More items will be posted here in coming weeks, or I might just post notices more often.
The previous calendar is at: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/10/some-events-and-anniversaries-in-fall.html and the one from a year ago is at: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2022/11/events-and-anniversaries-around-years.html
Watch for salamanders, some of which could be crossing roads at night to breed in fall and winter, for example rare (?) spotted salamanders, large black salamanders with bright yellow spots breed in the winter at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, and "leave the leaves." The Audubon Society recommends leaving outside lights off September 10 – November 30 and March 15 – May 30 for night migrating birds, though moths and other nocturnal animals would benefit from darker skies over much of the year: nc.audubon.org/conservation/lights-out-north-carolina? I think I just heard that vehicle-wildlife collisions are high in October and November, allegedly due to deer season breeding, and the 'authorities' (the NC WRC) say that it is safer to hit the deer – not for the deer, but the DOT doesn't seem to care about roadkill and suburban sprawl seems to encourage deer population growth, at least to a point.
Petition against solitary confinement in NC: disabilityrightsnc.org/news/drnc-newsfeed/endsolitarync-petition/
There is enough housing stock, but real estate interests are lobbying for tax money and the weakening of laws, to fix a manufactured "free market" crisis: www.commondreams.org/opinion/affordable-housing-crisis
www.readthemaple.com/a-list-of-some-people-in-canada-fired-for-pro-palestine-views/
informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/11/19/what-really-happened-on-october-7/
informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/11/20/israels-war-on-american-student-activists/
Ukrainian agency: newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/free-agents
The translated letter that allegedly went viral ('with the youth,' on TikTok?) and was then removed from The Guardian's website November 15, 2023, after about 21 years: counterinformation.wordpress.com/2023/11/18/full-text-bin-ladens-letter-to-america-2/ , from Information Clearing House.
Jill Stein 2024 Green presidential candidacy announcement November 9th: twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1722656370854355132
newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/wild-city?pc=1558
mronline.org/2023/11/17/everyone-is-hitler-when-it-suits-just-not-western-leaders/?
mronline.org/2023/11/11/republicans-and-democrats-unite-to-push-for-assanges-freedom/
Recent Palestine solidarity protests in the Triangle:
indyweek.com/news/wake/this-week-thousands-of-demonstrators-turned-out-in-raleigh-to-demand-a-ceasefire/
indyweek.com/news/durham/durham-protesters-block-traffic-during-demonstration-in-support-of-palestine/
Four warrants in Durham: m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02WtjtaS2MckcTsdiVfoboqHesrrUqaNmhvd61ECHWw5Af9BY3fg1Pc7748gUzReUCl&id=100064467228829&mibextid=cr9u03&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Demonstrators+in+Raleigh%2C+Durham%2C+Call+for+a+Ceasefire+%2A+Some+Residents+in+Holly+Springs+and+Fuquay-Varina+Hope+to+Elect+More+Progressive+Town+Leaders+%2A+Chapel+Hill+Candidates+Work+for+Every+Vote+Ahead+of+Election+Day&utm_campaign=Daily+-+11+6+23
About 300,000 people are supposed to have demonstrated in Washington, DC, which must be one of the largest anti-war demonstrations in DC in recent decades, and there were others on the West Coast ad abroad. Maybe I missed previous coverage, but NPR not only mentioned the demonstrations all day and days afterward, something unheard of regarding US anti-war demonstrations, but played clips. They don't cover domestic grassroots opposition to the proxy war in Ukraine, period, and I don't recall any coverage of the anti-war movement during the "War on Terror." Here, there are "isolationists," cast as right or far-right, while there is supposedly a Russian "anti-war" movement and even an armed struggle there (with any ties to the US and EU?). Non-pacifism and conspiracy theories are usually condemned here, and in occupied Palestine, but are great for Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, etc. Going forward: – www.shutitdown4palestine.org/ November 9th, 24th, December 8th, etc.
November 4th photos from around the world: cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5318.HTM
newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/imperial-designs?pc=1553
newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/humans-and-trees
www.cpbml.org.uk/news/1217-charter-forest
Might be interesting, on reintroducing or rewilding glowworms in the UK: www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67240450
I'm amazed, but according to the November-December issue of Wildlife in North Carolina magazine (Meet Your New Neighbor) nine-banded armadillos were reported 2-5 times in Durham County 2007 to 2022, once in Orange and Chatham counties, 11-30 times in Wake County and in the Charlotte area, and 31-134 times up in the mountainous southwestern corner of the State, of all places, while being rare in the seemingly congenial Coastal Plain, and are established residents in Tennessee and South Carolina. I don't think I realized that they were even present in NC. Wikipedia claims that armadillos have reached southern Colorado, Nebraska, and Indiana, and could live as far north as Ohio and Connecticut, and in November 2009 NC considered creating a hunting season for armadillos. Their range includes most of Latin America.
More regarding the war in Palestine and solidarity with the Palestinians:
www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/solidarity-with-palestine-free-resources-and-further-reading?
rootsaction.org/cosponsor-ceasefire-resolution
Harvard University open letter seeking co-signers: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqQ58vp2g9TvZk1GN6mefZ7M5x_QLw2uROIwOYU21zKkFVzg/viewform?pli=1
sign.moveon.org/petitions/president-joe-biden-call-for-a-ceasefire-an-end-to-forced-evictions-of-palestinians?
www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/take-action/
Durham Revolutionary Study Group – a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group; see Instagram; I saw flyers for this group and the next two at libraries.
Triangle Stop Cop City – online somewhere – Instagram?
stoporangegrovedump.com – west of Carrboro
EVENTS
Venus and the relatively bright star Spica in Virgo the Virgin appeared fewer than 4 1/2 degrees apart in the east the morning of November 29th and will remain close into December.
The Manhattanhenge effect in New York City was November 30th.
