Week of November 28 in History

November 28 is the 332nd day of the year. There are 33 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1814 – The Times in London was printed for the 1st time by automatic, steam powered presses.
• 1843 – The Kingdom of Hawaii was officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation. This day was celebrated as Ka Lā Hui: Hawaiian Independence Day.
• 1895 – The first American car race took place over the 54 miles between Chicago’s Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois.
• 1919 – Lady Nancy Astor was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.
• 1942 – A fire in the Coconut Grove nightclub, in Boston, Massachusetts, killed 491 people.
• 1943 – US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin met in Tehran, Iran to discuss war strategy.

November 29 is the 333rd day of the year There are 32 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1777 – San Jose, California was founded, it is the first civilian settlement in Alta California.
• 1832 – Louisa May Alcott, American author of Little Women, was born. She died in 1888.
• 1881 – Spokane Falls (now Spokane), Washington was officially incorporated as a city.
• 1890 – The Meiji Constitution went into effect in Japan and the first Diet convenes.
• 1890 – At West Point, NY, the US Naval academy defeated the US Military Academy in the first Army-Navy football game.
• 1910 – The first US patent for a traffic light system was issued.
• 1922 – Howard Carter opened the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun to the public
• 2001 – George Harrison, English musician, died. He was born in 1943. 

November 30 is the 334th day of the year. There are 31 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1667 – Jonathan Swift, Irish author of Gulliver’s Travels, was born. He died in 1745.
• 1835 – Mark Twain, American author of 12 novels, was born. He died in 1910.
• 1886 – The Folies Bergere staged its first revue.
• 1934 – The Flying Scotsman, a steam locomotive, became the first locomotive to officially exceed 100 mph.
• 1982 – Michael Jackson’s Thriller album was released. It became the best-selling album of all time.

December 1 is the 335th day of the year. There are 30 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 1 is International World AIDS Day.

• 1824 – In the US presidential election of 1824, no candidate received a majority of the Electoral College votes, the House of Representatives decided the winner in accordance with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.  
• 1955 - Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man, and was arrested for violating the segregation laws in Montgomery AL., an incident that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1969– The first draft lottery, since WWII, in the US was held.
• 1981 – The AIDS virus was first recognized by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• 1982 – Barney Clark became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart 
• 2001 – Trans World Airlines Flight 220, landed at the St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport, bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations.

December 2 is the 336th day of the year. There are 29 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 2 is International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. 

• 1763 – The dedication of the Touro Synagogue  occurred in Newport, RI, the first synagogue in America.
• 1823 – US President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts.
• 1845 – US President James K. Polk announced to Congress that the US should aggressively expand into the US West.
• 1867 – At Tremont Temple in Boston, Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the US. 
• 1927 – After 19 years of Model T production, Ford unveiled the Ford Model A.
• 1930 – US President Herbert Hoover asked Congress for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
• 1939 – La Guardia Airport began operations in New York City.
• 1942 – A Manhattan Project team, led by Enrico Fermi, initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
• 1954 – The US Senate voted 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
• 1956 – Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and 80 others enter Cuba to initiate the Cuban Revolution.
• 1961 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro stated Cuba would adopt Communism. 
• 1970 – The United State Environmental Protection Agency began  operations.
• 1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm Al Quwain formed the United Arab Emirates.
• 1988 – Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam state.

December 3 is the 337th day of the year. There are 28 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. 

December 3 is the International Day of the Basque Language.

• 1818 – Illinois became the 21st U.S. state.
• 1901 – US President Theodore Roosevelt delivered speech to the House of Representatives asking the Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits.”
• 1910 – Modern neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show.
• 1967 – The first heart transplant on a human took place in Cape Town, South Africa.
• 1973 – Pioneer 10 sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
• 1984 – A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

December 4 is the 338th day of the year. There are 27 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, was published in London.
• 1881 – The first edition of the Los Angeles Times was published.
• 1943 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Works Progress Administration due to  high levels of wartime employment.
• 1945 – By a vote of 65 to 7, the US Senate approved the United States’ participation in the United Nations.
• 1954 – The first Burger King was opened in Miami, Florida.
• 1978  – Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco’s first woman mayor.

