This Day in History

[GordMay]

On November 7, 1994, the world's first internet radio broadcast originates from WXYC, the student radio station, of the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill.
There were about 1,000 websites then. Today, there are billions!
WXYC began simulcasting its off-air signal, in the fall of 1994, using the ‘Cu-SeeMe’ utility, developed at Cornell University.
They went official on November 7, 1994, becoming the first radio station in the world to offer a live Internet simulcast, of an off-air signal.
In 1995 they upgraded to a ‘Streamworks’ encoder/server setup, with support from Xing Technologies, broadcasting a 16K signal around the globe.

WXYC ➥ https://wxyc.org/simulcast/

Contemporary reporting about ➥ https://apnews.com/article/6b1188d57...3c0a46c5567ad4

[GordMay]

The Great Lakes Storm of November 1913 goes by multiple names, though it is historically referred to as the "Big Blow," the "Freshwater Fury," or the "White Hurricane."

This particular storm ["meteorological bomb”] was a blizzard, with hurricane-force winds, that devastated the Great Lakes basin, in the United States and Ontario.

It began on Nov. 7, and battered numerous regions in its path through Nov. 10.

The storm was at its peak on Nov. 9, when it battered and flipped ships on four of the five Great Lakes, particularly Lake Huron. The financial loss, in vessels alone, was nearly US$5 million, which equates to about US$129,343,000, in modern-day value. There was an estimated additional US$1 million, at current value, in lost cargo, totalling about 68,300 tonnes in coal, iron ore, and grain.

There were some bright spots, like the dramatic rescue of a shipwrecked crew, aboard the “L.C. Waldo” [1], in Lake Superior, who had to ride out the storm for 90 hours, as their ship became entombed in ice.
Nine Eagle Harbor and Portage Station rescuers were awarded the Life-Saving Service’s highest honor, the Gold Medal, for their heroic role in assisting in the rescue of 24 souls, and one dog from the ‘Waldo’. ["You have to go out but you don't have to come back"]

It is still the deadliest, and most destructive natural disaster, to hit the five great lakes, in recorded history, killing more than 250 sailors, destroying 19 ships, and stranding 19 others.

More ➥ https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wiki...rm_of_1913.htm

[1] “Daring rescue saved sailors entombed in ice-covered ‘White Hurricane’ shipwreck”
➥ https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/...ailors_en.html

[GordMay]

On the evening November 8, 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement, that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible.

Röntgen's discovery occurred accidentally, in his Wurzburg, Germany, lab, where he was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass, when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-rays, because of their unknown nature.

Wilhelm Röntgen received numerous accolades for his work, including the first Nobel Prize in physics, in 1901 [1], yet he remained modest, and never tried to patent his discovery.

X-rays are electromagnetic energy waves, that act similarly to light rays, but at wavelengths approximately 1,000 times shorter than those of light. Röntgen conducted a series of experiments, to better understand his discovery. He learned that X-rays penetrate human flesh, but not higher-density substances, such as bone or lead, and that they can be photographed [a “röntgenogram”].

In 1897, X-rays were first used on a military battlefield, during the Balkan War, to find bullets and broken bones, inside patients.

Scientists were quick to realize the benefits of X-rays, but slower to comprehend the harmful effects of radiation. Initially, it was believed X-rays passed through flesh, as harmlessly as light. However, within several years, researchers began to report cases of burns and skin damage, after exposure to X-rays, and in 1904, Thomas Edison’s assistant, Clarence Dally, who had worked extensively with X-rays, died of skin cancer. Dally’s death caused some scientists to begin taking the risks of radiation more seriously, but they still weren’t fully understood.

During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, in fact, many North American shoe stores featured shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, that used X-rays to enable customers to see the bones in their feet; it wasn’t until the 1950s that this practice was determined to be risky business. I remember using [playing with] these, as a child.

