Meant to post this yesterday:

1938 - The War of the Worlds debuted as a radio drama at 8 ET during the program The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The popular myth is that this set off widespread panic throughout the country due to people switching over and missing the disclosure that this was not a news broadcast. The frequency of this is likely exaggerated but its a fun concept to think about.

31 October 1940
On this day the last daylight raid by the Germans take place in the UK. It's the end of the Battle of Britain. However night-time attacks continue throughout the winter of 1940-41 only ending when the Luftwaffe move east in preparation for their attack on the Soviet Union.

5 months ago today I visited the Battle of Britain Bunker and the RAF Duxford airbase.

1948- The famous Dewey Defeats Truman paper is printed by the Chicago Daily Tribune.

Dewey Defeats Turnip

November 4 1939 First air conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited, Chicago, Illinois

ABATTBQ87 said:

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November 4 1939 First air conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited, Chicago, Illinois

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Now there is something that changed the world..

On November 7th, 1942, TF 34 neared the coast of French Morocco and split into four groups for the invasion. Under the command of Captain Roy Pfaff, Battleship Texas was the flagship for Rear Admiral Monroe Kelly and the Northern Attack Group

Operation TORCH was about to begin

Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa

8 - 16 November 1942

https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1942/operation-torch.html?origin=serp_auto

November 9 1862 US General Ulysses S. Grant issues orders to bar Jews from serving under him

Fall of the Berlin Wall

1989-11-09 East Berlin opens its borders at Checkpoint Charlie when thousands arrive after a bureaucratic error announces that restrictions on travel to the West have been lifted

On this day, not in history, but literally Veteran's Day today in 2024 (its Remembrance Day in Australia --- big announcement from oz appropriate to put here:

Remembrance Day 2024 - USS Edsall Discovery

That's not correct. The Jewish Order kicked the sutlers and merchants, many of them Jewish, out of his camp. It was written anti-Semetically and blamed the Jewish merchants unfairly. But Jews served under him the entire war and were not removed from his army.

BQ78 said:

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That's not correct. The Jewish Order kicked the sutlers and merchants, many of them Jewish, out of his camp. It was written anti-Semetically and blamed the Jewish merchants unfairly. But Jews served under him the entire war and were not removed from his army.

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It was also rescinded almost immediately by Lincoln and Grant himself admitted it was an idiotic decision.

BQ78 said:

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That's not correct. The Jewish Order kicked the sutlers and merchants, many of them Jewish, out of his camp. It was written anti-Semetically and blamed the Jewish merchants unfairly. But Jews served under him the entire war and were not removed from his army.

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Tell it to the website where I found that fact

https://www.onthisday.com/

This is the problem with many of those websites. It's simply not what Grant did. I don't usually like linking to Wikipedia if I don't have to, but it gives a good overview of what happened and the ramifications.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862)

1944 - The battle of Vianden takes place between the Germans and around 30 Luxembourgish resistance fighters. Around 250 German Waffen SS men attempted to take the town with its castle but were repelled. This was the only open battle between the Luxembourgish resistance and the Germans so they(Lux Resistance types) can walk away with a 1-0 overall WW2 victory.

1944 - The USS Sealion sent a couple of salvos of torpedo's towards a Japanese surface fleet of 3 battleships, 1 cruiser, and 6 destroyers. The battleship Kongo and a destroyer were hit, the destroyer going down quickly and the Kongo sinking several hours later. This was the only time an Allied sub sunk a battleship.

Very sad.

#OnThisDay 1941 Battleship HMS BARHAM struck by 3 torpedoes from U-331 in the Mediterranean. She capsizes to port & sinks within 4 mins after a massive explosion. 862 men were killed from a ships company of over 1200. I cannot imagine the terror of those 4 minutes. pic.twitter.com/75igC0FkXE

— On This Day RN (@OnthisdayRN) November 25, 2024

November 26, 1863: President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.

On a more personal note, today would have been my great-grandmother's 120th birthday.

He was…pretty good, I guess.