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 40 - Thanks Giving

There is much to be thankful for in Tux’s home this year.

We survived his sister Grace’s cancer scare. Grace and I fought minor seasonal allergies while Tux fought not only seasonal allergies, but food and environmental allergies as well. Tux had periods of time when he was allergy free, for which we are all thankful 

We survived tornadoes, wind storms, snow storms, ice, sleet, prolonged periods of high temperatures, and other weather-related issues. We managed to go through four or five tornado warnings without having to huddle in the basement waiting for the house to come down around our ears. We hate basements. 

When we weren’t huddled together against the elements, we enjoyed periods when it was a joy to get out, go to a favorite park and walk a mile or two with ease. We enjoyed nearly daily walks in parks. We survived an attack by a snarling devil dog (thanks to Grace, who nipped the much larger dog on the ear and he retreated). We met many people in the parks - with and without dogs of their own. Some stop and pet Tux and Grace every time we see them while others comment on how cute they are. Grace loves the latter people. We’ve watched the parks we walk in change with the seasons, going from admiring the newly budded trees, to the awful heat where everyone and everything tries to survive, to the beauty of fall colors to the freezing cold and snow on the ground.

Tux is especially grateful for his toys - from the oldest (11 years old) to the newest.

Yes, we have much to be thankful for - including each other. Tux and Grace have brought much laughter to their humans with their antics. Grace can do silly things and remain dignified while Tux can do dignified things and look silly. Always, always, they are at the door to greet us when we come home for which we are thankful. They are grateful because we go for walks and we feed them at regular intervals. Who can ask for anything more than that?

Week of November 21 in History

November 21 is the 325th day of the year. There are 40 days remaining until the end of the year.

November 21 is World Television Day. 

November 21 is National Adoption Day in the US. 

• 164 BCE – Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restored the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated by the festival of Hanukkah.
• 1783 – The first untethered hot air balloon flight was made in Paris.
• 1877 – Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
• 1905 – Albert Einstein’s paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? was published and led to the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc².
• 1953 – The British Natural History Museum announced that the Piltdown Man initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, was a hoax.
• 1969 – The first permanent ARPANET Link is established between UCLA and SRI, marking the beginning of the Internet.

November 22 is the 326th day of the year. There are 39 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1943 – Billie Jean King, American tennis player who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles., was born.
• 1943 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek met in Cairo, Egypt to discuss ways to defeat Japan.
• 1954 – The Humane Society of the United States was founded. 
• 1963 – US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX.
• 1968 – The Beatles released The Beatles (the White Album).
• 1977 – British Airways inaugurated Concorde service between London and NYC.
• 1995 – Toy Story was released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
• 2005 – Angela Merkel became the first woman Chancellor of Germany.

November 23 is the 327th day of the year. There are 38 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 534 BCE – Thespis of Icaria became the first actor to portray a character on stage.
• 1876 – Tammany Hall leader William Tweed (aka Boss Tweed) was returned to NYC after being captured in Spain. He was arrested because he cost the taxpayers of New York $200 million due to his corruption while an elected official.
• 1889 – The first jukebox was installed in a saloon in San Francisco.
• 1936 – The first edition of Life magazine was published.
• 1963 – The BBC broadcast the first episode of Doctor Who.
• 1990 – The first all-woman expedition to the South Pole began.
• 1990 – Roald Dahl, British children’s author of 20 books, died. He was born in 1916.

November 24 is the 328th day of the year. There are 37 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1639 – The transit of Venus was observed by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree.
• 1859 – Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.
• 1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opened.
• 1950 – Pickens, WV, recorded 57 inches of snow during a snowstorm dubbed the “Storm of the Century. It paralyzed the northeastern US and Appalachians with winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures.
• 1975 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, named Lucy, in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression.

