November 25.

1491. The siege of Granada, the last Moorish (i.e. Islamic) stronghold in Spain, begins. Note that this is only one year before Columbus's famous voyage. Before they are cast out, they will have been in the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years.

1952. Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap opens in London, later to become the longest continuous running play in history.

1984. 36 top musicians gather to perform Band Aid's "Do they Know It's Christmas" to help raise money for famine relief in Ethopia.

1984 Bands Aid...I think it was George Harrison that was one of the organizers/sponsers of that. Regardless, it was a cool thing to do. :thumb:

November 26.

1789. A national Thanksgiving Day holiday, as recommended by George Washington and approved by Congress, is observed.

1863. President Lincoln proclaims an annual day of Thanksgiving, to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November each year (changed in 1941 to the fourth Thursday).

1950. After stupidly pushing too far North and blatantly ignoring Chinese warnings regarding the situation, UN forces led by the United States, who are spread out and more focused on the severe cold than the mopping up of North Korean forces, are assaulted all across the lines by vastly numerically superior forces of Communist China. This is Douglas MacArthur's darkest hour, as his heady proclamations that the Chinese ("I understand the Oriental mind") won't come into the war, or if they do they will quickly be annihilated, are proven to be utterly and fantastically wrong. His subordinate (lackey, really) Ned Almond, in command of X Corps, will eventually be promoted out of Korea and then out of the service, when he should have been promoted to Leavenworth for gross deriliction of duty in ignoring the many warning signs.

November 27

1895. Alfred Nobel, discoverer of dynamite, signs his last will and testament setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.

and, oh, hey, didja hear Shakespeare got married today in 1582? (yeah, it's a SLOW day)

November 28

1520. After three days in the Strait, three ships under the overall command of Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

1814. For the first time, the Times of London is printed via automatic, steam powered presses, beginning the mass availability of newspapers.

1907. In Haverhill, Massachusetts, former scrap metal dealer Louis Mayer premiers a movie at his new theater, a remodeled former burlesque theater. It is the beginning of his rise to power, culminating in running Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for over 25 years.

1942. The famous (around here at least) Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, Massachusetts, kills nearly 500 people when the popular nightclub erupts in flames. To this date it is the second deadliest building fire in American history, and it briefly replaced WWII news as the shocked nation reacted to the calamity with an outpouring of grief. It also triggered a wave of revitalized building and fire codes. Contributing to the deahts were that the main entrance was a single revolvign door, which quickly became jammed when too many people rushed to the exit, and second, the bolting closed of many other exits to prevent patrons from leaving without paying their bills. Other side doors opened inward, and the crush of people trying to escape left them inoperable.

1943. The Tehran Conference between FDR, Churchill and Stalin is held.

November 29

1890. Navy beats Army, 24-0, in the first Army-Navy football game.

1910. The first patent for the traffic light system is issued.

1934. The Lions, as always, suck in a big event, when the Bears beat them 19-16 in the first nationally broadcast (by radio) NFL game.

1963. President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

1972. Pong, the first commercially successful video game, is released.

http://www.ventrice.com/tony/images/...ocial/pong.png

November 30

1782. In Paris, representatives of Great Britain and the United States sign preliminary peace accords that will later turn into the Treaty of Paris.

1804. In a disgusting display of the bitterness of early American politics, the Republican-Democrats in Congress impeach Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. Part of the charges are the purportedly "seditious and official attack by Chase on the principles of our Constitution" (Thomas Jefferson) which ought not "go unpunished." The Senate acquitted him, and he remains to this day the only Supreme Court Justice ever impeached.

1864. Blood-and-guts, but no brains, General Hood of the Confederacy launches an extremely ill-advised frontal attack on the Union troops at the Battle of Franklin, losing 1/3rd of his troops and fourteen generals (six killed, one captured, the rest wounded) in the process. Undaunted, Hood will go on to face General THomas at the Battle of Nashville, lose again, and then crawl back with barely half his force. The Confederate Army of the Tennessee will be destroyed as an effective fighting force for the remainder of the war.

1939. A few days after a pretext was created, Soviet troops cross the border into Finland, starting the Winter War. While Soviet strength was overwhelming, their leadership was mediocre due to the Great Purge. Finnish resistance was much tougher than expected, but by the following spring the peace treaty will result in Finland ceding 11% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its pre-war assets.

1998. Exxon and Mobil agree to merge, becoming the world's largest company.

2001. Gary Ridgway, a/k/a the Green River killer, is arrested. He will ultimately be convicted of having murdered 41 women, confess to another 30 on top of those, and is believed to be responsible for over 90.

2004 Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings finally loses, after winning nearly $2.5 million, the biggest winner in television game show history.

My neighbor had one of the early home versions of Pong. I wanted one so bad, but my family didn't get one for several years after that.

I remember the Atari game pong, which I had. Looked similar to the arcade version, but a bit (not much) better. By the time I was 8 or 9 the local pizza joint had games like Space Invaders and Asteroids, which were light-years better than pong.

Wow. I usually have a pretty good head for timeline things, but I'm really surprised at how early this was. I would have guessed the first nationally televised football game would have been something like 1951.

Any idea on how many people watched it?

Mea culpa, mea cupla. Soon as I saw your post I realized I screwed up. The blurb said "nationally broadcast" and my 2010 brain converted that to televised, but as soon as I saw your post I realized it MUST be radio given the timeframe.

December 1.

1913. The first moving assembly line is introduced by Ford Motors.

1952. The New York Daily News creates a sensation with its front page headline describing the world's first widely known case of sex reassignment surgery. The Headline was "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty", and was about Christine (nee George William) Jorgensen, a former soldier who underwent hormone therapy and then surgeries to change genders. While the Daily News reported that this was the first sex change operation, that part was not true, as operations had been performed in Germany and Sweden for some years. The hormone therapy, however, was new.

1955. In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1982. Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.

This day in history -- December 1
1768 – The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.