More about ➥ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/ph.../biographical/

“On a New Kind of Rays” ~ by W. C. Röntgen. Translated by Arthur Stanton from the Sitznngsbcrichte der Würzburger Physik-medic. Gesellschaft, 1895.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/053274b0
PDF ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/053274b0.pdf

[1] ➥ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/ph...901/speedread/

[GordMay]

On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks in Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members on board. It was the worst single accident in Lake Superior’s history.

The ship weighed more than 13,000 tons and was 730 feet long. It was launched in 1958 as the biggest carrier in the Great Lakes and became the first ship to carry more than a million tons of iron ore through the Soo Locks.

On November 9, the Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin, with 26,000 tons of ore heading for Detroit, Michigan. The following afternoon, Ernest McSorely, the captain of the Fitzgerald and a 44-year veteran, contacted the Avafor, another ship traveling on Lake Superior and reported that his ship had encountered “one of the worst seas he had ever been in.” The Fitzgerald had lost its radar equipment and was listing badly to one side.

A couple of hours later, another ship made contact and was told that the Fitzgerald was holding its own. However, minutes afterward, the Fitzgerald disappeared from radar screens. A subsequent investigation showed that the sinking of the Fitzgerald occurred very suddenly; no distress signal was sent and the condition of the lifeboats suggested that little or no attempt was made to abandon the ship.

One possible reason for the wreck is that the Fitzgerald was carrying too much cargo. This made the ship sit low in the water and made it more vulnerable to being overwhelmed by a sudden large wave. The official report also cited the possibility that the hatches to the cargo area may have been faulty, leading to a sudden shift of the cargo that capsized the boat.

The Fitzgerald was eventually found 530 feet below the surface, 17 miles from Whitefish Bay, at the northeastern tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The ship had broken into two parts that were found approximately 150 feet apart. As there were no survivors among the 29 crewmembers, there will likely never be a definitive explanation of the Fitzgerald‘s sinking.

The Fitzgerald‘s sinking was the worst wreck in the Great Lakes since November 29, 1966, when 28 people died in the sinking of the Daniel J. Morrell in Lake Huron.

The disaster was immortalized in song. the following year, by Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot.

The Edmund Fitzgerald began its tragic journey 46 years ago today ➥ https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/11/t...ago-today.html

Five Things the Edmund Fitzgerald Song Actually Got Wrong ➥ https://wrkr.com/edmund-fitzgerald-song/

➥

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A

[GordMay]

1918: Happy Remembrance/Poppy/Armistice/Vetrans Day.
At 5:00 am, on this day in 1918, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice document, in the railway carriage of Ferdinand Foch, the commander of the Allied armies, outside of Compiégne, France, and six hours later, at the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, of 1918, World War I came to an end.
However, while this date is used to reflect the end of the whole war, it technically relates to the cease-fire on the Western Front; fighting continued after November 11th, in parts of the Ottoman Empire.

100th anniversary of Remembrance Day poppy underlines 'hope and gratitude' of Canadians
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thund...oppy-1.6243950

[El Pinguino]

Re the Edmund Fitzgerald
'One possible reason for the wreck is that the Fitzgerald was carrying too much cargo. This made the ship sit low in the water and made it more vulnerable to being overwhelmed by a sudden large wave.'
Unlikely that she would have been over her marks.
'The official report also cited the possibility that the hatches to the cargo area may have been faulty,'
Yes dodgy hatches could lead to a lot of water getting below - been there - seen that.

' a sudden shift of the cargo that capsized the boat.'
An ore cargo shifting and causing a capsize? Ore carriers are the stiffest ships afloat when loaded.

' The ship had broken into two parts that were found approximately 150 feet apart.'
This suggests she broke her back in heavy seas. Nothing new there - happens a lot. See 'World Concord' or 'Stanvac Sumatra' for a few early cases - which didn't even need heavy seas.