November 25 is the 329th day of the year. There are 36 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1846 – Carrie Nation, American temperance advocate, was born. She died in 1911.
• 1864 – The Confederate Army of Manhattan set 20 fires in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down NYC.
• 1952 – Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap premiered at the Ambassadors Theatre in London, and later became the longest continuously-running play in history.
• 1963 – President John F. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
• 1970 – In Japan Nobel-nominated author Yukio Mishima committed ritualistic suicide (seppuku) after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
• 1999 – The United Nations established the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

November 26 is the 330th day of the year. There are 35 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1832 – Mary E. Walker, US feminist and physician, was born. She is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. She died in 1919. 
• 1922 – Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist and creator of the Peanuts gang, was born. He died in 2000.
• 1922 – Howard Carter became the first person to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.
• 2003 – The Concorde made its final flight, over Bristol, England.
• 2004 – A male Po’ouli  (Black-faced honeycreeper), first discovered in 1973 on the eastern slopes of Haleakala on the island of Maui, died of Avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center before a mate could be found for it and it could breed. It is now probably extinct.

November 27 is the 331st day of the year. There are 34 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1895 – In Paris, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize.
• 1924 – In New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held.

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 39 - Stockpiling Stuff

Tux was on a quest today. He was determined to find his oldest and most favorite toy, the pink, blue, and white plush ball. When he couldn't find it in the family room, he started going room to room, but it wasn’t in any of the rooms. He next checked his toy box - yes, he has a toy box although his toys seldom reside there. You can enter any room in the house and find at least two of his toys. Occasionally, his humans get tired of stepping on the plush squeeky toys and in a fit of pique, will gather them up and dump them in the toy box. He must, then, patiently pull each toy from the box and return it to its rightful place.

His plush ball was not in the room where he’d left it nor was it in his toy box. Stemming his rising tide of panic, Tux began looking in places where perhaps his sister Grace may have put it just to see him running around like a fool - she’d done it before. But it wasn’t on the stack of dog pillows in the corner of the family room nor was it on the beds. 

By now, he was well and truly in full panic mode. Where was his ball? 

You may ask what’s so special about this particular toy. He was given this toy as a “Welcome to the Family” gift the day he was brought home as a six-week-old sweet puppy. Yes, Tux has had this toy for 11 years. He has never ripped the squeaker out of it and it remains is in working order. It is his go-to toy when he’s stressed. Whenever I hear him squeaking a toy, I know he has his ball and is trying to become centered and at peace once again.

Every once in a while, the toy becomes dingy from too much loving and I’ll take it and throw it into the laundry basket while he’s outside. Today was no different, I noticed it was getting a little ripe and put it into the laundry basket thinking I’d do a load of laundry and have it back where I'd found it before he really had time to miss it. Alas, doing laundry was postponed, and now he wanted/needed his special toy, and the quest to find it continued.

I finally had retrieve Tux’s toy for him. When I handed it to him, I swear he glowered at me. My sweet boy had turned into angry dog. He is, as we speak, asleep with it lovingly held in his mouth as little snoring sounds emanate from him. 

It doesn’t take much to make Tux a happy camper - just an ancient plush toy and a nap.

Lesson Learned

Would that we humans were as easily pleased as Tux. However, we seem to need more than a nap and a toy to make us feel safe. We need things around us or as the late George Carlin said, we need “stuff.” 

Do we need all the stuff we stockpile? Do we really need all those books we keep just in case we run out of things to read? Never mind that we keep buying more books, and many of us have a Kindle and have dozens and dozens of books stored there, too. Now that winter is upon us - almost - I’m switching out summer clothes for winter clothes. As I put the summer clothes into their storage containers, I asked myself do I really need this many t-shirts? The answer was no. Did I set any aside for Goodwill? Absolutely not. I figure that, for this year at least, it was enough to admit I didn’t really need all those t-shirts. Maybe next spring, I’ll actually give a couple of the t-shirts to Goodwill.

