Welcome to this week’s edition of the staff blog’s ‘This Week in History!’ You will find historical facts, happenings, and associated books; #1 box office movies; and #1 NY Times best sellers from years gone by. This will be a weekly feature, so make sure to check out each week’s posting! NOTE: Click on any of the below book/movie titles to be taken to them in our online Café catalog!
NY Times Fiction Bestsellers
#1 Box Office Movies
This Week in History
- November 15th
- 1864- Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. (United States)
- 1887- Painter Georgia O’Keeffe is born. (Wisconsin)
- 2001- Microsoft releases the Xbox, a video game console system. (United States/World)
- November 16th
- 1532- Explorer/colonizer Francisco Pizarro traps Incan emperor Atahualpa, effectively ending the Incan empire. (World)
- 1907- Oklahoma is admitted as the 46th state. (United States)
- 1945- Nazi-German scientists brought to United States to work on rocket technology for what would become NASA. (United States)
- November 17th
- 1869- Suez Canal opens. (World)
- 1965- U.S. 1st Cavalry unit is ambushed in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. The battle would later be dramatized in the 2002 film We Were Soldiers. (United States)
- 2003- Arnold Schwarzenegger is inaugurated as governor of California. (United States)
- November 18th
- 1626- St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is officially dedicated. (World)
- 1883- Railroads in the United States and Canada begin using time zones. (United States/World)
- 1978- Mass suicide at Jonestown. (United States/World)
- November 19th
- 1863- Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.(United States)
- 1941- Governor Tommy Thompson is born. (Wisconsin)
- 1942- The Soviet Red Army launches a counterattack against Nazi forces at Stalingrad. (World)
- November 20th
- 1859- First game of baseball is played in Milwaukee. (Wisconsin)
- 1917- Tanks were used effectively for the first time in warfare during WWI by the British at the Battle of Cambrai. (World)
- 1945- Nuremberg Trials begin. (World)
- November 21st
- 1620- The Mayflower Compact is signed. (United States)
- 1916- The Britannic, sister ship to the Titanic, sinks in the Aegean Sea (World)
- 1980- Millions around the world tune into Dallas to find out who shot J.R. (United States/World)
Recommended Reading Related to Movies/Historical Happenings:
Welcome to this week’s edition of the staff blog’s ‘This Week in History!’ You will find historical facts, happenings, and associated books; #1 box office movies; and #1 NY Times best sellers from years gone by. This will be a weekly feature, so make sure to check out each week’s posting! NOTE: Click on any of the below book/movie titles to be taken to them in our online Café catalog!
NY Times Fiction Bestsellers
#1 Box Office Movies
This Week in History
- November 8th
- 1910- Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor, Emil Seidel, is elected mayor. (Wisconsin)
- 1923- Adolf Hitler attempts to start an insurrection in Germany against the Weimar Republic but fails during the Beer Hall Putsch. (World)
- 1978- American illustrator/painter Norman Rockwell dies. (United States)
- November 9th
- 1895- The Pabst Theater is completed in Milwaukee. (Wisconsin)
- 1938- The Nazis launch Kristallnacht, aka ‘The Night of Broken Glass,’ a campaign of terror and destruction against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. (World)
- 1967- NASA launches Apollo 4 into orbit with the first successful test of a Saturn V rocket. (United States)
- November 10th
- 1775- The United States Marine Corp is formed when the Continental Congress orders that two battalions of marines be raised for service during the American Revolution. (United States)
- 1834- The first public sale of land in the Wisconsin Territory is held at the Mineral Point land office. (Wisconsin)
- 1969- Sesame Street debuts on PBS. (United States)
- November 11th
- 1918- World War I ends as the Allied Powers and Germany sign an armistice document declaring the war to be over. (World)
- 1964- The Rolling Stones perform in Wisconsin for the first time during a show at the Milwaukee Auditorium. (Wisconsin)
- 2004- Yasser Arafat, who was president of the Palestinian Authority from 1996-2004 and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969-2004, dies in Paris. (World)
- November 12th
- 1836- Territorial Governor Henry Dodge signs the first law passed by the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature. (Wisconsin)
- 1954- The immigration reception center at Ellis Island, New York, is closed to incoming immigrants. (United States)
- 1990- Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, publishes a formal proposal for the creation of the World Wide Web. (World)
- November 13th
- 1835- Texas officially declares independence from Mexico and calls itself the Lone Star Republic until its admission into the United States’ union in 1845. (United States)
- 1982- Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. (United States)
- 2015- Terrorists stage coordinated attacks in Paris and its nearby areas, including the Bataclan Theatre and Concert Hall, killing at least 130 people and wounding more than 350. (World)
- November 14th
- 1861- Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, responsible for the ‘Frontier Theory’ of American history, is born in Portage, WI. (Wisconsin/United States)
- 1915- Booker T. Washington, one of the most prominent African-American educators, reformers, and intellectuals in U.S. history, dies at age 59. (United States)
- 1922- The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins the first daily radio broadcasts from Marconi House. (World)
Recommended Reading Related to Movies/Historical Happenings:
Welcome to the first edition of the staff blog’s ‘This Week in History!’ You will find historical facts, happenings, and associated books; #1 box office movies; and #1 NY Times best sellers from years gone by. This will be a weekly feature, so make sure to check out each week’s posting!
NY Times Fiction Bestsellers
#1 Box Office Movies
This Week in History
- November 1st
- 1512- The Sistine Chapel ceiling opens to the public. (World)
- 1927- Ford Model A begins production. (United States)
- 1952- The U.S. detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb. (World/United States)
- November 2nd
- 1911- First vocational school opens in Wisconsin in Racine. (Wisconsin)
- 1930- Haile Selassie is crowned Emperor in Ethiopia. (World)
- 1957- The Soviet Union launches a dog into orbit as the first animal in space onboard Sputnik 2. (World)
- November 3rd
- 1964- Washington, D.C. residents gain the right to vote in federal elections. (United States)
- 1998- Tommy Thompson wins fourth term for governorship of Wisconsin. (Wisconsin)
- 2014- One World Trade Center officially opens in New York City on the site of the Twin Towers. (United States)
- November 4th
- 1922- Entrance to King Tut’s tomb discovered. (World)
- 1958- Governor Gaylord Nelson elected to be governor of Wisconsin. (Wisconsin)
- 1979- Iranian Hostage Crisis begins in Tehran when Iranian students storm the U.S. embassy and take U.S. citizens hostage. (United States/World)
- November 5th
- 1862- The 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery fought in an engagement at Nashville, Tennessee during the Civil War. (Wisconsin/United States)
- 1941- The order to bomb Pearl Harbor in one month is given by Hideki Tojo in Tokyo, Japan. (World)
- 2006- Saddam Hussein sentenced to death in Iraq. (World)
- November 6th
- 1837- Burlington, Iowa selected as temporary capital of the Wisconsin Territory. (Wisconsin)
- 1962- The U.N. condemns apartheid in South Africa. (World)
- 1985- American newspapers reveal Iran Contra Affair. (United States)
- November 7th
- 1942- Carl Frederick Zeidler, former mayor of Milwaukee who resigned the post to enlist in the armed forces during WWII, is killed when his ship was torpedoed near Cape Town, South Africa by German forces.
- 1944- FDR wins unprecedented fourth term. (United States)
- 2009- The Affordable Care Act passes the U.S. House of Representatives. (United States)
Recommended Reading Related to Movies/Historical Happenings:
(Click on any of the above book/movie titles to be taken to them in our online Café catalog!)