[sailingabe41ds]

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated 100 years ago.
Abe

[bobnlesley]

Originally Posted by GordMay

[SIZE=3]...11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, of 1918, World War I came to an end.
...while this date is used to reflect the end of the whole war, it technically relates to the cease-fire on the Western Front; fighting continued after November 11th, in parts of the Ottoman Empire.

Sadly there are parts of the Ottoman Empire where the fighting's not stopped yet.

[GordMay]

November 12, 1970: The Bhola cyclone (Ganges-Brahmaputra delta cyclone) struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people, in the densely populated Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.

Although it was not ranked in the top category of cyclone intensity scales, it was, perhaps, the deadliest tropical cyclone in recorded history, and one of the greatest natural disasters.

The cyclone formed, over the Bay of Bengal, on Nov. 8, 1970. After reaching its peak wind speed of 115 miles (185 km) per hour, it made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan, on November 12. The cyclone was accompanied by a 6m [20Ft] storm surge, that flooded the low-lying region. An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 residents were killed, mostly through drowning, and entire villages were wiped out.

The Pakistani central government's half-hearted attempt at relief and rehabilitation, in what was then East Pakistan, strengthened the liberation effort in Bangladesh, and eventually concluded with the creation of the country of Bangladesh.

➥ Hurricanes: Science and Society: 1970- The Great Bhola Cyclone

[GordMay]

On November 13, 1974, 28-year-old Karen Silkwood is killed, in a single-car accident, near Crescent, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City.

Silkwood worked as a technician, at a plutonium plant, operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and she had been critical of the plant’s health and safety procedures. In September, she had complained to the Atomic Energy Commission about unsafe conditions at the plant (a week before her death, plant monitors had found that she was contaminated with radioactivity herself), and the night she died, she was on her way to a meeting with a union representative, and a reporter for The New York Times, reportedly with a folder full of documents, that proved that Kerr-McGee was acting negligently, when it came to worker safety at the plant. However, no such folder was found in the wreckage of her car, lending credence to the theory that someone had forced her off the road, to prevent her from telling what she knew.

On the night of November 5, Silkwood was polishing plutonium pellets that would be used to make fuel rods for a “breeder reactor” nuclear-power plant. At about 6:30 P.M., an alpha detector mounted on her glove box (the piece of equipment that was supposed to protect her from exposure to radioactive materials) went off: According to the machine, her right arm was covered in plutonium. Further tests revealed that the plutonium had come from the inside of her gloves—that is, the part of her gloves that was only in contact with her hands, not the pellets. Plant doctors monitored her for the next few days, and what they found was quite unusual: Silkwood’s urine and feces samples were heavily contaminated with radioactivity, as was the apartment she shared with another plant worker, but no one could say why or how that “alpha activity” had gotten there. (In fact, measurements after her death indicated that Silkwood had ingested the plutonium somehow; again, no one could say how or why.)

After work on November 13, Silkwood went to a union meeting, before heading home in her white Honda. Soon, police were summoned to the scene of an accident, along Oklahoma’s State Highway 74: Silkwood had somehow crashed into a concrete culvert. She was dead by the time help arrived. An autopsy revealed that she had taken a large dose of Quaaludes before she died, which would likely have made her doze off at the wheel; however, an accident investigator found skid marks, and a suspicious dent in the Honda’s rear bumper, indicating that a second car had forced Silkwood off the road.

Silkwood’s father sued Kerr-McGee, and the company eventually settled for $1.3 million, minus legal fees. Kerr-McGee closed its Crescent plant in 1979.

➥ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front.../silkwood.html

➥ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture...s-death-52287/

***


On Nov. 13, 1985, a volcanic eruption, that became known as the Armero tragedy, claimed the lives of an estimated 25,000 people, making it the deadliest of its kind in recorded history.

