There are 51 Days (plus a few hours) till Christmas Day!
but hey – who’s counting?
Pin back your lugholes, for here is your first round of Edumacation for November!
On this Day in History
1783 – John Austin, a highwayman, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.
1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.
1913 – The United States introduces an income tax.
1936 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide over Republican Alfred M. ”Alf” Landon.
The New York Times front page News
1941 – English broadcaster Roy Plomley conceived the idea for ‘Desert Island Discs’. The programme was first broadcast on BBC Radio in January 1942.
1957 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit: a dog named Laika.
BBC News Report
1964 – Washington D.C. residents are able to vote in a presidential election for the first time.
1964 – Lyndon B Johnson, who took over after President Kennedy’s assassination, won the White House race
BBC News Report complete with Video Footage
1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the “silent majority” to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies.
1973 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury, on March 29, 1974, becoming the first space probe to reach that planet.
1975 – Queen Elizabeth II opened the North Sea pipeline – the first to be built underwater – bringing ashore 400,000 barrels a day to Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
BBC News Report
1976 – In Great Britain, the first £100,000 Premium Bond was won, by an anonymous person in Hillingdon.
1985 – Two French agents in New Zealand pleaded guilty to sinking the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior and to the manslaughter of a photographer on board. They were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
BBC News Report
1986 – Iran-Contra Affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
1992 – Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush.
1994 – Susan Smith, born in Union, South Carolina, USA, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, nine days after claiming the children had been “abducted by a black man”. (Smith is serving life in prison.)
The case gained international attention shortly after it developed, due to her false claim that a black man had carjacked her maroon Mazda Protegé and kidnapped her sons. Her defense attorneys, David Bruck and Judy Clarke, called expert witnesses to testify that she suffered from mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes.
According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of 30 years.
2004 – George W Bush was elected president of the United States for the second time, beating his Democratic rival by a comfortable margin.
2014 – One World Trade Center officially opens.
Born on this Day
1903 – Walker Evans, the American photographer best known for his portrayal of America during the Great Depression
1921 – Charles Bronson, American actor (d. 2003)
1933 – John Barry, English composer – best known for composing 11 James Bond movies and was hugely influential on the 007 series’ distinctive style.
1933 – Jeremy Brett, English actor (d. 1995) – famous, among other things, for his portrayal of the detective Sherlock Holmes in four British television series: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
1933 – Michael Dukakis, American politician
1948 – Lulu, British actress and singer
1949 – Anna Wintour, English-American journalist
1952 – Roseanne Barr, American actress and comedian
1953 – Kate Capshaw, American actress known for her role as Willie Scott in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and for her marriage to director Steven Spielberg (who directed the film).
1954 – Adam Ant, English singer
1963 – Ian Wright, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster
1973 – Ben Fogle, English television host and author
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Thought for the Day
You are innocent until proven Awesome.
Be Awesome today. You never know, you might like it so much that you want to do it the next day …. and the next day … and the next. Until, eventually, you don’t realise it, but you are plain and simply just AWESOME!
I think, if I’m not mistaken, that was the whole idea.
He made an awesome thing … WE were meant to continue with the work!
So then … November arrived like a quiet little mouse who found a place to sneak in while we weren’t looking! Although… the end of October (Halloween) was entirely the opposite! Halloween saw me dressed all in black, with a witches hat on, and my face made up as a Witches Cat!
Not a scary cat, you understand. A cat with a tear drop shaped black nose, with three black whiskers on either side of my nose … and two black ears drawn above my eyebrows. All drawn on my face with a black Kohl eye pencil. To finish it all off … I put black eyeliner along my upper eye lashes, and finished them with a flick to make them look more cat-like, and added pinky nude lipstick on my lips.
I’d obviously done a goodish job with the make up because when Little Cobs arrived for Halloween Tea and fun …. he touched my face gently and asked: “Who did your make up Grammy?” – with a touch of wonderment in his voice.
We had TONS of little halloweeners. Ranging from monsters, aliens and one Frankensteins Monster, all the way to a top to toe costume of a furry, fluffy fox, a princess, a ballerina and the one which gave me the biggest ‘awwwww’ of the evening … a little one of about 10 months old, dressed up as a butterfly, complete with wings …. being carried by his Daddy. While I cooed over the baby, Daddy cooed over our front door, filled with so much admiration that I thought he was going to produce a screwdriver from his pocket and take the door with him! lol.
Little Cobs had a ball of a time meeting and greeting all the weird and wonderful costumed children. The only one which scared him was the Alien. But then … it scared me too, so I can fully understand why he jumped stood behind me, peeping around my waist and hanging on so tightly to my trousers I thought at one point he was going to pull them down. EEEK!!
Here in the UK we now have Guy Fawkes Night almost upon us (or ‘Bonfire Night’ as the children call it) – it’s on the 5th of November every year.
It’s a night of Bonfires up and down the land, and fireworks. Now Bonfires I can cope with. But fireworks scare me silly … and they scare my animals and all the animals everywhere. Horrible – legal – explosives. I would rather see these vile things allowed only at proper organised events, which have responsible, fully trained staff. Having them available to buy from a variety of stores and shops just leads to the possibility of a child or youth getting their hands on them and causing a situation which could be life changing or even fatal.
Aw … I sound exactly like a Bah Humbug kind of person, and I’m really not. I just think those things are way too dangerous to be so easily, publicly available.
Anyhoo …
Like any great school, I like to give you a little fun at the end of your lessons, and today is no different. The video I give to you now is just 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. But … it will have you stumped. I promise that there’s nothing scary going to suddenly happen (you should know me better by now to KNOW for sure that I wouldn’t give you any video which will scare the wotsit out of you) … but it will astound you and have you wondering: “How the heck did he do that?”. Watch, play along and have some fun.
Till we meet again, may the weather be kind, and life treat you nicely.
Sending love, and squidges. Oh .. and … Remember to be AWESOME!
The Art of Cobwebs 