It Happened On This Day November 30th

 1776 - Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe issued a proclamation from New York City that promised pardons to residents that turned in their weapons.

1776 - General Charles Lee wrote a letter to General George Washington to report that he was about to cross into New York near Peekskill.

1782 - The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.

1804 - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase went on trial accused of political bias. He was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.

1858 - John Landis Mason received a patent for the first pepper shaker with a screw-on cap.

1864 - Confederate General John Bell Hood attacked troops under John Schofield at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Five Rebel generals were wounded and six more killed. Hood attacked John Schofield again at Nashville on December 15.

1875 - A.J. Ehrichson patented the oat-crushing machine.

1897 - Thomas Edison's own motion picture projector had its first commercial exhibition.

1928 - General Mills stock debuted on the New York Stock Exhchange.

1967 - Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower announced their engagement.

1981 - The U.S. and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva that were aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

1983 - President Reagan signed H.R. 2230 that established a new Commission on Civil Rights

1986 - "Time" magazine published an interview with U.S. President Reagan. In the article, Reagan described fired national security staffer Oliver North as a "national hero."

1993 - U.S. President Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill. The bill required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

1995 - President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.

It Happened On This Day November 29th

 1775 - The Second Continental Congress established a Committee of Secret Correspondence.

1862 - John Palmer and John Scholfield were promoted to major general for the Union army.

1864 - Confederate General John Bell Hood approached Franklin, Tennessee. The next day he attacked troops under John Scholfield. (Battle of Franklin, Tennessee)

1864 - The Sand Creek Massacre occurred in Colorado when a militia led by Colonel John Chivington, killed at least 400 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who had surrendered and had been given permission to camp.

1942 - Americans received news from the Office of Price Administration (OPA) that coffee would be rationed.

1961 - The Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft was launched by the U.S. with Enos the chimp on board. The craft orbited the earth twice before landing off Puerto Rico.

1963 - U.S. President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

1967 - U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.

1971 - The U.S. 23rd Division (Americal) ceased combat operations and began its withdrawal from South Vietnam.

1975 - Bill Gates adopted the name Microsoft for the company he and Paul Allen had formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair.

1982 - In California, President Reagan addressed the convention of the National League of Cities.

1984 - President Reagan presented a special Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to late Representative Leo J. Ryan (R-California).

1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the rights of criminal defendants are not violated when police unintentionally fail to preserve potentially vital evidence.

1991 - Near Coalinga, CA, 17 people were killed in a traffic accident that involved 104 vehicles on Interstate 5. The accident occurred during a severe dust storm.

1999 - U.S. President Bill Clinton signed a $390 billion omnibus spending bill.

Quote of the Day

 Quote of the day:

"Information is the currency of democracy." Thomas Jefferson

It Happened On This Day November 28th

 1777 - Congress appointed John Adams to succeed Silas Deane as the commissioner to France.

1862 - Union troops under General John Blunt drove Confederates under General John Marmaduke back into the Boston Mountains in northwestern Arkansas. (Battle of Cane Hill, Arkansas) The battle was a prelude to a much larger fight at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, nine days later.

1863 - Confederate reinforcements arrived at Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate General James Longstreet continued his siege in order to draw Union troops away from Chattanooga. Ultimately, Longstreet retreated back to Virginia.

1942 - In Boston, MA, a fire at the Coconut Grove nightclub killed 491 people.

1963 - U.S. President Johnson announced that Cape Canaveral would be renamed Cape Kennedy in honor of his assassinated predecessor. The name was changed back to Cape Canaveral in 1973 by a vote of residents.

1964 - The U.S. launched the space probe Mariner IV from Cape Kennedy on a course set for Mars.

1964 - U.S. President Johnson's top advisors recommend a plan for the escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. The campain, code-named Rolling Thunder, ran from March 1865 to October 1968.

1981 - President Reagan called coach Paul "Bear" Bryant of the Alabama University football team to congratulate him on his 315th career win.

1982 - President Reagan met with Clint Eastwood and Gordon Wilson to discuss their group's effort to get American P.O.W.s out of Laos.

1983 - President Reagan signed proclamation 5131. It proclaimed the years 1983 through 1992 as the National Decade of Disabled Persons.

1984 - President Reagan and the First Lady attended the Senate Republican Unity Dinner where Senator Dole was made the new Majority Leader.

1988 - President Reagan met with the artist that had been commissioned to paint his portrait for the National Gallery.

1995 - U.S. President Clinton signed a $6 billion road bill that ended the federal 55 mph speed limit.

2000 - In the Mississippi River south of New Orleans, the oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, LA. The spill was about 567,000 gallons of crude oil.

Quote of the Day

 "It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

Patrick Henry

It Happened On This Day November 27th

 1746 - Robert R. (or R.R.) Livingston, also known as "the Chancellor," was born in New York. In 1776, he represented the Provincial Congress of New York at the Continental Congress and helped to draft the Declaration of Independence.

1864 - In Georgia, Union General Judson Kilpatrick began pursuing Confederate General Joseph Wheeler between Waynesboro and Millen. The engagment ended on December 4. The battle allowed Union General Sherman to march to Savannah, Georgia on his famous "March to the Sea."

1901 - The Army War College was established in Washington, DC.

1963 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress.

1970 - In Anchorage, AK, a Capital Airlines flight crashed during takeoff. 47 of the 229 people onboard were killed.

1973 - The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president after the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew.

2003 - U.S. President Bush flew to Iraq and spent time with U.S. soldiers stationed there.

It Happened On This Day November 26th

1776 - Peyton Randolph was laid to rest at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He had died on October 22, 1775, while representing Virginia in the second Continental Congress.

1789 - U.S. President Washington set aside this day to observe the adoption of the Constitution of the United States.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1939 Roosevelt had signed a bill that changed the celebration of Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November.

1942 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing to begin December 1.

1962 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy presented a Navy Unit Commendation Medal to the Navy reconnaissance squadron VFP-62 for their work during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1973 - Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she was responsible for the 18-1/2 minute gap in a key Watergate tape. Woods was U.S. President Nixon's personal secretary.

1975 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was found guilty by a federal jury in Sacramento, CA, for trying to assassinate U.S. President Ford on September 5.

1985 - The rights to Richard Nixon's autobiography were acquired by Random House for $3,000,000.

1986 - U.S. President Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Sen. John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff after the Iran-Contra affair.

Revolutionary War Quote

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time."

Thomas Jefferson