The weak Southern Taurids meteor shower will be visible September 28 – December 2, peaking November 4 – 5 and the Northern Taurids October 13 – December 2, peaking November 11 – 12; the Leonids November 3 – December 2, peaking November 17 – 18, maybe with a storm in 2099; the Geminids November 19 – December 24, peaking December 13 – 14; the Ursids December 13 – 24, peaking December 21 – 22; and the Quadrantids December 26 – January 16, peaking January 3 – 4: amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/
COP28 November 30 – December 12 in Dubai, UAE run by an oil industry official : www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/15/global-warming-did-the-unthinkable/
The NCBG's 35th annual Sculpture in the Garden will end December 3rd: ncbg.unc.edu/event/sig-2023/
The 31st annual Chatham Artists Guild Studio Tour, featuring 56 artists, will be December 2-3 and 9-10: chathamartistsguild.org/studio-tour/
The 31st annual Boylan Heights ArtWalk will be December 3rd 12-5pm in Raleigh: www.boylanheights.org/art-walk
The Durham City Council Swearing-in Ceremony will be Monday, December 4th at 7pm at City Hall, with a meet and greet at 6pm and a regular Council meeting after the swearing-in. The meeting will be broadcast on YouTube, Facebook, X/Twitter, the City's website, the Durham Television Network (channel 70 on Frontier and channel 99 on AT and T's U-verse), and on Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV, using the free Boxcast app. New mayor Leonardo Williams and Council members Nate Baker, Javiera Caballero (re-elected), and Carl Rist will be sworn in: www.durhamnc.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=3542
Photo from the Guantanamo prison international day of action October 4th: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2023/10/07/photos-and-report-the-coordinated-global-vigils-for-the-closure-of-guantanamo-on-october-4-2023/ There will be another day of action around Wednesday, December 6th (the prison's 8000th day) in Washington, New York City, Cobleskill (New York), Detroit, LA, San Francisco, Mexico City, London, etc and apparently every month.
www.shutitdown4palestine.org/ December 8th, etc.
Ichibancon 14 will be January 4 – 7 and 11 – 14 in Concord, NC: ichibancon.com/
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace's annual Close Guantanamo Now rally will be Thursday, January 11th 12:30-1:30pm at the Downtown Los Angeles Federal Building, at 300 North Los Angeles Street in LA, California.
Democratic Party presidential primaries January 23rd in NH, February 3rd in SC, February 6th in NV, February 27th in MI; March 5th Super Tuesday includes NC and many others, and the process ends June 8th: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
The Republican Party presidential primaries are somewhat different: January 15th Iowa caucus, January 23rd NH primary, February 8th NV and Virgin Islands caucuses, February 24th SC, February 27th MI primary, March 2-4, etc; March 5th Super Tuesday includes NC, and the process ends June 4th: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries
Kami-Con will be February 9 – 11 in Birmingham, Alabama: www.kamicon.net/star
Katsucon 2024 February 16 – 18 in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, DC: www.katsucon.org/
Banzaicon will be March 8 – 10 in Columbia, South Carolina
The annual Triad Anime Con will be March 29 – 31 in Winston-Salem, NC
Signs of the Times protest exhibit at the NC Museum of History until March 31st: www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/signs-times
LIBRARY BOOKSALES:
The Friends of the Durham Library's Books Among Friends has a new location, in the Shoppes of Hope Valley, 3825 South Roxboro Road, #131, zipcode 27713. There are satellite sales at each library. For more information and the Friends membership form, see: fodlnc.org/book-sales/ Their online store is at: shopfodlnc.org There will be an in-person sale December 1-2.
The Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library has an online store at: friendschpl.org/online-book-store and there will be in-person sales December 1 – 3 and April 12 – 14, August 23 – 25, and December 6 – 8 in 2024: friendschpl.org/FCHPLevents
The Friends of the Chatham County Library will have an in-person sale April 11 – 13 in 2024: www.friendsccl.org/ and they now have an online store, at: friendsccl.org/Store
The Friends of the Lee County Libraries has sales at open libraries: library.leecountync.gov/friends
There is supposed to be a sale every Monday 2-4pm at the Warren County Memorial Library: www.wcmlibrary.org/friends-of-the-library-book-sale/
Granville County: granville.lib.nc.us/friends-of-the-library/ and www.facebook.com/FriendsOfTheGranvillePublicLibrarySystem/
Person County: www.personcountync.gov/departments-services/departments-i-z/library/friends-of-the-library-1603
Vance: www.facebook.com/friendsperrymemoriallibrary/
Moore County: www.facebook.com/moorecountylibrary/
Caswell: www.caswellcountync.gov/blog/categories/library-programs
Alamance County: www.facebook.com/AlamanceLibraries , www.alamance-nc.com/library
The Friends of the High Point Library: www.highpointnc.gov/927/Friends and www.facebook.com/HighPointPublicLibrary/
Forsyth: www.facebook.com/groups/105298719513537 , www.forsyth.cc/library/ www.facebook.com/FCPublicLibrary , www.facebook.com/GSOLibrary , library.greensboro-nc.gov
See also Book Sale Finder: www.booksalefinder.com/NC.html
CALENDAR
Vietnamese revolutionary Võ Nguyên Giáp August 25, 1911 – October 4, 2013.
Vietnamese revolutionary Lê Đức Thọ (Phan Đình Khải ) October 14, 1911 – October 13, 1990.
Former Chinese premier (2013 – 2023) Li Keqiang was born July 3, 1955 in Hefei, Anhui Province and passed away October 27, 2023; the "West" might have preferred him to General Secretary Xi Jinping, though none of them seem very communist; I think the BBC, etc noted "conspiracy theories" about Li's death. The current premier is Xi ally Li Qiang, in the "New Zhijiang Army" or Xi faction of the CPC.
November is Native American Heritage Month.
The Taliban offered to surrender very early in the Afghanistan War, according to an article I saw at the end of the war in 2021. Unfortunately I don't remember where the article was; here is a New York Times article discussing a surrender offer as early as November 2001: www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/world/middleeast/afghanistan-taliban-deal-united-states.html Also: www.consortiumnews.com/2011/020811b.html Whether there really was a genuine offer of full surrender, the Taliban faced armed opposition and did not control all of Afghanistan at the beginning of October 2001, but now they are the national government, well-armed, and apparently have at least some support among non-Pashtuns and even among the Hazara ethnic group, who they formerly and are apparently still persecuting. The US and other countries are withholding aid, after destroying Afghanistan's economy and making it dependent on foreign aid over 40 years of war, hammering the Afghan population for leverage against the Taliban, like the hammering of the populations of Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and 90's Iraq.
Pontiac's war against the British colonies destroyed all but two forts west of Niagara from May 7th to November 1763: This Country Was Ours: A Documentary History of the American Indian, by Virgil J Vogel, 1974.
Italian pilot Giulio Gavotti carried out the first known aerial bombardment using an airplane November 1, 1911, bombing two Ottoman Turkish bases in Libya during the short Italo-Turkish War a few years before WWI. Apparently the Ottomans argued that this was illegal under the Hague Convention of 1899, which banned bombardment by balloon. Balloons had been used for reconnaissance during the wars following the French Revolution and in the US Civil War, while Germany used giant zeppelins to bomb the UK during WWI. In the decades leading up to WWI there were reports of mystery airships around the world.
