronounced 'Deep Throat' obscene – died.
In more recent history, in 2017 Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore was accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. The allegations effectively destroyed his career, and he sued for defamation. In 2022, he was awarded $8.2M when a federal jury found that a Democrat-aligned super PAC defamed the Alabama Republican. He failed in his Senate campaign.
In world history today:
1494: Piero the Unfortunate lost his power and fled the state
1520: Height of the Stockholm Bloodbath
1526: Jews expelled from Bratislava by Maria of Hapsburg
1799: Napoleon Bonaparte pulled off a coup and becomes dictator of France
1918: Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated; Weimar Republic proclaimed
1921: Mussolini forms Partito Nazionalista Fascista in Italy
1925: Nazi party formed the Schutzstaffel (SS)
1980: Saddam Hussein declared holy war against Iran
1989: East Berlin opened its borders
1998: Capital punishment abolished in the United Kingdom
In Culture…
Canada had its first documented football game in 1861 at the University of Toronto.
In other sports history, in 1953, the Supreme Court ruled that Major League baseball was exempt from antitrust laws – it was just yesterday (in 1966) that the NFL achieved the same. In 1961, the PGA eliminated their “caucasians only” rule. Without that decision, the world would not have known Tiger Woods, and remember the Civil Rights Act didn’t come about until 1964, so golf was ahead of the game!
Evander Holyfield upset Mike Tyson in an 11th-round knockout in 1996, regaining the WBA heavyweight boxing title. Holyfield is the second boxer, after Muhammad Ali, to win a heavyweight title three times.
Finally in sports history, in 2015, the World Anti-Doping Agency commission report recommended that the Russian Federation be banned from athletic competitions due to them running a "state-supported" doping program.
In space history, the Surveyor 6 allegedly “soft landed” on the Moon in 1967, the same day that Saturn V, launched on its first unmanned, test flight into earth orbit. It was successful. In 2005, the Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A “cosmodrome” sounds a lot like planetarium. (It’s not.)
The mother of milk, Gail Borden, was born on this day in 1801, and Heddy Lamarr was born the same day in 1914. Lamarr is best known for being an actress, but she was also the inventor of radio guidance systems for Allied Torpedos. In 1938, cartoonist Al Capp created Sadie Hawkins Day. In the same year, Edward Murray East, the American botanist and geneticist who developed hybrid corn, died.
Speaking of science-y innovations, in 1961, the X-15 rocket plane achieved a world record speed of 4,093 mph, or Mach 6.04, and reached 101,600 feet – over 19 miles – in altitude. The craft was piloted by USAF Major Robert M White. Thirty years later in 1991, the Joint European Torus (JET) scientists successfully harnessed nuclear fusion. As a result, they allegedly produced the first large amount of controlled fusion power. Three years later in Germany 1994, Chemical element 110 was discovered at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research.
In music releases, Joe Cocker covered the Beatles, "With A Little Help From My Friends" in 1968, and it went on to become the number one single in the UK. The following year in 1969, Simon and Garfunkel released, "Bridge over Troubled Water" as a single. In 1973, Billy Joel released his second studio album, "Piano Man.” And in 2006, David Bowie performed on stage for the final time at a charity concert in New York.
In other music history, in 2018 the K-pop band BTS was canceled after a member wore a shirt with an atomic bomb image. There were many music birthdays today as well:
1941: Tom Fogerty
1969: Pepa
1978: Sisqo
1973: Nick Lachey
In other media, Dorothy Dandridge was born on this day in 1922 and, in 1984, "A Nightmare on Elm Street" premiered. This is a big day for actress Gertrude Astor as well, as she was born in 1887 and died in 1977 — same day!
Other historical moments that shaped our world include the largest civil settlement in US history when brokerage houses were ordered to pay 1.03 billion to NASDAQ investors after being found liable for price-fixing in 1998. In 2015, SeaWorld announced an overhaul of its killer whale show after sunlight was shined on the treatment of the whales.
And finally in culture, there are couple of infamous birthdays today with Stanford White’s birth in 1853, and Byron de la Beckwith’s birth in 1920.
In Death & Destruction…
November 10 is a murdery day. In 1888, Jack the Ripper's fifth, and probably last, victim Mary Jane Kelly was found on her bed, and in 1971, John List killed family and moved to Colorado.
In 2019, a prominent Russian history professor, Oleg Sokolov, was discovered with the severed arms of his murder victim in his backpack after being rescued from the Moika River in St Petersburg.
It was also another day of natural disasters, plane crashes, and suicide bombings:
1923: 16 killed in failed Nazis overthrow; Adolf Hitler fled
1932: 2,500 killed when wave from hurricane sweeps over Santa Cruz del Sur in Cuba
1932: 12 killed, 60 injured in riots between Swiss conservative and socialist supporters
1963: 458 killed in coal-dust explosion and resulting carbon monoxide in Japan
1963: 162 killed in Tsurumi rail accident in Yokohama, Japan
1973: 101 killed, 84 injured in fire at Taiyo department store in Kumamoto, Japan
1985: 9 killed in surprise attack on supermarket in Aalst, Belgium
1993: 9 children killed when Serbian army fires on school in Sarajevo
1999: 18 killed when TAESA Flight 725 crashed en route to Mexico City
2003: 17 killed in suicide bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2005: 60 killed by suicide bombings in three hotels in Amman, Jordan
2012: 25 killed, 62 injured when train carrying liquid fuel burst into flames in Burma
2012: 6 killed when Algerian C-295 military transport crashed near Avignon, France
2013: 8 killed by a gunman in Cali, Columbia
2018: 1 killed, 2 injured in Melbourne stabbing; homeless man hero
2018: 10 killed in mudslide after heavy rain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2018: 52 killed, 100 injured by three car bombs explode in Mogadishu, Somalia
2019: 3 killed, 7 missing, 100 homes destroyed in an unprecedented 70 bushfires in Australia
On This Day is published Monday through Friday. Watch the Today’s History podcast weekdays at 12PM ET! Don’t forget to visit bootlegproducts.com and use coupon code MYAMERICA!