While clothes are import, books seem to be my equivalent to Tux’s plush ball. When I’m stressed, I can sit and look at my crowded and overflowing bookshelves and feel the peace return. How could I possibly consider giving away any of them? So, like Tux, I have a stockpile of books, just in case.

Week of November 14 in History

November 14 is the 318th day of the year. There are 47 days remaining until the end of the year.

November 14 is International World Diabetes Day.

• 1863 – Leo Baekeland, Flemish-American chemist & inventor of Bakelite. He died in 1944.
• 1889 – Pioneering journalist Nellie Bly began a successful around-the-world trip in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in 72 days.
• 1889 – Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, was born. He died in 1964.
• 2003 – Astronomers discovered 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian object.
• 2007 – The last direct-current electrical distribution system in the US was shut down in NYC.

November 15 is the 319th day of the year. There are 46 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1859 – The first modern revival of the Olympic Games took place in Athens, Greece.
• 1887 – Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter, was born. She died in 1986.
• 1920 – The first assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva.
• 1939– President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• 1969 – In Washington, D.C., 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam war.
• 1971 – Intel released the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor.

November 16 is the 320th day of the year. There are 45 days remaining until the end of the year

• 1821 – Missouri trader William Becknell arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail. 
• 1849 – Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for anti-government activities.
• 1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory join to form Oklahoma and  is admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
• 1914  – The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank officially opened.
• 1945 – UNESCO was founded.
• 2000 – Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

November 17 is the 321st day of the year. There are 44 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1558 – Elizabeth I ascends the English throne upon the death of her half-sister Mary I.
• 1800 – The US Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.
• 1855 – David Livingstone became the first European to see the Victoria Falls in present-day Zambia-Zimbawe, Africa.
• 1947 – The US Screen Actors Guild implemented an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
• 1947 – American scientists observed the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.
• 1962 – Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., opened to traffic.
• 1964 – Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
• 1970 – The computer mouse is patented by Douglas Engelbart.

November 18 is the 322nd day of the year. There are 43 days remaining until the end of the year

• 1477 – Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres was the first book printed on a printing press in England.
• 1626 – St. Peter’s Basilica was consecrated.
• 1793 – The Louvre officially opened in Paris, France.
• 1865 – Mark Twain’s story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was published in the New York Saturday Press.
• 1883 – American and Canadian railroad companies instituted five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion caused by thousands of local times.
• 1926 – George Bernard Shaw refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
• 1928 – Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday.
• 1963 – The first push-button telephone went into service.

November 19 is the 323rd day of the year. There are 42 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
• 1943 – During the evacuation of the Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, the Jews staged an uprising and mass escape attempt. The Nazis murdered 6,000 Jews in retaliation.
• 1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he met Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem seeking a permanent peace settlement in the region.
• 1985 – Pennzoil won a $10.53 billion judgment against Texaco as a result of Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet binding, buyout contract with Getty. It was the largest civil verdict in the history of the US.

November 20 is the 324th day of the year. There are 41 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1789 – New Jersey became the first US state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
• 1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacked the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, MA, 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. Herman Melville was inspired to write Moby Dick.
• 1910 – Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Russian novelist, died. He was born in 1828
• 1945 – The Nuremberg Trials began against 24 Nazi war criminals at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany.
• 1974 – The US Department of Justice filed its final anti-trust suit against suit against AT&T resulting in the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
• 1984 – The SETI Institute was founded.
• 1992 – In England, a fire broke out in Windsor Castle causing over £50 million worth of damage.

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 38 - Making Lemonade

A while ago, Tux’s sister, Grace, had surgery. She had a cancerous bone in her left front paw, and the toe had to be amputated. Her surgery went well. When Grace came home, Tux commented that she “smelled funny.” Grace, though, was still woozy from the anesthesia and the pain meds. She didn’t care what he thought.

