November 24

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

November is:

Aviation History Month Diabetic Eye Disease Month Epilepsy Awareness Month National Adoption Month National Diabetes Month National Marrow Awareness Month Religion and Philosophy Books Month

Born on this Day

• 1583: Philip Massinger, English dramatist
  

• 1632: Dutch philosopher Benedictus de Spinoza
  

• 1713: Father Junipero Serra, who had a mission in California.
  

• 1713: Author Laurence Sterne
  

• 1718: British novelist and clergyman Laurence Sterne
  

• 1784: Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, born in Orange County, Virginia. Today's History Focus
  

• 1853: Gambler, frontier lawman and sports writer William "Bat" Masterson
  

• 1864: Painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
  

• 1868: Scott Joplin, entertainer
  

• 19??: Paul Robinette (The Walter Eugenes)
  

• 1912: Producer-writer Garson Kanin
  

• 1925: Columnist William F. Buckley
  

• 1940: Country singer Johnny Carver
  

• 1941: Rock-and-roll drummer Pete Best
  

• 1941: Rock musician Donald "Duck" Dunn (Booker T. & the MG's)
  

• 1942: Actor-comedian Billy Connolly
  

• 1942: Former White House news secretary Marlin Fitzwater
  

• 1944: Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman
  

• 1945: Singer Lee Michaels
  

• 1947: Actor Dwight Schultz
  

• 1950: Actor Stanley Livingston ("My Three Sons")
  

• 1955: Rock musician Clem Burke (Blondie)
  

• 1956: Record producer Terry Lewis
  

• 1957: Actress Denise Crosby
  

• 1962: Rock musician John Squire (The Stone Roses)
  

• 1962: Rock musician Gary Stonadge (Big Audio)
  

• 1970: Rock musician Chad Taylor (Live)
  

• 1977: Actor Colin Hanks ("Roswell")
  

• 1977: Actress Katherine Heigl ("Roswell")

Events in History on this day
  

• 0304: Martyrdom of St. Chrysogonus
  

• 0885: Viking army under Sigefrid lays siege to Paris
  

• 1265: Death of Magnus, last King of the Isle of Man
  

• 1332: Coronation of David II, King of Scots, at Scone
  

• 1504: Death of Queen Isabella of Spain
  

• 1542: The English defeat the Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss, in England.
  

• 1572: Death of John Knox
  

• 1586: Anna Hoyd burned for witchcraft
  

• 1655: Oliver Cromwell prohibits Anglican services in England
  

• 1703: The first Lutheran pastor ordained in America, Justus Falckner ordained in Philadelphia.
  

• 1836: Richard Wagner took a wife. Later he would take someone else's. Wagner wed Wilhelmina Planer, an actress. At the time Wagner was working as a conductor in the Prussian city of Konigsberg.
  

• 1859: British naturalist Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," which explained his ridiculous theory of evolution.
  

• 1863: In the Battle Above the Clouds, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s forces take Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, Tenn. Overconfident and overextended, the Union Army of the Cumberland advanced into the deep woods of northwest Georgia.
  

• 1864: Kit Carson and his 1st Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, attack a camp of Kiowa Indians in the First Battle of Adobe Walls.
  

• 1869: Women from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association.
  

• 1871: The National Rifle Association was incorporated, and its first president named, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside.
  

• 1874: Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which made the farming of the Great Plains possible.
  

• 1900: Scriabin's First Symphony was premiered in St. Petersburg. Scriabin's music was just weird enough to be controversial, but not to far out that it couldn't get played in Europe. Debussy and Ravel were exposed to Scriabin at an early age.
  

• 1927: Troops battle 1,200 inmates after Folsom prisoners revolt.
  

• 1939: In Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo execute 120 students who are accused of anti-Nazi plotting.
  

• 1947: A group of writers, producers and directors that became known as the "Hollywood Ten" was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry.
  

• 1947: John Steinbeck's novel "The Pearl" was first published.
  

• 1963: Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy.
  

• 1969: "Apollo 12" splashed down safely in the Pacific, ending the second manned mission to the moon.
  

• 1971: Hijacker "D.B. Cooper" parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with 200-thousand dollars in ransom -- his fate remains unknown.
  

• 1977: Greeks announce the discovery of the tomb of King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
  

• 1985: The hijacking of an Egyptair jetliner parked on the ground in Malta ended violently as Egyptian commandos stormed the plane. Fifty-eight people died in the raid, in addition to two others killed by the hijackers.
  

• 1987: The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
  

• 1988: South Africa's justice minister announced that Nelson Mandela would not be returned to prison upon his recovery from tuberculosis, but would instead remain in custody in another location.
  

• 1989: Czechoslovakia's hard-line party leadership resigned after more than a week of protests against its policies.
  

• 1990: President Bush returned home from an eight-day tour of Europe and the Middle East, during which he'd lobbied foreign leaders on behalf of his Persian Gulf policy.
  

• 1992: Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger pleaded innocent to making a false statement in the Iran-Contra affair (however, Weinberger was pardoned by President Bush before the case could come to trial). China, a domestic jetliner crashed, killing 141 people.
  

• 1993: Congress gave its final approval to the Brady handgun control bill.
  

• 1993: President Clinton met at the White House with Salman Rushdie, the British author condemned to death by Iran for writing "The Satanic Verses."
  

• 1993: Two eleven-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were convicted of murdering two-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool, England.
  

• 1994: Rebel Serbs refused to withdraw from the UN-designated safe area around Bihac and continued to advance on the city, despite recent NATO air strikes.
  

• 1995: Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic promised during a televised address to accept a U.S.-brokered peace plan. Voters in Ireland narrowly approved a constitutional amendment legalizing divorce.
  
  

• 1996: On the eve of an Asia-Pacific trade conference in the Philippines, President Clinton met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin . Both sides signaled their troubled relations were on the mend, and agreed to exchange presidential visits over the next two years.
  

• 1997: President Clinton and Pacific leaders began meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, to discuss ways of calming the Asian economic crisis.
  

• 1997: Japan's Yamaichi Securities closed its doors, becoming the third Japanese financial company to collapse in a month. 
  

• 1998: A funeral was held in St. Petersburg for liberal Russian lawmaker Galina Starovoitova, who had been assassinated four days earlier.
  

• 1998: America Online confirmed it was buying Netscape Communications in a deal ultimately worth $10 billion.
  

• 1998: The first Palestine Airlines flight touched down at Gaza International Airport.
  

• 1999: 280 people were killed when a ferry caught fire and foundered off the coast of eastern China's Shandong province.

  
  
  See today's History Focus    
  

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