The war for Algerian independence from France began November 1, 1954 and lasted until March 19, 1962. The Battle of Algiers is a well-known film on the national liberation war, banned in France for years.
Minor planet/comet 2060 Chiron, a centaur asteroid or object, possibly ringed, was identified November 1, 1977, in October 18th photos, and appears, unrecognized, in photos taken in 1895.
November 1st is World Vegan Day.
November 1, 1991 Yeltsin was given the power to issue decrees regarding the economy even if they violated the law.
Very bright Jupiter reached opposition November 3rd at 1am EDT in the relatively small and dim constellation Aries the Ram, above asteroid 21 Lutetia, also at opposition, but requiring a telescope to see. Asteroid Melpomene reached opposition on the 5th at 10pm EST. Now relatively dim Saturn was "stationary" on November 4th, technically at 1pm EDT.
A supernova in Cassiopeia in our galaxy was seen from about November 2, 1572 into 1574 and peaked around November 16th; it is sometimes called Tycho's Supernova.
November 2, 1917, during WWI, the UK issued the Balfour Declaration, promising support for Zionist goals in Palestine, at the time part of the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central powers. Syndicalist French writer Georges Sorel was born November 2, 1847 in Cherbourg, France. I thought that I had checked this, but apparently Sorel's birth date is November 2nd, not the 3rd. His most influential work is probably Reflections on Violence, published in 1908. He passed away August 29, 1922. See: archive.org/details/cu31924030088102/page/n43/mode/2up?view=theater , archive.org/details/laphilosophiesyn00guyguoft/page/6/mode/2up?view=theater (in French), en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Sorel , and www.marxists.org/archive/sorel/1908/dreyfus-revolution.htm
November 3rd is Culture Day ( 文化の日 , Bunka no Hi) in Japan, celebrating the arts, culture, and scholarship; the Apollo 11 astronauts are among the recipients of the Order of Culture presented on this day. The post-war Japanese constitution, which the ruling rightist Liberal Democratic Party wants to amend, was announced November 3, 1946. November 3rd had already been a holiday, commemorating the birth of Emperor Meiji, who ruled 1867-1912, during the Meiji Revolution or Restoration that created modern capitalist/imperialist Japan.
The Election Massacre or Coup of 1874 was November 3rd in Eufaula and elsewhere in Barbour County, Alabama.
The USSR launched Sputnik 2 November 3, 1957.
The Greensboro Massacre was November 3, 1979. KKK and American Nazi Party members fired on a "Death to the Klan" demonstration organized by the now disbanded Communist Workers' Party, killing 5 people and wounding others. Some police were present and the local police and Federal agencies had infiltrated the KKK and neo-Nazi groups. For more information see: www.greensboromassacrelessonstoday.org/
The USSR intervened in Hungary November 4, 1956
The BIA office in Washington, DC was occupied by the Trail of Broken Treaties march or movement November 4-8, 1972.
British working class democratic reformer Thomas Hardy (not the famous author) was acquitted of High Treason on Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th) 1794, but at a high personal cost. Subsequently the other arrested radicals were also acquitted or prosecution was dropped. Who could vote or otherwise participate in British bourgeois democracy was very restricted until well into the 20th century. For more information see an article in Monthly Review: monthlyreview.org/2019/11/01/the-trial-of-thomas-hardy/ and Thomas Hardy's Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy_(political_reformer)
Eugene V Debs, a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, was born November 5, 1855. He was imprisoned for advocating draft resistance during WWI, and sentenced to a decade in prison and loss of suffrage November 18, 1918, but ran for president again in 1920, from a Federal prison in Atlanta. President Harding commuted his sentence in 1921 and he died in 1926.
Daylight Saving Time ended early on Sunday, November 5th in the USA, Canada, parts of Mexico, and in other neighboring countries, and earlier in the UK and many European countries. The Federal government seems to control US time standards, but local governments can opt out, though few do so, despite regular complaints.
Travis Walton is supposed to have been abducted by a UFO November 5, 1975 near Snowflake, Arizona, and was missing for a few days.
According to Wikipedia French Catalonia's national day is November 7th while Spanish Catalonia's is September 11th.
The Battle of Tippecanoe in what is now Indiana was November 7, 1811. Indiana became the 19th state December 11, 1816.
November 7th is the 106th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in the former Russian Empire in 1917.
The Chinese Soviet Republic was founded November 7, 1931, but was dissolved September 22, 1937.
The unarmed Green March from Morocco into Western Sahara, at the time a Spanish colony, Spanish Sahara, now held by Morocco, was around November 7, 1975
The NATO military exercise Able Archer 83, held November 7 - 11, 1983 and simulating a conventional war becoming nuclear (Ukraine or Taiwan soon?), might have brought the world close to a real world war during the tense early 80's. An Able Archer used to be held every year.
Hernan Cortés and part of his Spanish and allied Indian army were met by emperor Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin or Moctezuma II on a causeway and peacefully entered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan around November 8, 1519. They were chased out and came close to total defeat in La Noche Triste in the summer of 1520.
The Communist Party of Albania (later renamed the Party of Labor of Albania) was founded November 8, 1941 through a merger of groups. At the time Albania was occupied by Fascist Italy.
Old Bolshevik Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov passed away November 8, 1986.
Halley's Comet is supposed to have been spotted with unaided eyes for the first time, on its mid-80's approach to the inner Solar System, by Stephen Edberg, coordinating grassroots observations for JPL, and Charles Morris, November 8, 1985.
At 1:15am on November 9, 2015 liberal Russian performance artist Petr/Pyotr Andreyevich Pavlensky, burned a door at Moscow's Lubyanka and was arrested about 30 seconds later; the act was called "Threat." He spent weeks in a mental health facility and 7 months in jail before being tried and convicted of vandalism June 8, 2016. Pavlensky refused to pay the 500,000 ruble fine, as he would refuse to pay the fine for "Lightning," committed October 16, 2017 in Paris, where he had been granted asylum earlier that year. Apparently a August 13, 2016 speech in Odessa, Ukraine resulted in a fight with Ukrainian journalist and screenwriter Vladimir Nestrenko, who was drunk. Of the two members of security who intervened, one was stabbed and the other died of a heart attack afterward. November 10, 2013, Day of the Police / Police and Internal Affairs Servicemen's Day at the time (commemorating the formation of a Soviet militia on that day in 1917, begun in 1962 and a holiday in October 1980? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_and_Internal_Affairs_Servicemen%27s_Day and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Day ), Pavlensky, nude, nailed himself by the scrotum to Moscow's Red Square in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, calling the act "Fixation." This is apparently a relatively common act by prisoners in Russia - www.newsru.com/russia/10nov2013/pavlensky.html , and easier than cutting one's self open or self-immolation in protest. See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Pavlensky
There was a city-level coup in Wilmington, NC November 10, 1898 against the Fusion Party, a joint effort of the NC Republican and Populist parties.
