- Great American Smokeout Day
- Homemade Bread Day
- National Baklava Day
- National Farm Joke Day
- National Take A Hike Day
- National Unfriend Day
- Petroleum Day
- International Student Day
- World Peace Day
- World Prematurity Day
- National Revival Day-Azerbaijan
- Student Youth Day-Turkmenistan
- On This Day
- 1558 --- Queen Mary I, the monarch of England and Ireland since 1553, dies and is succeeded by her 25-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth. The two half-sisters, both daughters of King Henry VIII, had a stormy relationship during Mary's five-year reign. Mary, who was brought up as a Catholic, enacted pro-Catholic legislation and made efforts to restore the pope to supremacy in England. A Protestant rebellion ensued, and Queen Mary imprisoned Elizabeth, a Protestant, in the Tower of London on suspicion of complicity. After Mary's death, Elizabeth survived several Catholic plots against her; though her ascension was greeted with approval by most of England's lords, who were largely Protestant and hoped for greater religious tolerance under a Protestant queen. Under the early guidance of Secretary of State Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth repealed Mary's pro-Catholic legislation, established a permanent Protestant Church of England, and encouraged the Calvinist reformers in Scotland.
- 1603 --- Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.
- 1777 --- Congress submits the Articles of Confederation to the states for ratification. The Articles had been signed by Congress two days earlier, after 16 months of debate. Bickering over land claims between Virginia and Maryland delayed final ratification for almost four more years. Maryland became the last state to approve the Articles on March 1, 1781, affirming them as the outline of the official government of the United States. The nation was guided by the document until the implementation of the current U.S. Constitution in 1789.
- 1798 --- Irish nationalist leader Wolfe Tone committed suicide while in jail awaiting execution.
- 1800 --- Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C., in the partially completed Capitol building.
- 1839 --- Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio, debuts in Milan. The premiere was held at La Scala, Italy's most prestigious theater. Oberto was received favorably, and the next day the composer was commissioned by Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario at La Scala, to write three more operas. In 1842, after some personal and professional setbacks, the opera Nabucco made Verdi an overnight celebrity. He would go on to compose such classic operas as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aída, and Otello.
- 1851 --- The U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent carrier stamp to make it easier to pay fees for delivering and collecting letters. It was the first postage stamp to depict an American eagle.
- 1869 --- The Suez Canal opened to shipping, linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea.
- 1958 --- The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" hits #1 on the Billboard pop chart. While they might not have wanted to acknowledge it, the fans of 1960s protest folk probably owed the very existence of the movement to three guys in crew cuts and candy-striped shirts who honed their act not in freight cars or in Greenwich Village cafes, but in the fraternities and sororities of Stanford University in the mid-1950s.
- 1968 --- The Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets--and no one sees it, because they’re watching the movie Heidiinstead. With just 65 seconds left to play, NBC switched off the game in favor of its previously scheduled programming, a made-for-TV version of the children’s story about a young girl and her grandfather in the Alps. Viewers were outraged, and they complained so vociferously that network execs learned a lesson they’ll never forget: "Whatever you do," one said, "you better not leave an NFL football game." The game between the Jets and the Raiders was already shaping up to be a classic: It featured two of the league’s best teams and 10 future Hall of Fame players. By the game’s last minute the two teams had traded the lead eight times. The game’s intensity translated into an unusual number of penalties and timeouts, which meant that it was running a bit long. With a little more than a minute left to play, the Jets kicked a 26-yard field goal that gave them a 32-29 lead. After the New York kickoff, the Raiders returned the ball to their own 23-yard line. What happened after that will go down in football history: Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw a 20-yard pass to halfback Charlie Smith; a facemask penalty moved the ball to the Jets’ 43; and on the next play, Lamonica passed again to Smith, who ran it all the way for a touchdown. The Raiders took the lead, 32-36. Then the Jets fumbled the kickoff, and Oakland’s Preston
Ridlehuber managed to grab the ball and run it two yards for another touchdown. Oakland had scored twice in nine seconds, and the game was over: They’d won 43-32. But nobody outside the Oakland Coliseum actually saw any of this, because NBC went to commercial right after the Jets’ kickoff and never came back. Instead, they did what they’d been planning to do for weeks: At 7 PM, they began to broadcast a brand-new version of Heidi, a film they were sure would win them high ratings during November sweeps.
- 1969 --- Soviet and U.S. negotiators meet in Helsinki to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The meeting was the climax of years of discussions between the two nations concerning the means to curb the Cold War arms race. Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Gerard Smith was put in charge of the U.S. delegation. At the same time, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger began negotiations with the Soviet ambassador in America.
- 1970 --- Elton John recorded an album live, on what was WABC-FM in New York City. It marked the first time that a concert was aired live and recorded for release as aired. The LP was titled, 11/17/70.
- 1973 --- In the midst of the Watergate scandal that eventually ended his presidency, President Richard Nixon tells a group of newspaper editors gathered at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, that he is "not a crook." Nixon made the now-famous declaration during a televised question-and-answer session with Associated Press editors. Nixon, who appeared "tense" to a New York Times reporter, was questioned about his role in the Watergate burglary scandal and efforts to cover up the fact that members of his re-election committee had funded the break-in. Nixon replied "people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." He did, however, admit that he was at fault for failing to supervise his campaign's fund-raising activities.
- 1979 --- Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
- 1980 --- John Lennon's album "Double Fantasy" was released.
- 1988 --- Benazir Bhutto became the first woman leader of an Islamic country. She was elected in the first democratic elections in Pakistan in 11 years.
- 1990 --- A mass grave was discovered by the bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand. The bodies were believed to be those of World War II prisoners of war.
- 2003 --- John Muhammad is found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area and dominated national headlines in October 2002. Police charged that Muhammad and his 17-year-old accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, killed 10 people and wounded three others during a three-week killing spree. After just over six hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Muhammad of the October 9, 2002, shooting of Dean Meyers while he pumped gas at a Sunoco station in Manassas, Virginia.
- 2003 --- Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento. Schwarzenegger, who became a major Hollywood star in the 1980s with such action movies as Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator, defeated Governor Gray Davis in a special recall election on October 7, 2003.
- Birthdays
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
- RuPaul
- Daisy Fuentes
- Lee Strasberg
- Rock Hudson
- Bob Mathias
- Gordon Lightfoot
- Martin Scorsese
- Danny DeVito
- Lorne Michaels
- 321st Day of 2014 / 44 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 34 Days
- Sunrise:6:53
- Sunset:4:56
- 10 Hours 3 Minutes
- Moon Rise:2;04am
- Moon Set:2:18pm
- Moon Phase:22%
- 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:7:01am/7:30pm
- Low Tide:12:26qm/1:38pm