This Day in History

[Singularity]

Whale Story
November 12, 1970

Oregon officials used a 1/2 ton of dynamite to disperse the remains of an 8 ton beached whale. Whale bits showered spectators and collapsed the roof of a car parked 1/4 mile away, otherwise leaving a large portion of the whale intact.

https://youtu.be/yPuaSY0cMK8
https://www.ohs.org/blog/beached-whale-blow-up.cfm

[GordMay]

November 13, 1985 ~ Nevado del Ruiz Eruption
On Nov. 13, 1985, a small eruption produced an enormous landslide, that buried and destroyed the town of Armero, in Colombia. It claimed the lives of an estimated 25,000 people.
The volcano continues to pose a threat to the nearby towns and villages, and it is estimated that up to 500,000 people could be at risk from lahars from future eruptions.
More ➥ https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/nev...eruptions.html

[GordMay]

November 14, 1969 - Apollo 12 struck by lightning
On November 14, 1969, at 11:22 a.m. ET, NASA astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard "Dick" Gordon blasted off aboard Apollo 12 on the second human mission to the Moon.
Just 36 seconds after liftoff, a bolt of lightning lanced out from the grey clouds over the launch site, connecting with the rocket as it climbed towards space. Less than 20 seconds later, a second lightning strike zapped the rocket.
Several systems were knocked out by the first strike. The fuel cells disconnected from the Saturn V's power, a number of external sensors were lost, and power failed to the system that relayed the spacecraft's data to both the crew and Mission Control. Before anything could be done to address those problems, the second strike then knocked out the guidance system.
With no idea where they were and where they were headed, and running on internal power long before they intended, it was the quick thinking of one NASA engineer —John Aaron — that saved the mission from failure.
"Flight, try SCE to Aux"
More ➥ https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/...ingstrike.html

[GordMay]

November 15, 2007 - Tropical Cyclone 'Sidr' hits Bangladesh
Tropical Cyclone Sidr was one of the worst natural disasters to hit Bangladesh. The storm made landfall on Nov. 15, 2007, with peak 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 m.p.h.), making it a Category-5 equivalent tropical cyclone, on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
At least 3,447 deaths have been blamed directly on the storm, with some estimates reaching 15,000.
More than 3,000 fishermen were reported missing from 500 fishing boats. The local agricultural industry was also devastated, as many rice crops were totally wiped out.

The total dollar losses reached an equivalent to US$2.31 billion.

[GordMay]

November 16, 1776: Sint Eustatius (aka: Statia) became the first foreign government to recognize United States.
The cannon at Fort Oranje fired a salute to the brig Andrew Doria, which was flying the new Stars and Stripes flag.

Great Britain took umbrage at the incident, and lodged a complaint with The Hague in early 1777 (Sint Eustatius was considered to be speaking for the Netherlands in the matter).

The incident continued to rankle Britain, which eventually seized the opportunity for retribution presented during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, by an impending American-Dutch commercial treaty. Adm. George Rodney was ordered to capture the island, and did so in February 1781. After sacking storehouses and homes, the British continued to fly the Dutch flag, luring many American and other enemy ships to their capture.

[GordMay]

November 26

1970: In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever on record.

1941: The Japanese Kidō Butai (aka the Carrier Striking Task Force), under Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, and consisting of 441 aircraft launched from 6 heavy carriers, departed its base, at Hitokappu Bay, Japan, and sailed east toward Pearl Harbor, arriving in Hawaiian waters (± 8am local) on Sunday, December 7. By the end of the day “of infamy”, 21 American ships were either sunk or crippled, 188 aircraft were destroyed, and almost 2,500 Americans were killed. The Japanese lost from 29 to 60 planes, five midget submarines, perhaps one or two fleet submarines, and fewer than 100 men.

1914: Battleship HMS Bulwark explodes, at Sheerness Harbour, England, 788 die.

1898: SS Portland, “The Titanic of New England”, leaves for Cape Cod, shipwrecked off Cape Ann, all 192 on board killed.

1835: Under the command of Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, HMS Beagle, and Charles Darwin, left Tahiti, bound for New Zealand.

1778: British explorer Captain James Cook, in command of HMS Resolution (Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery), is the first European to sight Maui, in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). He would have landed on Maui, except the surf was too high, and he couldn’t find a harbor.

[GordMay]