[Bolivian president Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959) was forced to resign November 10, 2019. Pro-Morales demonstrators were killed in the Sacaba Massacre November 15th and the Senkata Massacre November 19th, etc.]
November 11 is Armistice Day, marking the truce that (more or less) ended World War I in 1918. In the USA Armistice Day has became the more pro-war Veterans Day. The 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada.
Business interests and the local American Legion attacked an IWW hall in Centralia, Washington November 11, 1919, using an Armistice Day parade as cover, resulting in several deaths on each side. Wesley Everest, a logger and International Workers of the World member, was taken from jail and lynched later that day. Only the IWW and supporters were prosecuted and convicted of crimes. Other attacks preceded the events of Armistice Day, including an attack on an IWW hall during a Red Cross parade April 30, 1918. For a more detailed account see:
www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/11/class-war-violence-centralia-1919/ The US left was heavily repressed, by legal and illegal means, at the time, for example see:
www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/07/what-you-dont-have-and-why/ , though organizing continued and the CPUSA was powerful in the 30's, and the anti-war and other popu
lar movements were inf
luential during the Cold War.
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was born November 11, 1945 in La Libertad.
November 11, 1975 Governor-General Sir John Kerr, representing Queen Elizabeth II, removed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party, and installed a member of the Liberal Party. There were allegations of US involvement, allegedly to prevent the Labor Party from closing US military bases in Australia.
Sun Yat-sen, a founder of the Republic of China, created by the Revolution of 1911, was born November 12, 1866. He passed away March 12, 1925.
Silo Pruning Hooks
November 12, 1984 four people entered a Minuteman II ICBM silo operated out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Missouri. Using a jackhammer and air compressor, they damaged the silo's lid, offered Eucharist and left Christian and Native American condemnations of the US government and mainstream Christianity over nuclear war. An hour later they were arrested by military security authorized to kill and were held in preventive detention without bail. In a Federal jury trial they were convicted of destruction of government property, conspiracy, intent to damage the national defense, and trespass. They were sentenced to 8 to 18 years in jail, 3 to 5 years of probation, and each had to pay the government $2932.80. A few months later the 18 year sentence was reduced to 12 years, but when the others appealed they were denied.
Indonesian soldiers killed hundreds of supporters of East Timorese independence in the Santa Cruz or Dili Massacre, November 12, 1991. A citizen of New Zealand was also killed. The events were witnessed by American journalists Amy Goodman (now host of Democracy Now!) and Allan Nairn, who were attacked by soldiers while acting as human shields, fracturing Nairn's skull. Max Stahl secretly recorded the massacre, and Australia went as far as strip-searching the camera crew to seize the footage, but failed to prevent its release.
Uranus reached opposition on November 13th, technically at noon, midway between Jupiter and the Pleiades. The Moon was new and dark at 4:27am. It was near full and close to Uranus on the night of the 24th. Venus and the thin waning Moon were close, in Virgo, on November 9th. Apparently there might be a rare bright comet in October 2024, but time will tell.
Kabul was captured from the Taliban November 13-14, 2001, during the US invasion of Afghanistan.
American civilian pilot Eugene Burton Ely carried out the first takeoff from a ship, the USS Birmingham, November 14, 1910. He also carried out the first landing on a ship, the USS Pennsylvania, January 18, 1911. Ely wanted to join the US Navy, but it didn't have an air corps at the time and then he was killed in a crash October 19, 1911 in Macon, Georgia, just prior to his 25th birthday. This paved the way for naval aviation and aircraft carriers, which had a role in WWI but were more important in WWII. It has been argued that aircraft carriers are much less decisive today, for example China probably has the capability to sink US carriers at a distance, though China is also building aircraft carriers. Aircraft have also been launched from other ship types, such as battleships, if I'm not mistaken including the USS North Carolina, now on display in Wilmington, and even submarines during WWII.
The German air force bombed the city of Coventry, England, UK multiple times during WWII, but the largest and most damaging air raid was the night of November 14 - 15th in 1940. 515 Luftwaffe bombers, using both explosive and incendiary bombs, virtually destroyed the downtown area and its medieval buildings, destroyed thousands of homes, and damaged 2/3rds of the city's buildings, as well as killing about 568 people and wounding many more. Some have suggested that the UK knew the attack was coming but did not give a warning so that the German military would not find out that its encryption had been broken. Coventry had military value because of its industries, but it also might have been targeted for its cultural value, as revenge for the bombing of Munich a few days earlier. The British used the attack as a pretext to start indiscriminately bombing or firebombing German cities, and later the US Air Force developed these techniques further, culminating in attacks such as the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 and the devastation of an entire city with a single nuclear bomb.
Plowshares Number Four
November 14, 1982 seven people entered the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. Three hammered and put blood on several of the USS Georgia submarine's ICBM hatches. Four others hammered and put blood on parts in the south storage yard. They were soon placed under arrest. In a jury trial they were not able to make a justification defense and were convicted of criminal mischief, conspiracy, and criminal trespass, and sentenced to two months to a year in prison.
Japan's traditional coming of age festival 7-5-3 or Shichi-Go-San is on or around November 15th.
The relatively famous Point Pleasant, West Virginia Mothman, reported around November 15, 1966 to December 15, 1967 [etc.], when the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River.
Buran (Russian for snowstorm or blizzard), the USSR's answer to the US Space Shuttle program, first orbited the Earth November 15, 1988, without a crew, and was the first spaceplane to fly without a crew and then land without human control. The destruction of the USSR ended funding for the Buran program and the only existing orbiter was destroyed in a hangar collapse May 12, 2002. Buran's carrier, the An-225 Mriya, first flew December 21, 1988 and was lost in the Ukraine War, February 27, 2022 (?). The Space Shuttle program lasted longer but was found to have drawbacks, so the shuttles now sit in museums and have been replaced by more conventional rockets. For years American astronauts could only reach space riding Russian rockets launched from Kazakhstan, and now they take corporate rockets.
The Arecibo Message was beamed towards globular star cluster M13, about 125,000 light years away, on November 16, 1974. A reciprocal crop circle was found near the southern coast of the UK in August 2001.
US anti-war organization CODEPINK was founded November 17, 2002.
