1781 – General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, began the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.
1789 – The first Federal Congress passed a resolution that asked President George Washington to recommend to the nation a day of thanksgiving. Several days later Washington issued a proclamation that named Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a Day of Public Thanksgiving. The fixed-date for Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday of November, was established on December 26, 1941.
1863 – Union Generals Alexander M. McCook and Thomas Crittenden lost their commands and were ordered to Indianapolis, Indiana, to face a court of inquiry following the Federal defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia.
Eight days before, the Union Army of the Cumberland, commanded by General William Rosecrans, had retreated from the Chickamauga battlefield in disarray. On the battle’s second day, Rosecrans mistakenly ordered a division to move into a gap in the Federal line that did not exist, creating a real gap through which the Confederates charged, thus splitting the Union army.
The search for scapegoats began immediately, and fingers soon pointed to McCook and Crittenden. Their corps had been part of the collapsed flank, so Rosecrans removed them from command. A military court eventually cleared McCook and Crittenden, but their careers as field commanders were over. By quickly removing McCook and Crittenden, Rosecrans had been trying to save his own job. Within weeks after firing the generals, Rosecrans was himself replaced.
1892 – The first nighttime football game in the U.S. took place under electric lights. The game was between the Mansfield State Normal School and Wyoming Seminary. The game itself lasted only 20 minutes and there were only 10 plays. Both sides agreed to end at halftime with a 0-0 tie after several players had an unfortunate run-in with a light pole which was in the middle of the field.
1918 – A Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia prompted a huge outbreak of the flu epidemic in the city. Thousands of people became infected. The city morgue, built to hold 36 bodies, was now faced with the arrival of hundreds within a few days. The entire city was quarantined and nearly 12,000 city residents died. By the time the epidemic ended, an estimated 30 million people were dead worldwide.
The most likely origin of the flu pandemic was a bird or farm animal in the American Midwest. The virus may have traveled among birds, pigs, sheep, moose, bison and elk, eventually mutating into a version that took hold in the human population. The flu spread slowly through the United States in the first half of the year, then spread to Europe via some of the 200,000 American troops who traveled there to fight in World War I.
More people died from the flu than from all of the battles of World War I combined.
1924 – The first around-the-world flight was completed by two U.S. Army planes when they landed in Seattle. The trip included 57 stops and took 175 days.
1941 – Boston Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams played a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and collected six hits in eight trips to the plate, boosting his batting average to .406 and became the first player since Bill Terry in 1930 to hit .400.
And no one has done it since
1958 – The Teddy Bears, a white doo-wop trio featuring 17-year old Phil Spector (lower left in photo), released ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’.
1960 – Ted Williams played in his final game for the Boston Red Sox, hitting a home run in his final at bat, for a career total of 521 homeruns. He retired with a lifetime batting average of .344, a .483 career on-base percentage and 2,654 hits. His achievements are all the more impressive because his career was interrupted twice for military service. Williams was a Marine Corps pilot during World War II and the Korean War and as a result missed a total of nearly five seasons from baseball.
1961 – Hazel, starring Shirley Booth as a take-charge, live-in maid, premiered on NBC. The program ran for five seasons.
1961 – Dr. Kildare, starring Richard Chamberlain as a young intern and Raymond Massey as his gruff superior, premiered on NBC. It ran for five seasons.
1968 – Dewey Phillips, the Memphis radio personality who was the first DJ to play an Elvis Presley record on the air, died of heart failure.
1974 – California Angels pitcher Nolan Ryan threw his third career no hitter. He would end his career with a Major League record seven of them, in addition to throwing twelve one-hitters and 18 two-hitters.
1982 – Minnesota Twins pitcher Terry Felton played in his final Major League game. He was the losing pitcher but that wasn’t unusual. He finished the season 0-13, leaving him with a career record of 0-16, a record for the most career losses without ever being credited with a victory.
1989 – Former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, whose corrupt regime spanned 20 years, died in exile in Hawaii three years after being driven from his country by a popular front led by Corazon Aquino.
1991 – Jazz legend Miles Davis died at the age of 65 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure.
1995 – Yasser Arafat of the PLO and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an accord that transferred control of the West Bank.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2015 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.