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November 8
November 8 is the 8th day in November.
Events[edit]
1308 — Duns Scotus dies.
1519 — Mexico: Fernando Cortez on junket to Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan. The Spanish conquerors are received in the city. [1]
1656 — Sir Edmond Halley, famous cometator, lives, England.
1674 — John Milton, 65, dies on a Sunday in London. Buried near his father in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate. Poet, Paradise Lost. [2]
1740 — Pamela by Samuel Richardson published.
1789 — United States of America: Bourbon Whiskey, first distilled from corn, by Elijah Craig, Bourbon, Kentucky.
1800 — United States of America: "Federal Bonfire Number One", a mysterious fire swept the offices of the US Department of War, destroying books and papers, after Republicans demanded proof that money set aside for the Army had been properly expended by the Federalists. (see January 21).
1806 — Roger de Beauvoir (Eugène Auguste Roger de Bully) lives. Writer, poet, journalist, critic and a friend of Berlioz.
1830 — England: Fire and riot ensues at Robertsbridge after poor law administrators (all of them millers) try to distribute bad flour. No one can be found to enlist as special constables to quell the mob. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1868 — United States of America: Powder River country, including Black Hills, is given to Lakota "forever" by treaty. Within a decade white settlers, business interests, and Army seize the region.
1878 — United States of America: Marshall Walter Taylor "Major Taylor," African American and the worldʼs fastest bicycle racer for 12 years, lives, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1883 — Charles Demuth (1883—1935), American painter, lives. Demuth was a gay man born into a region not very tolerant of his life style — central Pennsylvania.
1884 — United States of America: Todayʼs issue of the Chicago Alarm (edited by Albert Parsons): "Workers of America, learn the manufacture and use of dynamite ... Then use it unstintingly, unsparingly. The battle for bread is the battle for life ... Death and destruction to the system and its upholders, which plunders and enslaves the men, women, and children of toil". [Source: Calendar Riots]
1887 — England: Demonstrations banned (8th and 18th Nov), by order of Charles Warren, commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis. [3]
1888 — Alex Matson lives. Finnish novelist, essayist, critic, artist and scholar. An advocate of New Criticism, book of literary theory, Romaanitaide (1947), an influential source for modernist writers. Translated Joyce, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Kivi. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/alexmatt.htm
1892 — United States of America: 20,000 black and white workers stage General Strike, New Orleans.
1892 — France: In Paris, anarchist Emile Henry sets a delayed-action bomb to blow up the Carmaux Mining company. The bomb is discovered and taken to the police station at rue des Bons-Enfants where it explodes, killing five police officers. [4] [5] [6] [7]
1896 — United States of America: In Philadelphia(?), Emma Goldman delivers two lectures — before a mass meeting called by a Jewish group to honor the Haymarket Martyrs and to raise money for Alexander Berkman, the second on "Woman's Cause" to the Young Men's Liberal League.
1897 — United States of America: Dorothy Day, pacifist anarchist, Catholic Worker founder, lives. [8] [9] [10]
1900 — Novelist Margaret Mitchell, creator of Scarlett O'Hara, lives, Atlanta, Georgia. 1926 to 1929 she wrote Gone With the Wind, dressing in boys' trousers while writing and combining stories of trials and tribulations of slave owners during the Civil War she heard in childhood with historical material. [11]
1900 — Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiserʼs first novel, published by Doubleday, Page and Co. Worried about the tales immorality and bowing to public pressure, the book is recalled from stores after selling 456 copies. Dreiserʼs royalties: $68.40.
1909 — Gérard Leretour lives, à Houlme (dép. de la Seine-Maritime). Militant anarchiste, et propagandiste pacifiste de l'objection de conscience. [12]
1921 — United States of America: In the Sacco and Vanzetti case, the Ripley motion for a new trial is made. The defendants argued that it was reversible error for the the jury foreman, Ripley, to have had brought into the juryroom 38 caliber cartridges, presumably to show the other jurors what they looked like. The defense also produces an affidavit stating that Ripley had responded to a comment that the defendants might not be guilty by saying, “They ought to hang anyway.†See Heroes and Martyrs: Emma Goldman, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Revolutionary Struggle, an audio CD by Howard Zinn. [13] [14]
1923 — Hitler stages unsuccessful "Beer Hall Putsch" in Munich.
1924 — Australian Dockers strike against overtime, until December 13.
1926 — Italy: Mussolini issues the laws of exceptions. It sets up special tribunals for the "defense" of the state, allowing the arrests and imprisonment of many anarchists without trials.
1929 — United States of America: Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) opens, New York City. [15]
1930 — France: Alexander Berkman, denied renewal of his visa once again, is given 15 days to leave the country; by mid-month he receives another three-month extension. Also during this month, Knopf publishing house postpones publication of Emma Goldmanʼs autobiography until the fall of 1931. Eunice M. Schuster, writing a Masterʼs thesis on anarchism, asks Emma Goldman for information and assistance; Goldman encourages comrades — W. S. Van Valkenburgh, Hippolyte Havel, Max Nettlau, and anarchist publisher Joseph Ishill — to assist Schuster; her thesis is published in 1932 as Native American Anarchism, one of the earliest studies of American anarchism.
1930 — United States of America: Duke Ellington records "Rockin' in Rhythm."
1932 — United States of America: Socialist Norman Thomas wins almost 900,000 votes for President. Later becomes a Central Intelligence Agency informant (during the 1960s).
1933 — King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan, assassinated by Abdul Khallig.