The French Yellow Vest protest movement (Mouvement des gilets jaunes) began November 17, 2018.
November 18, 2023 is supposed to be something like Missile Industry Day in DPR Korea, according to NPR, around November 4th or 5th.
Jay's Treaty was November 19, 1794.
Russian revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin was born November 19, 1875 and was head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the entire USSR and a member of the CPSU's Politburo. The Baltic port city of Kӧnigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad after his death June 3, 1946. The city and its surrounding territory was formerly in East Prussia, seized from Germany in WWII, and is now a Russian enclave encircled by NATO and EU states.
November 20th is Mexico's Revolution Day (Día de la Revolución), a national holiday marking the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.
The Indians of All Tribes occupied Alcatraz Island November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971.
North Carolina ratified the US Constitution November 21, 1789, to become the 12th state to join the Union.
A heavy fall of angel hair reported November 21, 1898 in Montgomery, Alabama, some in pieces of several square inches; the Montgomery Advertiser compared it to asbestos, with luminescence: Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States, by Jim Brandon, 1978.
The Nepalese Civil War ended November 21, 2006 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord between the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
DPR Korea launched its first reconnaissance satellite, Malligyong-1 (Telescope-1) November 21, 2023; this was apparently the first successful launch of the DPRK's Chollima-1 rocket after previous attempts May 30th and August 23rd in 2023; I think the US government alleges that there was Russian assistance.
Old Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich was born November 22, 1893 in what is now northern Ukraine and came from a Jewish family. He served in various capacities in the Soviet government, including work on the Moscow Metro, membership in the Politburo, etc., but was sidelined under Khrushchev and passed away July 25, 1991.
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963 in Dallas.
The Modoc Indian War in Oregon and California was November 22, 1872 to October 3, 1873.
The Libra the Scales or Balance astrological period is traditionally around September 23 – October 23, following Virgo the Virgin. October 24 – November 22 the Sun is supposed to be further east, in the sign Scorpio the Scorpion, the constellation Scorpius, and November 23 – December 21 is Sagittarius the Archer, a centaur. Due to a motion of the Earth's axis, precession, and perhaps because the boundaries of the constellations have been redrawn or reimagined over time, the Sun is actually 'in' Libra around November 1 – 23, in Scorpius November 23 – 30, in Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer November 30 – December 18, in Sagittarius December 19 – January 19, etc.: Skyguide by Mark R Chartrand III and the relevant Audubon guide. Planets can enter the sea monster Cetus, another non-traditional member of the Western zodiac, further east than the above constellations and up much of the night now. Ceres was discovered in Triangulum, near Aries.
Scorpius hasn't always been imagined as a scorpion in the Western astronomical tradition, though it has apparently been seen as a scorpion for a very long time, and was a scorpion to the ancient Maya. Under the Romans Scorpius' claws were separated out as the big, relatively dim diamond of Libra, and held the Northern Hemisphere's fall equinox, the spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, around September 21st every year, but now out of Libra. Some of the brightest stars of Libra still bear their arthropod names, from Arabic: Zubenelgenubi, "the southern claw of the scorpion;" Zubeneschemali, "the northern claw of the scorpion;" and Zubenelakrab, the "scorpion's claw."
Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day or Kinrou Kansha no Hi based on the old Niiname-sai harvest festival, is November 23rd, or on the following day if the 23rd is a Sunday; International Workers' Day/May 1st is also a prominent in Japan.
The modern US Thanksgiving holiday began under President Lincoln November 26, 1863 (the last Thursday that November, November 23rd in 2023 and the 28th in 2024), during the Civil War, though there had been previous thanksgiving days around that time. It has also been called the National Day of Mourning and Unthanksgiving Day because of the associations with colonialism. Thanksgiving eclipsed Evacuation Day, commemorating the November 25, 1783 evacuation of the last of the defeated British army, through New York City. Thanksgiving is followed by the unofficial Black Friday commercial holiday (also Native American Heritage Day since 2008), or Buy Nothing Day. There is also Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday to continue the spending/donation.
Early that relatively mild, clear, and moonless morning I went out to gather persimmons, and live, water, Spanish, sawtooth, and other oak acorns (why not?), some litter, etc, and to look for pears (it was too late). I was surprised that some other people were up or outside, as were a rabbit, four deer, a barred owl or two, and Canada geese and other waterbirds were carrying on loudly. I also went stargazing at a location with a relatively good view down towards the southern horizon. Below Canis Major the Great Dog, Orion the Hunter, and Lepus the Hare, or rabbit, I was thrilled to clearly see Columba the Dove, and parts of the great ship Argo – Puppis and Vela the Sail (and Pyxis the Compass was probably visible, but dim, and is an anachronism). A light in the far off treetops was probably a very distant aircraft, but I think I was able to see down to tau Puppis, just below 50 degrees south latitude and tantalizingly close to still hidden Canopus, the second brightest star in the night sky and far to the south. [Canopus and tau Puppis are about 4.3 degrees apart; if you hold your arm out, a fist is supposed to measure about 10 degrees through the knuckles, and the tip of an index finger is supposed to measure about 2 degrees. According to the Audubon Field Guide to the Night Sky Canopus is in theory visible south of latitude 38 degrees north, and Durham is around latitude 35, though the sky near the horizon is usually obscured by trees, buildings, and lights. On the other hand, looking east across the the Atlantic Ocean from Hatteras Island one summer evening it still seemed like stars weren't visible near the horizon, but maybe I didn't give my eyes enough time to adjust to the night or there was haziness.] I considered taking a trip towards the Gulf Coast in part to look for Canopus, in Carina the Keel. I need to try again in different places here, and I thought of seeing how far I can see down the river Eridanus from Orion's foot. Some of the brighter stars in the south on the 23rd: Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky), Wezen, Phakt, Wezn or Wazn, Naos, Suhail [several stars in this area, including Canopus, have been called Suhail... in Arabic, and star names have often been shortened and mangled in transcription], and Regor. Jupiter was in the west, near Cetus, Aries, Triangulum, and Taurus, and the Big Dipper stood up in the northeast, and Leo was up. I need to look for Hydra and Cancer nearby sometime. Earlier in November, on a Sunday at dawn, I went out for persimmons and two hawks were lit by the reddish early morning sunlight in dead (?) branches at the top of a mostly bare sycamore.
The family cat had multiple serious health problems and I was afraid that she was going to die while in my care a few months ago, maybe on the anniversary of the previous death of a cat in the family. She survived the summer, but died on Black Friday and was buried on Saturday. For various reasons I keep expecting her to be around, and I hadn't seen her much before the 24th.