As Grace convalesced, our routine changed. Grace’s doctor said that she needed to take it easy until the stitches were removed. She wasn’t allowed to go on our morning walks. Since I was already feeling guilty about her having lost a toe and having a huge bandage on her foot, I decided that if Grace couldn’t go out for walks, then Tux and I wouldn’t either.

Tux, of course, didn’t understand the concept of solidarity. It made no sense to him that just because Grace couldn’t go for walks that neither could he. He wasn’t injured in any way so how come he wasn’t going to get to walk in the park every morning? Of course, Grace didn’t look at him with her big Cocker Spaniel eyes asking why she couldn’t go out for walks. No, she turned those eyes on me.

So I now had two Cocker Spaniels looking dolefully at me every morning. It’s almost more than I can handle. Oh, the guilt of it all! What a bad mother I am to deny my four-legged children their heart’s desire. I got over myself by blaming it all on the vet who had said Grace couldn’t go for walks with us until she got her stitches removed. 

Tux, of course, still didn’t understand his being denied the highlight of his day just because his sister had been told to stay home. But he dealt with that, too. He told himself it wouldn’t last forever, and that he would benefit from an extra hour’s nap.

Lesson Learned

Sometimes we don’t understand why things happen to us. The best we can do is think of all the cliches we’ve ever heard about bad things happening to good people. Cliches like “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I do love fresh-squeezed lemonade, and I've been drinking a lot of it lately.

Week of November 7 in History

November 7 is the 311th day of the year. There are 54 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1492 – The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, struck the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.
• 1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, was first published.
• 1872 – The ship Mary Celeste sailed from NYC only to be found deserted later.
• 1874 – A Thomas Nast cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, is considered the first important use of the elephant as the symbol for the Republican Party.
• 1878 – Lise Meitner, Austrian physicist, was born. She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission. Her colleague was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. She died in 1968.
• 1893 – Women in the state of Colorado were granted the right to vote.
• 1908 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia.
• 1916 – Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to the US Congress. 
• 1918 – The 1918 influenza epidemic spread to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year.
• 1929 – The Museum of Modern Art opened to the public in New York City.
• 1967 – President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• 1990 – Mary Robinson became the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland.
• 2000 – Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first former First Lady to win public office.
• 2000 – Controversial US presidential election was resolved in Bush v. Gore US Supreme Court case.

November 8 is the 312th day of the year. There are 53 days remaining until the end of the year.

• November 8, 1602 – The Bodleian Library at Oxford University was opened to the public.November 8, 1793  – The French Revolutionary government opened the Louvre to the public as a museum. 
• November 8, 1837 – Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, later known as Mount Holyoke College, was founded by Mary Lyon.
• 1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the x-ray.
• 1933 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.
• 1960 – John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential election of the 20th century to become the 35th president of the US.
• 1966 – Edward Brooke of MA became the first African American elected to the US Senate since Reconstruction.

November 9 is the 313th day of the year. There are 52 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1620 – Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sighted land at Cape Cod, MA.
• 1857 – The Atlantic magazine was founded in Boston, MA.
• 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt was the first sitting US President to travel outside the country, to inspect the Panama Canal.
• 1914 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian actress and inventor of early technique for spread spectrum  communications, a key to many forms of wireless communication.
• 1921 – Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the photoelectric effect.
• 1934 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer and writer, was born. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1978 for The Dragons of Eden.  He died in 1996.
• 1965 – Several US states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting 13 hours. 
• 1967 – The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine was published.
• 1989 – East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany.
• 1994 – The chemical element Darmstadtium was discovered in Germany.

November 10 is the 314th day of the year. There are 51 days remaining until the end of the year.

• Happy Birthday to all US Marines! Semper Fi!

