- National Girls Day
- Loosen Up, Lighten Up Day
- American Teddy Bear Day
- Spicy Guacamole Day
- Pickle Day
- Operating Room Nurse Day
- World Diabetes Day
- World Orphans Day
- Children’s Day-India
- National Day Of Mourning-Germany
- Readjustment Day-Guinea Bissau
- On This Day
- 1776 --- The St. James Chronicle of London carries an item announcing "The very identical Dr. Franklyn [Benjamin Franklin], whom Lord Chatham [former leading parliamentarian and colonial supporter William Pitt] so much caressed, and used to say he was proud in calling his friend, is now at the head of the rebellion in North America."
- 1832 --- The 'John Mason', the first horse-drawn streetcar, began operation in New York City. The coaches, with seating for 30 passengers, were mounted on iron wheels and were drawn by horses over iron rails laid down the middle of the street. Designed and built by John Stephenson. The new service traveled Fourth Avenue between Prince and Fourteenth Streets.
- 1851 --- Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world...” Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a flop.
- 1881 --- Charles J. Guiteau's trial began for the assassination of U.S. President Garfield. Guiteau was convicted and hanged the following year.
- 1882 --- Gunslinger Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie shoots the Billy "The Kid" Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona. The town of Tombstone is best known today as the site of the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral. In the 1880s, however, Tombstone was home to many gunmen who never achieved the enduring fame of Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday. Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie was one of the most notorious of these largely forgotten outlaws.
- 1889 --- New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) began an attempt to surpass the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg by traveling around the world in less than 80 days. Bly succeeded by finishing the journey the following January in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds.
- 1940 --- During World War II, German war planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry when about 500 Luftwaffe bombers attacked.
- 1943 --- Leonard Bernstein made his debut with the New York Philharmonic when he filled in for the ailing Bruno Walter prior to a nationally broadcast concert. Bernstein was 25 years old and was an assistant conductor at the time.
- 1944 --- An outstanding array of musicians gathered in Hollywood to record a classic. Tommy Dorsey and orchestra made Opus No. 1, Victor record number 20-1608. Buddy Rich was the drummer in the session, Al Klink and Buddy DeFranco blew sax and Nelson Riddle played trombone on the Sy Oliver arrangement.
- 1951 --- In a surprising turn of events, President Harry Truman asks Congress for U.S. military and economic aid for the communist nation of Yugoslavia. The action was part of the U.S. policy to drive a deeper wedge between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
- 1959 --- Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy appears in an issue of TV Guide. In it, Kennedy examined the influence of television, still a relatively new technology, on American political campaigns. In the article, Kennedy mused that television had the power to bring political campaigns—and scandals—immediately and directly to the public and illuminated the contrast between political personalities. Kennedy shrewdly noted that a "slick or bombastic orator pounding the table and ringing the rafters" fared poorly against a more congenial candidate and "is not as welcome in the family living room" as a candidate with "honesty, vigor, compassion [and] intelligence."
- 1959 --- The eruption of Kilauea Iki Crater (Nov 14-Dec 20, 1959) on the Big Island of Hawaii was a relatively brief event, but produced some of Kilauea’s most spectacular lava fountains of the 20th century. (The current Pu`u `O`o-Kupaianaha eruption of Kilauea began in 1983).
- 1960 --- OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was formed.
- 1969 --- Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the moon, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr.; Richard F. Gordon, Jr.; and Alan L. Bean aboard. President Richard Nixon viewed the liftoff from Pad A at Cape Canaveral. He was the first president to attend the liftoff of a manned space flight.
- 1970 --- Santana's cover of Fleetwood Mac’s "Black Magic Woman" was released.
- 1970 --- A chartered jet carrying most of the Marshall University football team clips a stand of trees and crashes into a hillside just two miles from the Tri-State Airport in Kenova, West Virginia. The team was returning from that day’s game, a 17-14 loss to East Carolina University. Thirty-seven Marshall football players were aboard the plane, along with the team’s coach, its doctors, the university athletic director and 25 team boosters--some of Huntington, West Virginia’s most prominent citizens--who had traveled to North Carolina to cheer on the Thundering Herd. "The whole fabric," a citizen of Huntington wrote later, "the whole heart of the town was aboard."
- 1979 --- U.S. President Carter froze all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks abroad in response to the taking of 63 American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran.
- 1982 --- Lech Walesa, leader of communist Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, returns to his apartment in Gdansk after 11 months of internment in a remote hunting lodge near the Soviet border. Two days before, hundreds of supporters had begun a vigil outside his home upon learning that the founder of Poland's trade union movement was being released. When Walesa finally did return home, on November 14, he was lifted above the jubilant crowd and carried to the door of his apartment, where he greeted his wife and then addressed his supporters from a second-story window.
- 1986 --- Wall Street arbitrageur Ivan Boesky pleads guilty to insider trading and agrees to pay a $100 million fine and cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation. "Boesky Day," as the SEC would later call it, was crucial in exposing a nationwide scandal at the heart of the '80s Wall Street boom. Boesky testified that he had gained his $200 million fortune using illegal inside information about impending mergers to trade stock in the companies involved. As a result of Boesky's confession, subpoenas were issued to some of the world's most famous financiers, including "Junk Bond King" Michael Milken. Boesky's testimony brought Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert, an investment banking company, to justice for their participation in the illegal schemes. Milken paid over a billion dollars in fines and restitution and was sentenced to 10 years in prison; two years later his sentence was reduced to time served. In addition to his own financial penalty, Boesky received a three-year sentence, 22 months of which he served at Lompoc Federal Prison in California. Following this insider trading scandal, Congress increased the penalties for securities violations.
- 2000 --- Marilyn Manson's released "Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)." The cover of the album was banned by several retail chains due to the cover art. The banning chains released an alternate cover. The cover depicts Manson on a crucifix.
- 2006 --- State officials close the last two of Texas' famed Pig Stand restaurants, the only remaining pieces of the nation's first drive-in restaurant empire. The restaurants' owners were bankrupt, and they owed the Texas comptroller more than $200,000 in unpaid sales taxes.
- Birthdays
- Yakaterina Geltzer
- Mamie Eisenhower
- Jawaharal Nehru
- Aaron Copeland
- Claude Monet
- George S Kaufman
- King Hussein (Jordan)
- Robert Fulton
- Joseph McCarthy
- Edward White
- Veronica Lake
- McLean Stevenson
- Ellis Marsalis Jr
- PJ O’Rourke
- Prince Charles
- Yanni
- Laura Sangiacomo
- Joseph Simmons (Run)
- 318th Day of 2014 / 47 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 37 Days
- Sunrise:6:49
- Sunset:4:58
- 10 Hours 51 Minutes
- Moon Rise:11:19pm
- Moon Set:12:46pm
- Moon Phase:Last Quarter
- Next Full Moon December 6 @ 4:27am
- Full Cold Moon
- Full Long Nights Moon
During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.
- Tides:
- High Tide:5:07am/3:57pm
- Low Tide:11:02am/10:44pm
- Rainfall
- This Year to Date:1.45
- Last Year:0.44
- Avg YTD:2.70
- Annual Avg:23.80