On November 22…

“From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”
~Walter Cronkite
CBS News Anchor
November 22, 1963

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1718 – English pirate Edward Teach – better known as “Blackbeard” – was killed during a battle off the North Carolina coast.
In his day, Blackbeard was portrayed as a “barbarous” monster by the pro-British newspapers and merchant elite – and known as a Robin-Hood-like folk hero defying the British Crown among American colonists.
He captured more than thirty vessels (most likely a minimum number) along the Atlantic seaboard, Caribbean, and the Spanish Main, and at the peak of his swashbuckling career, he served as commodore of a 700-man, five-ship, 60-plus-gun pirate flotilla that rivaled the strength of any pirate fleet in history and included the 200-ton ship-of-war Queen Anne’s Revenge.
He has been called as “grotesquely conspicuous a villain as can be found in the annals of crime” and a thief who perpetrated “the most abominable wickedness imaginable,” despite the fact that he never killed a single person until he was attacked by Lieutenant Robert Maynard and his 70-man British Royal Navy force at Ocracoke Island, NC.
In that fight, he was shot five times and stabbed more than twenty times before he finally fell from being decapitated by a seaman’s cutlass.

1942 – Battle of Stalingrad: General Friedrich Paulus sent Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army was surrounded.
The embattled general sought permission to attempt to break out of the city. His request was denied.
Forbidden to break out, the Sixth Army – a force of nearly 300,000 German and Axis troops – endured until February 1943, when its exhausted and starving remnants surrendered.
The Germans lost a total of 500,000 men during the Stalingrad campaign, including 91,000 taken prisoner. Most of the captured soldiers died in Russian prison camps, either as a result of disease or starvation.

1954 – The Humane Society of the United States, an American nonprofit organization that focused on animal welfare and opposed animal-related cruelties of national scope, was founded.
Today it is the largest animal protection organization in the world, with seven million members. The HSUS supports animal protection through investigation, legislation, legal action, education, consumer advocacy, and multimedia campaigns.

1963 – The Beatles released With The Beatles in England.
The album – their second – featured eight original compositions (seven by Lennon–McCartney and one by George Harrison) and six covers (Motown, rock and roll, and R&B hits).
When the album was released in the U.S. in January 1964, it was titled Meet The Beatles.

1963 – President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas.
Arriving at Love Field in Dallas, President and Mrs. Kennedy left Air Force One and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered. They spent several minutes shaking hands before heading to their waiting limousine.
Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining, the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade.
The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon.
Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m (CST). As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza.
A bullet struck the president’s neck and a second bullet blew the side of his head off as he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was shot in his back.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead.
Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover.
The president’s body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m.
Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository.
He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J. D. Tippit on a Dallas street.
To be continued on November 24…

1967 – The U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
The following day, the Secretary General appointed Gunnar Jarring as Special Envoy to negotiate the implementation of the resolution with the parties, the so-called Jarring Mission.
The governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon recognized Jarring’s appointment and agreed to participate in his shuttle diplomacy, although they differed on key points of interpretation of the resolution.
The government of Syria rejected Jarring’s mission on grounds that total Israeli withdrawal was a prerequisite for further negotiations.
The talks under Jarring lasted until 1973, but bore no results.

1968 – The Beatles, also known as The White Album, was released.
A double album containing 30 songs, its plain white sleeve had no graphics or text other than the band’s name embossed, which was intended as a direct contrast to the vivid cover artwork of the band’s previous LP Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Inside the cover gatefold, there was a booklet plus the photo shown above.
In the United States, the album achieved huge commercial success. Capitol Records sold over 3.3 million copies of The Beatles within the first four days of the album’s release.
The album has sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone and according to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is the Beatles’ most-certified album, at 24-times platinum.
The band and Martin later debated whether the group should have released a single album instead.
“I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double,” Martin said. “But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed.”
Paul McCartney wasn’t – and still isn’t – convinced Martin was right.
“I’m not a great one for that, maybe it was too many of that. What do you mean? It’s great, it sold, it’s the bloody Beatles’ White album. Shut up!”

1980 – Actress Mae West died at the age of 87 following a stroke.
Her heyday spanned the 1920’s and 30’s when she devised her own legend in films, on stage, in nightclubs and on records, not only performing, but also writing much of her own material.
Among her most memorable films were She Done Him Wrong, I’m No Angel, and My Little Chickadee.
Some of her lines have entered the American vocabulary. In the mid-30’s, her suggestive invitation to ”come up ‘n’ see me sometime” became the most-repeated phrase of the day.
Gone With The Wind Factoid: Movie producer David O. Selznick offered West the role of Belle Watling, the only woman ever to truly understand Rhett Butler, in Gone With The Wind after Tallulah Bankhead turned him down.
West also declined the part, claiming that as it was, it was too small for an established star, and that she would need to rewrite her lines to suit her own persona.

1986 – Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history (at age 20) by stopping defending WBC champion Trevor Berbick in the second round.

1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win re-election to the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, announced her resignation.
Thatcher said pressure from colleagues forced her to conclude that party unity and the prospect of victory in the next general election would be better served if she stepped down.
The decision came less than 24 hours after the “Iron Lady” had vowed to “fight on and fight to win” after winning the first round – but not with the required majority.

1995 – Toy Story premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. was released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
It features the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, and R. Lee Ermey,
Filmed on a budget of $30 million, the movie earned over $373 million at the worldwide box office.
The film received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Song, and Best Original Score, as well as winning a Special Achievement Academy Award.

1998 – 60 Minutes aired video of Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a terminally ill patient.
Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he made on September 17, 1998, which depicted the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was in the final stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
After Youk provided his fully informed consent, Kevorkian himself administered the lethal injection. This was highly significant, as all of his earlier clients had reportedly completed the process themselves.
During the videotape, Kevorkian dared the authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out mercy killings.
On March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree murder and the delivery of a controlled substance. Because Kevorkian’s license to practice medicine had been revoked eight years previously, he was not legally allowed to possess the controlled substance.
After a two-day trial, a Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide and Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced him to serve 10–25 years in prison.
He was paroled in 2007.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2019 RayLemire.com / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.