• 1775 – The United State Marine Corps was founded in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, PA by Samuel Nicholas
• 1871 – Henry Morton Stanley located the missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone.
• 1951– Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service began in the United States.
• 1958 – The Hope Diamond, 45.52 carats, was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.
• 1969 – Sesame Street debuted on National Education Television (later renamed PBS).
• 1975 – The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution (3379) equating Zionism with racism (the resolution was repealed in December 1991 by Resolution 4686).
• 2001 – Apple resellers start selling the iPod.

November 11 is the 315th day of the year. There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1889 – The state of Washington was admitted to the Union as the 42nd US state.
• 1918 - World War I officially ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
• 1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns was dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery. 
• 1926 – US Route 66 was established.
• 1938 – Mary Mallon, Irish-American carrier of typhoid known as Typhoid Mary, died. She was born in 1869.
• 1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War was dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
• 2008 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) set sail on her final voyage.

November 12 is the 316th day of the year. There are 49 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1815 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American women's rights activist, was born. She died in 1902.
• 1840 – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor, was born. He died in 1917
• 1994 – Wilma Rudolph, American runner and three-time Olympic gold medal winner, died. She was born in 1940.

November 13 is the 317th day of the year. There are 48 days remaining until the end of the year.

November 13 is World Kindness Day.

• 1850 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author of 13 novels, was born. He died in 1894.
• 1851 – The Denny Party landed at Alki Point, the first settlers in what would become Seattle, WA.
• 1871– Leon Leonwood Bean, American inventor and founder of L.L.Bean. He died in 1967.
• 1927 – The Holland Tunnel opened to traffic, the first tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City. 
• 1956 – The US Supreme Court declared Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1970 – A 150-mph tropical cyclone hit the Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people in one night. At the time, this was regarded as the 20th century’s worst natural disaster.

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 37 - A Boring Walk

This morning’s walk with Tux and Grace was so uneventful that Tux didn’t know what to do with himself. There was nary a duck, a bunny, or even another dog to be seen. There was nothing to stalk. No dog to protect his sister from. Not even a human to smooze. What was a guy to do?

Tux checked out all his usual places - the underbrush where he had vanquished a bunny the day before, the path leading into the park where he’d seen the obese black dog two days earlier. Alas, there was no bunny and no black dog.

As we rounded the final curve before heading home, there were no Mallards. Then he saw something, though, because he went into stalker mode - pulling up his left front paw in a beautifully executed hunter’s pose, then he began placing one paw slowly in front of the other, he wanted no fast moves that would startle his quarry into flight. We three, Tux, Grace, and I, were sneaking up on something. After each step, he’d pause, slowly raise his front paw, pause, take another step. Repeat. The classic hunting dog’s recipe.

Unfortunately for Tux, the effect of his magnificence was lost on the two elderly people who were headed our way  and who he’d been stalking. As they neared, the man kept his distance, as well he should, in the presence of an Alpha male like Tux. The woman, on the other hand, stopped in front of Tux and bent down to extend her hand, palm down, to him. Tux took a cautious sniff of the woman’s hand. He lost interest when his sniff revealed that these people didn’t even own a dog. The woman cooed, “What a cute dog! How old is he?” When I told her Tux was 11, she replied, “My goodness, that’s really old for a dog, isn’t it?”

Grace snickered, I swear.

Tux, in an effort to keep his dignity in tact, muttered, “Old, smold. I’m the one with all my teeth and no gray hairs.” He turned his back on the woman and busied himself with inspecting the moss growing nearby.

I wished the couple a good day, and we continued on our way. Tux preferring to forget that the woman existed. He was in search of something, anything, of interest. There was nothing this morning. Even the Westies, normally in their yard as we pass by, were no where to be seen. 

What a boring walk, Tux pronounced as we headed home.

Lesson Learned

Not every walk is interesting according to Tux. We humans need to learn that lesson as well. Not every day of our lives will be filled with interesting people and/or events. We need to appreciate the “boring” days as much as we do the exciting ones. We need to learn how to entertain ourselves when he have one of those boring days when nothing of interest is supposedly happening.