1948 — France: "Le Cause était entendue" (The Case is Closed), declaration signed by Karel Appel, Guillaume Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, Constant Nieuwenhuys and Joseph Noiret in Paris, marks the foundation of the art movement Cobra.
1949 — Italy: Group of anarchists attack the Spanish consulate with grenades in Gènes. Eugenio de Luchhi, Gaetano Busico, and Gaspare Mancuso arrested. [16]
1954 — Author Kazuo Ishiguto lives.
1958 — Outer Space: Third US attempt to send a space probe around the moon fails when the Air Force rocketʼs third stage did not ignite.
1958 — Beatster Jack Kerouac participates in a Brandeis University-sponsored forum called "Is There A Beat Generation?".
1960 — United States of America: Washington state voters refuse to repeal "Alien Land Law" provision of the state constitution barring Asians from owning property.
1965 — Composer Edgard Varèse dies, New York City.
1965 — United States of America: Autobiography of Malcolm X published.
1966 — United States of America: Edward Brooke (Massachusetts) first black elected US Senator in 85 years.
1966 — United States of America: Ronald Reagan elected governor of California. B-movie and TV actor Reagan defeats incumbent Gov. Edmund G. Brown by almost one million votes.
1967 — United States of America: 500 University of Washington, in Seattle, students protest against campus visit by recruiters for Dow Chemical, makers of bathroom detergent, Napalm. [17] [18]
1968 — United States of America: Students at San Francisco State College go on strike. (see November 6).
1972 — United States of America: 'Trail of Broken Treaties' march occupies Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Washington, DC.
1974 — United States of America: (or '75?) In a federal court, charges are dropped against eight Ohio National Guardsmen for killing four antiwar protesters at Kent State University. On May 4, 1970, brave National Guard troops, called in to suppress students rioting in protest of the Vietnam War, killed the Kent State students and injured nine when they fired over 60 rounds into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. One of the killed, Allison Krause, the day before her murder, was reported to have put a flower on a National Guardsmanʼs rifle, saying that "Flowers are better than bullets." skull "Even conceding all the mitigating or extenuating circumstances, the Guardsmen literally appear to have gotten away with murder." Previously undisclosed Federal Bureau of Investigations files reveal that: 1. Federal Bureau of Investigations Director J. Edgar Hoover felt the victims deserved to be shot; 2. Hoover eagerly followed Nixonʼs instructions to "knock down" (that is, discredit) essentially accurate news reports that the shootings were not necessary and that the Guardsmen could be prosecuted; and 3. After Hoover relayed that order, one of his top aides boasted of "scotching" those essentially accurate news reports. [19]
1974 — Lt. William Calley is paroled after serving about three years in "prison" (under house arrest in his apartment) for overseeing the murder of Vietnamese civilians (possibly as high as 500 or more) at My Lai. (see 16 and 29 March).
1975 — Poland: Absenteeism is widespread, accounting for 8-1/2% of all working time. There are frequent descriptions of workers lining up at 7a.m. to buy bottles of vodka instead of going to work. A survey in Wroclaw concluded that absenteeism this year is up 33% and that 2/3 of the absent workers are between 23 and 29 years old. [I.C.O., Poland: 1970-71, Capitalism and Class Struggle, (Detroit: Black and Red, 1977), p117]
1976 — Nicaragua: Carlos Fonseca Amador dies in combat in the forest of Zinica. Leader and principal theoretician of the FSLN. [20]
1978 — Norman Rockwell dies in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at 84.
1984 — England: Stainforth police station is attacked by striking miners. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1987 — Ireland: Eleven die as a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army explodes at Ulster Remembrance Day Service.
1988 — United States of America: George Bush doubles American troop commitment to Persian Gulf two days after being elected. [21]
1993 — United States of America: The California Department of Corrections embarks on a massive construction project by installing an electric fence at the maximum-security prison at Calipatria. Eventually all major prisons in the state are equipped with such fences, which can instantly kill an inmate trying to escape. The Calipatria fence carries 650 milliamperes, more than nine times the lethal current. Prisoner advocates say this constitutes an automatic death sentence, but prison-system chief Warden K.W. Prunty says itʼs no different from a shoot-to-stop policy — only better. Californiaʼs use of electric prison fences follows the example of several other states, including Massachusetts, Indiana and Tennessee.
1999 — United States of America: Exhibition by artist Carlos Cortez. "Carlos Cortez: Last Stand of the Millennium: An Exhibition of Paintings and Woodcut Prints" today through 2000 January 16, Heartland Cafe, Chicago. Self-taught artist, finding the time to take night classes at Layton Art School in Milwaukee. After some 40 years of construction labor, record salesman, bookseller, factory worker and janitor, he no longer has to punch a clock and has entered the most productive phase of his life. [22] [23] [24]
2003 — Netherlands: 5th Annual Dutch Anarchist Bookfair, Cultural Centre Parnassos, Utrecht (near Stadsschouwburg), entrance free.
2004 — Switzerland: Marie-Christine Mikhaïlo (nee Soederhjelm; 1916-2004) dies, age 88, Lausanne. Figure attachante de l'anarchisme suisse et international; responsable du "Centre International de Recherche de l'Anarchisme" (CIRA) de Lausanne.
2007 — United States of America: Eric McDavid begins hunger strike because he was denied medical treatment and all inmates in his jail were denied nutritional vegan meals.
2007 — Canada: Hushmail, an anonymous e-mail service, allows Federal Bureau of Investigations the access to the clear-text versions of messages. [25]