Today, 344 years ago, we lost the greatest sculptor known to mankind, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Let's discover 21 of his most iconic masterpieces

A thread🧵 pic.twitter.com/RLjRLZ47ke

— Muse (@xmuse_) November 28, 2024

Thanks a lot for sending me down that rabbit hole this am.

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Unless you're a real Civil War buff, meaning, you're fairly knowledgeable about Civil War-era small arms, you're not likely to have much interest in the news that Confederate General Patrick R. Cleburne .36 caliber Colt revolver is coming to Franklin, Tennessee. The revolver will be displayed with his Kepi, or hat, that he was wearing on the evening he was killed in the Battle of Franklin on 30 November 1864. But you don't have to be a Civil War afficionado to appreciate a great story, and the story of how Cleburne's pistol is making its way back to Franklin, after more than 143 years, is quite amazing.

The story behind how the Cleburne pistol ended up in the worthy possession of the Layland Museum in Cleburne, Texas, has all the intrigue of a mystery-novel and the hoopla, at times, of a story right out of Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not.

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The bodies of four Confederate Generals were placed on the back porch at Carnton on Thursday morning, December 1st, 1864. Besides Patrick Cleburne, it is believed that Generals Strahl, Granbury and Adams's bodies were placed on the porch, beneath the windows on the right.

What happened with the pistol between 1864 and 1900 is a real mystery.

The next 30 years roughly 1870s to 1900 were murky history at best. We're really not sure what exactly happened with the pistol during that period of time.

The story can be fairly confidently picked up in the mid 1890s, though with some reliance upon the veracity of oral tradition. It seems that a Texas man, perhaps a veteran Confederate soldier or descendant, had found himself as owner of the 'precious'. However, in the mid 1890s he found himself down on his luck and decided to sell the pistol to improve his lot. So the pistol transfered into the hands about this time to a man named Seakrats.

Seakrats, circa 1900, apparently recognized the inscription on the weapon enough to decide that a local Confederate Veterans Camp Pat Cleburne Camp #88 might be the right home for the revolver. So Seakrats turned the precious relic over to the Pat Cleburne Camp #88 around the turn of the twentieth century. Does the story end there? Not even close.

What happened to the pistol from 1900 to roughly 1913?
The Captain of Camp #88 was O.T. Plummer. In an effort to verify the pistol as having originally been owned by Cleburne, he had the Camp Adjutant, Matthew Kahle, take the gun to Helena, Arkansas. Cleburne lived in Helena prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Post-war veterans and colleagues of Cleburne still lived there and were able to attest to its authenticity. The Helena group verified it as unequivocally having belonged to Patrick Cleburne. However they thought the best home for it would be Helena. But, not feeling he was authorized to give it to them, Kahle returned to Cleburne, Texas named after the General with said-treasure in stow.

So, from 1900 1913, the much-coveted relic was in the possession of a man named James Voluntine Hampton in Cleburne, Texas. The story continues and the twists and turns got even wilder.

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More at the link…

Almost as crazy as the Come and Take cannon that was also discovered on a river bank before someone picked it up at someone's curb on trash day.

St Andrew's feast day (RCC):

A day like today we celebrate Saint Andrew the Apostle. Saint Andrew was condemned to death and crucified in Patras, for the accusations of converting many people to Christianity. His agony lasted three days. Romans mocked Andrew's Christianity by tilting his cross so that it… pic.twitter.com/tK1uNXJkwP

— Gusano (@mistergusano) November 30, 2024

Feels appropriate this year.

Missed it by a day but in 1939 - The Winter War begins between Russia and Finland. This war proved costly to the Russians despite getting some territorial concessions because it played a role in Hitler seeing them as weak and feeling like he could move up his invasion plans. Russia claimed it only wanted parts of Finland but most sources understand that Russia wanted to establish a communist puppet across the whole country (sound familiar?) They by this time had effectively gained control via threats of invasion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, with the formal annexation coming the next year.

guess they invaded Finland because of the threat by NATO