Mount Ruiz, in the Cordillera Central of the Andes, in west-central Colombia, erupted twice, burying the town of Armero, on the Lagunilla River, and killing an estimated 25,000 people.
The Nevado del Ruiz, also known as La Mesa de Herveo, is a volcano located on the border of the regions of Caldas and Tolima in Colombia. It lies around 129 kilometres (80 miles) west of the capital city, Bogotá.

Volcanic activity at Nevado del Ruiz began about two million years ago, since the Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene era, with three major eruptive periods. This volcano had been dormant for almost 70 years. When it blew, it caught everyone by surprise and nearby towns were unaware.

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.

➥ https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/vol...lombia-tragedy

[GordMay]

1851: "Moby-Dick", by Herman Melville, first published by Harper and Brothers, in the US. The epic Melville novel, about Captain Ahab's quest to find and kill Moby Dick, a white whale, had released in the UK, in October under the name “The Whale”. Considered to be one of the best fictional works written in recent history, the book did not sell many copies, after its launch, or during Melville's lifetime.

The True-Life Horror That Inspired Moby-Dick ➥ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...by-dick-17576/

Read ‘Moby Dick’ ➥ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm



1883: "Treasure Island", by Robert Louis Stevenson, is first published as a book, by Cassell & Co.

Read ‘Treasure Island’ ➥ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/120/120-h/120-h.htm

[GordMay]

November 15

1835: Charles Darwin reaches Tahiti, on board HMS “Beagle”, the location where he would formulate his ideas, later written in ‘The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs’ [1] (Being the First Part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the Command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the Years 1832 to 1836).
[1] ➥ http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/...&viewtype=text

2012: Deep Horizon Oil Spill: BP settles for $4.5 Billion
BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts [including manslaughter, obstruction of Congress and violations of the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act], for its role in the 2010 “Deepwater Horizon" spill, and was sentenced to pay $4 billion in fines and penalties, and five years probation. In December, a separate court finalized an additional $525 million settlement, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On April 20, 2010, a massive explosion killed 11 workers, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and a blowout spewed more than 3 million barrels of oil from the Macondo well, located 70 miles off the coast of Louisiana. On 22 April, the rig sank.
➥ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/a...ulf-oil-spill/
➥ https://theconversation.com/bp-paid-...s-usual-136905

[GordMay]

November 16

1532: Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish explorer and conquistador, springs a trap on the Incan emperor, Atahualpa. With fewer than 200 men against five thousand, Pizarro lures Atahualpa to a feast in the emperor’s honor, and then opens fire on the unarmed Incans. Pizarro’s men massacre the Incans and capture Atahualpa, forcing him to convert to Christianity, before eventually killing him.

1776: Sint Eustatius became the first foreign government to recognize the fledgling United States, via 1st gun salute, for an American warship, in a foreign port - US “Andrew Doria”, at Fort St. Eustatius.

1798: British seamen board the U.S. frigate “Baltimore”, and impress a number of crewmen as alleged deserters, a practice that contributed to the War of 1812.

1840: New Zealand officially becomes a British colony.

1841: Life preservers, made of cork, are patented by Napoleon Guerin [NYC].

1869: After 10 years of construction, the Suez Canal opened, in Egypt.

1938: Lysergic acid diethylamide [LSD] is first synthesized, by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann, at the Sandoz Laboratories, in Basel, Switzerland.

1949: Margaret Susan May [nee Wicks] was born.

1969: Mỹ Lai massacre [1968], of between 347 and 504 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by US soldiers, is first reported.

1973: During the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard Nixon held a press conference, in which he declared, “I am not a crook.”

2002: The first case of SARS is recorded in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China, though is not identified until much later. First patient is thought to be a farmer in the city.

2018: The kilogram is refined by abstract constants. replacing the Le Grand K, along with the ampere (electrical current), and kelvin (temperature), at a conference in Paris.

[Tayana42]

Happy birthday Margaret!

[jimbunyard]

Who is Margaret Susan May [nee Wicks]?

I live a sheltered life.