I've been seeing other neighborhood cats and now a large opossum has been visiting a nearby persimmon more often and blackbirds, robins, hawks, singing white-throated sparrows, etc have been around. I was surprised to find a kind of cute looking small black trapdoor spider on about the 29th; I had previously known them only from around Falls Lake. They could be a source of angel hair.
Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was born November 23 or 24 in what is now Poltava, Ukraine. He was appointed as the USSR's ambassador to Spain but passed away December 26, 1933 in France. In 1932 he represented the USSR at the League of Nations.
Eclipses
Griffiss Plowshares
November 24, 1983 (Thanksgiving Day) seven people entered Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York and proceeded to hammer and put blood on a B-52 bomber modified to carry cruise missiles and on some B-52 engines. They left a statement condemning Griffiss and the US government for nuclear war preparation and condemned the violation of constitutional rights and punishment of acts of conscience under what they called the state religion of "nuclearism." No one came to arrest them for hours, so they searched for the guards themselves. This was the first Federal trial of Plowshares activists. A justification defense and expert testimony were barred. The jury found them innocent of sabotage but convicted them of conspiracy and destruction of government property, with prison sentences of two to three years and an appeal was denied. This account and the others in this post come from Swords Into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, edited by Arthur J Laffin and Anne Montgomery, and published in 1987. There have been more recent actions.
November 24, 2015 a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M that had allegedly briefly crossed over Turkish airspace from Syria, the first time a Russian or Soviet aircraft had been destroyed by a NATO country's military since the Korean War (in 1953). There are conflicting accounts of whether the Su-24 entered Turkey, where it was fired upon, and whether the F-16 entered Syria, but the Su-24 crashed in Syria, which had invited the Russian military's presence, unlike the US and Turkish forces occupying parts of Syria. The two Russians personnel onboard ejected, but the pilot was hit by Syrian rebel gunfire before landing and killed, a violation of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention. According to the Wikipedia article the rebels might have been Turkmen and Turks led by a Turkish citizen and member of the Grey Wolves. Later a Russian helicopter looking for the crew was forced to land due to rebel gunfire and a naval infantryman was killed.
Japanese writer and rightist Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka) committed seppuku (hara-kiri) at the Camp Ichigaya military base in Tokyo November 25, 1970.
Fidel Castro, retired at the time, passed away November 25, 2016, having outlasted the many US administrations that tried to assassinate him or overturn the Cuban revolution. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) posted a tribute for the 5th anniversary: cpcml.ca/211124-fidel-will-always-be-a-shining-example-of-humanity/
The Battle of the Washita, against the Cheyenne, was November 27, 1868.
Artist and music collector Harry Everett Smith, known for compiling the Anthology of American Folk Music, released August 9, 1952, passed away November 27, 1991 in New York City: americanroutes.wwno.org/archives/show/1341/Who-was-Harry-Smith-The-Great-Delineator-and-his-Anthology-of-American-Folk-Music and folkways.si.edu/anthology-of-american-folk-music/african-american-music-blues-old-time/music/album/smithsonian
French structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss November 28, 1908 – October 30, 2009
Albania has two national days, November 28, 1912, when Albania gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, and November 29, 1944, when Albanian partisans drove out the German occupiers. Subsequently the Albanians were unique in liberating their own country and then helping to liberate neighboring Yugoslavia. For a British account of the Albanian independence days as marked in 2021 in Gjirokaster, in southern Albania, Enver Hoxha's hometown, see: michaelharrison.org.uk/2021/12/independence-day-29th-november-2021-in-gjirokaster/
The Natchez and other indigenous groups rebelled against French colonialism in the lower Mississippi Valley, starting November 29, 1729. Other indigenous nations fought on the side of the French. The governor feared that a wider Indian and possibly slave rebellion was planned, so he ordered a force of African slaves to massacre the peaceful Chaouacha tribe living near New Orleans, for which he was apparently criticized at the time. Ultimately the Natchez were driven out of their homeland or enslaved by the French, but still exist as a people. Complex Natchez society is supposed to have been the only example of the Mississippian culture to continue into historic times.
Russian Marxist
Georgi Plekhanov was born November 29, 1856 and was upheld as a founder of the Russian Marxist movement, but was an opponent of the Bolsheviks. For more information see
marxists.org, etc.In the
Sand Creek Massacre, starting November 29, 1864, Federal soldiers attacked peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians camped along Big Sandy Creek in what is now Colorado
(where the government had requested that they gather, displaying a US flag and a white flag), killing about 230 Indians, predominantly women, children, and elders, as well as committing torture and mutilation, before leaving the area December 1st. Some soldiers refused to attack the village, but the perpetrators received little punishment and no criminal prosecution (from
Wikipedia as well as
www.nps.gov/sand/learn/historyculture/index.htm ).
The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was declared November 29, 1945, and the 29th was the country's national day until 2002; the name was changed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963, becoming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or Serbia and Montenegro February 4, 2003, and in June 2006 Montenegro and Serbia separated and the idea of a South Slavic union ended.
Venus and the star Spica in Virgo appeared less than 4 1/2 degrees apart in the east the morning of November 29th and will remain close into December.
Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and accused war criminal Henry Alfred Kissinger (Heinz Alfred Kissinger) passed away November 29, 2023. He was born May 27, 1923 in the German city of Fürth, in northern Bavaria.
The Manhattanhenge effect in New York City was November 30th.
Mark Twain (Samuel L Clemens), acclaimed author as well as vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri.
The Winter War between the USSR and Finland began November 30, 1939.
November 30, 1954, around 12:46pm CST/18:46 UT, the 8.5 pound Sylacauga or Hodges meteorite broke through the roof, bounced off of a radio, and hit Ann Elizabeth Fowler (Hewlett/Huelitt) Hodges (February 2, 1920 – September 10, 1972), who was sleeping, on the left side, in the Sylacauga or Oak Grove area of Talladega County in northeast central Alabama. The police and fire department were called and Mrs Hodges went to a hospital the next day over stress and her life was apparently changed for the worse by this unusual event. This ordinary H4 group chrondite meteor had been seen as a fireball over three states and an explosion was reported. Reportedly it might have come from the asteroid 1685 Toro as it moved away from the Sun. Officials from Maxwell Air Force Base took possession of the meteorite, but it was eventually returned. Then there was an ownership lawsuit with the owner of the Hodges' house. The mayor wanted to put the meteorite in the Alabama Museum of Natural History, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and there were large offers for it, but it ended up being sold to the Museum for $25. In 2005 the radio was exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History. Julius Kempis McKinney found a 3.7 pound fragment December 1st and an Indianapolis lawyer bought it for the Smithsonian. Another piece might have come down in nearby Childersburg, northwest of Oak Grove and the site of a Coosa town visited by Hernando de Soto for a month in the fall of 1540. Incidentally, Oak Grove has an illusory Gravity Hill Road in the west going towards Childersburg.
