November 12th History Lesson
1799 – Andrew Ellicott Douglass, an early American astronomer born in Vermont, witnessed the Leonids meteor shower from a ship off the Florida Keys. Douglas wrote in his journal that the “whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets, flying in an infinity of directions, and I was in constant expectation of some of them falling on the vessel. They continued until put out by the light of the sun after day break.” Douglass’ journal entry is the first known record of a meteor shower in North America.
1864 – Union General William T. Sherman ordered the business district of Atlanta, Georgia to be destroyed. He demanded the destruction of the city to prevent the Confederates from recovering anything once the Yankees had abandoned it. By one estimate, nearly 40 percent of the city was ruined. Sherman would apply to the same policy of destruction to the rest of Georgia as he marched to Savannah. Before leaving on November 15, Sherman’s forces had burned the industrial district of Atlanta and left little but a smoking shell.
1892 – William “Pudge” Heffelfinger became the first professional football player when Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Athletic Association paid him $500 to play as a ringer in a game against its rival Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Before Heffelfinger, players had traded their services on the field for expense money but no one had ever openly accepted a cash payment to play football.
1920 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis accepted a contract to become the first baseball commissioner. He became the czar following the Black Sox scandal of 1919 and remained commissioner for seven years.
1923 – Adolf Hitler was arrested and charged with high treason two days after the failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich. After a 24-day trial, he was sentenced to five years in Landsberg Fortress. He served only nine months of that sentence before being released.
While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle); originally entitled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book laid out Hitler’s plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Some passages implied genocide.
1944 – 32 British Lancaster bombers attacked and sank the mighty German battleship Tirpitz. As the battleship lay at anchor in Norway’s Tromso Fjord, the British Lancaster bombers, taking off from Scotland, attacked. Each bomber dropped a 12,000-pound Tallboy bomb and two hit their target, causing the Tirpitz to capsize, killing almost 1,000 crewmen.
1948 – An international war crimes tribunal in Tokyo passed death sentences on seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, who served as premier of Japan from 1941 to 1944. In addition to the death sentences imposed on Tojo and the other six, 16 others were sentenced to life imprisonment. The remaining two of the 25 defendants were sentenced to lesser terms in prison.
Unlike the Nuremberg trial of German war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors representing Great Britain, France, the U.S. and the USSR, the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor – American Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the U.S. attorney general. However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided. In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside Japan judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.
1954 – Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shut 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, and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.
Beginning in 1984, Ellis Island underwent a $160 million renovation, the largest historic restoration project in U.S. history. In September 1990, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened to the public and today is visited by almost 2 million people each year.
1965 – After campaigning as a World War II hero, Ferdinand Marcos was elected President of the Philippines. He had claimed to be the most decorated guerilla leader of World War II, having been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart. Later research refuted these claims and showed the wartime exploits of Marcos to be mostly propaganda, being inaccurate or outright fraudulent.
1969 – Seymour Hersh, an independent investigative journalist, in a cable filed through Dispatch News Service and picked up by more than 30 newspapers, revealed the extent of the U.S. Army’s charges against 1st Lt. William L. Calley at My Lai. Hersh wrote: “The Army says he [Calley] deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a search-and-destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as ‘Pinkville.'”
The original investigation – which had been conducted in April 1968 by members of the 11th Infantry Brigade, the unit involved in the affair – concluded that no massacre had occurred and that no further action was warranted. However, when the cover-up was discovered, the Army Criminal Investigation Division conducted a new investigation. Additionally, Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland appointed Lt. Gen. William R. Peers to “explore the nature and scope” of the original investigation to determine the extent of the cover-up.
He found that 30 persons either participated in the atrocity or knew of it and failed to do anything about it. In the end, only 14 were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted, except Calley, who was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Calley’s sentence was eventually reduced and he was released from prison in 1974.
1979 – President Jimmy Carter responded to a potential threat to national security by stopping the importation of petroleum from Iran. Earlier that month, 66 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran had been taken hostage by a radical Islamic group. Not knowing if future attacks were planned involving American oil tankers or refineries, Carter decided that oil imports from Iran should be discontinued immediately. This ended America’s formerly friendly association with the oil-rich nation.
1980 – More than three years after its launch, the U.S. planetary probe Voyager 1 edged within 77,000 miles of Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system. The photos, beamed 950 million miles back to California, stunned scientists. The high-resolution images showed a world that seemed to confound all known laws of physics. Saturn had not six, but hundreds of rings. The rings appeared to dance, buckle, and interlock in ways never thought possible. Two rings were intertwined, or “braided,” and pictures showed dark radial “spokes” moving inside the rings in the direction of rotation.
1981 – Actor William Holden (Sunset Boulevard, The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Towering Inferno, Network) died at the age of 63 in his Santa Monica home. The Academy Award-winning actor (Stalag 17) died after falling and hitting his head; his body was found several days later.
1982 – Following the death of long-time Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev two days earlier, Yuri Andropov was selected as the new general secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. His rule was short-lived, but eventful. At home, he tried to reinvigorate the flagging Russian economy and attacked corruption and rising alcoholism among the Soviet people.
In his foreign policy, Andropov faced off against the adamantly anticommunist diplomacy of President Ronald Reagan. Andropov suffered from nearly debilitating illnesses since early 1983, and died on February 9, 1984.
1990 – Actress Eve Arden (Mildred Pierce – for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Stage Door, Anatomy Of A Murder, but best known for playing the sardonic but engaging title character on Our Miss Brooks, and the Rydell High School principal in both Grease and Grease 2) died from colorectal cancer and heart disease. She was 82.
1990 – The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Redskins, 28–14, in what became known as the “Body Bag Game”. In the days leading to the game, Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan threatened a beating so severe that “they’ll have to be carted off in body bags.” Ryan’s words were prophetic, as the Eagles defense scored three touchdowns and knocked nine Redskins out of the game, including two quarterbacks.
Ryan, never one to avoid controversy (or a camera), is the father of two NFL coaches not known for their humility; Rex Ryan (head coach of the NY Jets) and Rob Ryan (defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints). Buddy’s history of self-promotion lives on with his sons.
1993 – Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey died of natural causes at the age of 86. Dickey, an 11-time All-Star, won a total of 14 World Series with the New York Yankees; seven as a player and seven more as manager.
2001 – American Airlines Flight 587 out of JFK Airport in New York City crashed into a Queens neighborhood after takeoff, killing 265 people. Although some initially speculated that the crash was the result of terrorism, as it came two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the cause was quickly proven to be a combination of pilot error and wind conditions.
2004 – Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn son. A jury of six men and six women delivered the verdict 23 months after Laci Peterson, who was pregnant, disappeared on Christmas Eve, 2002. Peterson was unemotional during the reading of the verdict. On March 16, 2005, he was formally sentenced to death by lethal injection.
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