December 1 & 2, 1962: The “Fog Bowl” (CFL’s Grey Cup)
Over two days, Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 28 to 27 in the 50TH Grey Cup game, in a sixty-minute game, that took twenty-four hours, and forty-five minutes to complete.
Over the years, CFL fans have been treated to the Mud Bowl (1950), the Wind Bowl (1965), the Ice Bowl (1977), the Rain Bowl (1982), the Snow Bowl (1996), and, of course, the Fog Bowl of 1962. The Grey Cup is now over a century old, but the 1962 title game stands out as the greatest game no one saw.
The fiftieth Grey Cup game was the fifth installment in a heated, sometimes bitter, six-year feud between coach Bud Grant’s Bombers, and “Jungle” Jim Trimble’s Tiger-Cats. Hamilton captured the 1957 Grey Cup, only to lose to Winnipeg in ’58*, ’59, and ’61.
* In 1958, Ti-Cat coach Trimble predicted of Winnipeg: “We’ll waffle ’em. We’ll leave ’em with lumps on the front and the back.”
When the Bombers emerged victorious in ‘58, one Winnipeg radio station responded to Trimble’s bombast, with a parody of the Kingston Trio hit, Tom Dooley:
Hang down your head, Jim Trimble,
Hang down your head and cry.
You know the Bombers beat you,
Now eat your humble pie.
The 1962 game was being played at the Exhibition Stadium, in Toronto. It's an outdoor arena that is just a soccer ball-kick away from Lake Ontario.
High pressure from the Great Lakes started to mix with the cold and moist air from Lake Ontario. A think advection fog pushed off the water and engulfed the stadium.
On the field, a really fine game was underway. Garney Henley of the Hamilton Tiger Cats ran for two touchdowns, Bobby Kuntz another. Leo Lewis of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers answered with two touchdowns, of his own, and tossed another to Charlie Shephard. Most of this was lost to the fans in the stands, and to television viewers, including those in the United States, who were watching the game on Wide World of Sports.
Though the teams tried to play through, the fog only got worse. By the fourth quarter, at 5:31pm, referee Paul Dojack suspended the game with Winnipeg leading 28–27.
The game resumed, the following day, as the fog lifted. Hamilton moved the ball well, but failed to score, and Winnipeg won its fourth championship, in five years.
Former Eskimo great, Jackie Parker, who drove 17 hours from his home in Tennessee to watch the game, summed it up:
"That was the best ball game I never saw.”

➥ https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/a-deep-d...utoPlay%3Dtrue

➥

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRbT14gJAdk

[GordMay]

January 4

1840: Crazy Horse born at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Together with fellow Indian Chiefs, including Sitting Bull, he led a war party to victory over George Armstrong Custer, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.

1872: The U.S. brigantine ‘Marie Celeste’ is found (by brig ‘Dei Gratia’) , in the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Portugal, adrift but seaworthy, with its cargo intact, but not a soul on board.

1981: President Ronald Reagan broadens the power of the CIA by allowing spying in the United States. (Executive Order on Intelligence No 12333)

[GordMay]

December 6:

1988: Singer/songwriter Roy Orbison dies of a heart attack, at the age of 52. A month later, his song “You Got It” (1989) became his first #1 U.S. hit, in nearly 25 years.

1917: The Great Halifax Explosion
At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the "Mont Blanc", a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with the Norwegian vessel "Imo". The massive explosion killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000 (including blinding 200), and destroyed almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax, including more than 1,600 homes. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 50 miles away, and the sound of the explosion could be heard hundreds of miles away.

1865: 13th Amendment to US Constitution ratified.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

1240: Siege of Kiev. Mongols, under Batu Khan, occupy and destroy Kiev; out of 50,000 people in the city, only 2,000 survive.

[GordMay]

December 7

2016: Paul Elvstrøm died
Danish Hall of Fame yachtsman. He is one of only four athletes who have competed in the Olympics over a span of 40 years (1948-88), along with fencer Ivan Joseph Martin Osiier, sailor Durward Knowles, and sailor Magnus Konow. He is one of only four people to win four consecutive individual Olympic gold medals (1948, '52, '56, '60). He also pioneered the technique of "hiking" (aka "sitting out."). He was the first to use toe-straps in the bottom of his dinghy to enable him to get more of his body weight outside the boat.

1972: The Blue Marble
The first color photo of the full Earth. Taken by Apollo 17, it is one of the most reproduced images in human history. This was also the last of the Apollo series.

1905: Gerald Peter Kuiper born
Netherlands-born American astronomer. "Father of Modern Planetary Science." Discovered Miranda (1948) one of Uranus' moons and Neptune's satellite Nereid (1949). He correctly predicted the rings of Saturn are composed of particles of ice and that the Moon's surface would be like walking on "crunchy snow." He is for whom the Kuiper Belt is named.

1876: William Bligh died.
English naval officer. The crew, led by Fletcher Christian, of the HMS Bounty mutinied (1789), setting Bligh and 18 of his men adrift. Bligh survived a 47-day 3,600-mile voyage to safety. Christian and the mutineers landed at Pitcairn Island where they lived out their lives.

[a64pilot]

So, what else happened on Dec 7 that’s historically significant?

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

So, what else happened on Dec 7 that’s historically significant?

A picture's worth a thousand words.

[hafa]

Technically a couple of days late, but since it's observed today: The CNMI Constitution was adopted on Dec. 5, 1976 by the first NMI constitutional convention. More info on the Marianas Variety.

[hafa]

December 8, 1980:

40 years today, John Lennon was shot and killed on the steps of the Dakota apartments in New York City.

[GordMay]

December 11:
1866 - 1st yacht race across Atlantic Ocean
When three wealthy schooner owners (Pierre Lorillard, George Osgood, and James Gordon Bennett Jr.) debated over whose ship was the faster, the end result was a transatlantic race to the finish. That race, the first of its kind, departed on December 11, 1866, then crossed the finish line on December 23 in England.
The yachts were neck and neck when they approached Bishop Rock in the Scilly Isles on 23 December. Just a few hours separated the frontrunner, Vesta, from the back marker, Fleetwing, and as Vesta was forced to tack to clear the rock, Henrietta stole the lead. Bennett’s boat crossed the finish line at the Needles first, having completed the 3,000-mile course in the remarkably quick time of 13 days, 22 hours.
More ➥ https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...fferson-review