The night of October 3, 2021 a meteorite harmlessly landed on pillow next to a sleeping woman in Golden, British Columbia, Canada. In the summer (??) of 1992 a 3 gram meteorite hit a tree and then a young boy, who survived, in Mbala, Uganda. A Milanese monk at the Convent of St Mary is supposed to have been hit in the thigh and killed in 1577, according to a text from Tortona: www.futilitycloset.com/2010/01/12/zeus-displeased/ In June 1911 a meteor is supposed to have hit and vaporized (?) a dog belonging to Mohammed Ali Effendi Hakim in Alexandria, Egypt: www.futilitycloset.com/2007/03/23/the-nakhla-dog/ ; Sylacauga: www.futilitycloset.com/2007/05/23/wake-up-call/ and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylacauga_(meteorite) See the previous calendar post, October 5th, for the October 9, 1992 Peekskill, New York meteorite, which was seen coming down as a fireball and hit the back of a parked car: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/10/some-events-and-anniversaries-in-fall.html
The People's Republic of Southern Yemen (South Yemen) gained independence from the UK November 30, 1967. North Yemen had been independent since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI.
November 30, 1981 the Reagan administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation, making Israel a strategic partner of the US. The partnership was suspended after Israel annexed the Golan Heights December 14th, but it came back into force in 1983. This is described in Fifty Years of Israel by Donald Neff, published in 1998. This could bring to mind US government intentions regarding Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia today. More recently, the US military began training with the Israelis in territory held by Israel.
A few years ago the Democrats in the House of Representatives proclaimed Ukraine a vital partner and there are the proposals regarding the Republic of Georgia and Moldova.
In 2022 the US media constantly denounced Russia for illegally seizing territory from Ukraine by force – but it is rarely if at all mentioned as a great problem when Israel extends sovereignty over territory seized from its neighbors and is rewarded by the US, such as with the new embassy; the UK taking Indian Ocean islands from Mauritius for the US military; the US occupation of parts of Cuba and Syria (with Turkey) against the wishes of those countries; the US created a border across Korea; NATO redrawing borders in the Balkans by force; and there was the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the issue of Kashmir. There are some differences, but these examples are at least similar to what Russia is accused of doing. The UK and Portugal eventually had to return their colonies in China, though there is still the issue of Taiwan.
Tens of thousands of people, many anarchists, protested the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle November 30th - December 1st, sometimes called the
Battle of Seattle and
N30. It was a major event of the anti-globalization movement, later overshadowed by the need for anti-war organizing after 9/11. There was a lot of organizing against sweatshops and globalization at UNC-Chapel Hill around then, by groups such as
Students for Economic Justice (later called
Demand Economic Justice), and some concessions were gained from the administration. The Battle of Seattle also had the black bloc, heavy police repression, bans on protesting, etc. to become common features of large protests.
Chinese leader Jiang Zemin passed away November 30, 2022.
Oglala Lakota Heȟáka Sápa or Black Elk, the source of the book Black Elk Speaks, was born December 1, 1863.
NC's red brick Currituck Beach Light began operating December 1, 1875.
The St Augustine, Florida carcass that washed up around December 1, 1896 and was examined by Dr AE Verrill; it was called a giant octopus, or not.
Rosa Parks refused to yield her bus seat December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. Her trial began December 5th and there was a bus boycott for over a year.
According to Wikipedia the Morning Star flag of West Papua (on the island of New Guinea) was first raised December 1, 1961 and this is a traditional day to protest for independence from Indonesia; displaying the flag is harshly punished by Indonesia and people have been sentenced to over a decade in prison. Independence activists declared the Republic of West Papua July 1, 1971.
The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), the first and so far only Arab Marxist state to have existed , was founded December 1, 1970. It merged with the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) in 1990, creating the Republic of Yemen. There is or was just a civil war and armed intervention by other Arab states and the USA and there are still Southern Yemen secessionists.
December 1st to 8th in 1997 Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were lined up in the evening (?) sky. If I'm thinking of the right event, I memorialized the visible planets in a red cedar carving and I must have noted the date somewhere.
Tens of thousands of people were killed or injured, along with livestock and other animals and even plants, the night of December 2-3, 1984 in Bhopal, India when gases were released from a pesticide plant at the time owned by Union Carbide India Limited and more recently by the Dow Chemical Company. The land was left contaminated and there are lingering health effects. Beginning February 27, 2012 WikiLeaks posted leaked documents (labelled the Global Intelligence Files) indicating that the intelligence company Stratfor had spied on activists for Dow, as well as spying on Occupy Wall Street. It also reveals that Stratfor employees advocated bankrupting and torturing Julian Assange and charging him with crimes in several countries, which is similar to what is happening now (he was charged with a crime in Sweden, is now being held by the UK following years besieged in Ecuador's London embassy, and the US government wants him extradited, which Stratfor knew).
NC Regulator leader Herman or Harmon Husband was born December 3, 1724 in Cecil County, Maryland.
The Troops Out Now Coalition was founded December 3, 2004.
According to Wikipedia, Aztec ruler Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin's successor Cuitlahuac ruled from mid-September 1520 until dying December 4th, possibly of smallpox. He was succeeded by Cuauhtemoc, who survived the war but was ordered executed by Cortes in 1525 while on an expedition far to the south. In late December 1520 a massive Spanish and allied Indian army returned to the Basin of Mexico and defeated the Mexica in August 1521.
Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed by the Chicago Police December 4, 1969.
The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) declared Acehnese independence from Indonesia December 4, 1976. Following the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami a peace agreement was negotiated, signed August 15, 2005.
Plowshares Number Seven
The first Plowshares direct action disarmament in Europe and 7th in all was carried out December 4, 1983 in West Germany. Carl Kabat, one of the Plowshare Eight defendants from the first action, in Pennsylvania, and Herwig Jantschik, Dr Wolfgang Sternstein, and Karin Vix of Germany cut through a fence at a US Army base in Schwabisch-Gmund, Federal Republic of Germany and damaged a Pershing II missile launcher. The deployment of these American intermediate-range nuclear missiles in West Germany was apparently very unpopular and they no longer exist, thanks to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which Trump withdrew from (Russia and China support the INF Treaty). Kabat left the country while the three Germans were charged with trespassing, attempted sabotage, and destruction of property. The defendants had the option of imprisonment or fines, so Jantschik was imprisoned for 90 days, Vix for 60 days, and Dr Sternstein paid 1800 Deutsche Marks. Similar direct actions are still being carried out. See Swords Into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, edited by Arthur J Laffin and Anne Montgomery, published in 1987.
Soviet Constitution Day was December 5th from 1936 until 1977, when a new constitution was promulgated (October 7th, the most recent Soviet Constitution Day).
The DPRK's Korean Central New Agency (KCNA) was founded December 5, 1946 (
www.kcna.kp ; with sections in Korean, English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Japanese).
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations united to create the AFL-CIO December 5, 1955.
December 5th is also
World Soil Day, raising awareness about soil erosion, depletion, and the importance of healthy soil for humanity and other species:
www.un.org/en/observances/world-soil-day This year's theme is "Soil and Water: A source of life." Our soil is probably much poorer than it was when the English Lost Colony was founded on Roanoke Island. It isn't good for the soil or other environmental systems that construction in Durham typically involves clearcutting a site and mass grading, often leaving large areas of exposed soil to erode for weeks, months, and even years. It seems like great areas of torn up soil and bedrock, already close to the surface, were left to erode for years along Ellis Road near the Durham Freeway, a hot spot for "development" in recently, though eroded silt didn't seem very apparent downstream. I've been remiss and need to go see what is going on at 55-Hopson, probably the reason Northeast Creek was opaque yellow downstream at Grandale Road after heavy rain in summer 2022 in between some dry weather.
The Guantanamo prison's 8000th day is December 6th.
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is Thursday, December 7th, marking the 1941 attack. There are allegations of conspiracy on the part of the Roosevelt administration, for example search counterpunch.org or see
Covert Action Magazine. Many, but not all, citizens of Japanese descent and Japanese nationals were later interned in the US and Canada and their property taken (
Wikipedia indicates that other countries were involved as well). The last people were freed in 1946 in the US and 1949 in Canada.
Apollo 17, the last mission of the Apollo program, was December 7 - 19, 1972. Apollo 17 was the last time a human mission left Earth orbit, the only time a Saturn V was launched at night, it was the first and only time a professional geologist went to the Moon, it returned the largest lunar sample, had the most orbits and longest time in lunar orbit, the longest total time doing EVAs on the surface of the Moon, etc. (according to Wikipedia). The crew included Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, Ronald Evans, and five pocket mice. People might soon return to the Moon, and the first not from the US. The US plans to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon in the next few years, after the successful first, uncrewed Artemis mission. It could appear that the Apollo program was mainly about domestic and international politics, and now there is its sister Artemis. May 30th (?) China announced that it plans a crewed lunar landing before 2030.
Indonesia invaded newly independent East Timor December 7, 1975, with the complicity of Australia, Belgium, Canada, India, Japan, the UK, the USA, and other countries.
[Peruvian president José Pedro Castillo Terrones (born October 19, 1969) was overthrown December 7, 2022. Pro-Castillo demonstrators were killed in the Ayacucho Massacre December 15, 2022 and the Juliaca Massacre January 9th of this year, etc.]
Halley's Comet will be at its greatest distance from the Sun and slowest velocity December 9th or 7th in 2023, before turning back towards the Sun, with its closest approach July 25, 2061, and its closest approach to the Earth July 26th, with better viewing than in the spring of 1986. After 2061 it will next return in the spring of 2134.
There were wars with the Seminoles November 20, 1817 to October 31, 1818; others were in 1812 and December 8, 1835 to August 14, 1842; there was a Florida Indian war December 15, 1855 to May 8, 1858.
A nuclear-armed Convair B-58 crashed taking off in Bunker Hill, Indiana, burning five nuclear weapons, including a 9 megaton hydrogen bomb, far more powerful than the atomic bomb used against Japan [December 8, 1964].
Beatles founder John Lennon was assassinated December 8, 1980 in New York City.
Something acorn-shaped is supposed to have fallen to earth in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh, December 9, 1965 and been recovered by the US government. There might have been a bright meteor over Canada and the Northeastern US. The failed Soviet Venus probe Kosmos 96 might have fallen in Kecksburg.
The First Palestinian Intifada began December 9, 1987. There wasn't a single trigger, but on December 8th an Israeli military truck hit Palestinians close to the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, killing four and injuring seven, and many thought it was retaliation for the killing of an Israeli salesman in Gaza a few days earlier.
The Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War, was signed December 10, 1898. This war is often seen as the beginning of the imperialist phase of US capitalism, when it became one of the great powers, eclipsing the old imperialist powers by 1945. There is a monument commemorating this early imperialist war in Durham.
Environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill occupied an 180' tall coast redwood in California for 738 days, starting December 10, 1997, to save a forest from being clearcut by Pacific Lumber Co. She endured winter storms and company harassment from the air and ground. The tree was named Luna and is thought to have sprouted 1000 years ago.
Human Rights Day is December 10th (
www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day ), marking the UN General Assembly's adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (
www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html ). December as a whole is
Human Rights Month. The US and its allies like to use "human rights" to sell imperialist wars and policies carried out for economic or geopolitical reasons. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights goes beyond the rights the US government talks about most prominently, as the Black Alliance for Peace highlights. A UK court ruled that Julian Assange could be extradited to the USA on this day one year, I think even as opposition journalists from the Philippines and Russia were receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for their work.
The "Father of Chinese Rocketry" or "King of Rocketry" (China's Sergei Korolev?), Qian Xuesen, December 11, 1911 – October 31, 2009; he had been pushed out of the US during the Korean War.
December 11, 1955 paratroops, artillery, and mortar units under Ariel Sharon invaded Syria, killing 56 (including three women), injuring nine, and capturing 30, later exchanged for the Israeli soldiers captured in Syria's Golan Heights. There was speculation that Israel also wanted to provoke a war with Egypt (Syria and Egypt were unified as the United Arab Republic at the time).
Hundreds of civilians were killed in El Mozote, El Salvador by the US Army-trained Atlacatl Battalion December 11, 1981. There were other massacres nearby before and after the El Mozote Massacre. This was during the Salvadoran Civil War, but El Mozote was seen as a neutral village.
The DPRK launched its Kwangmyŏngsŏng -3 Unit 2 Earth observation satellite into polar orbit December 11, 2012, making the DPRK one of the few countries able to independently manufacture satellites and place them into orbit. The satellite's name translates as Bright Star or Lodestar. There is tracking information to see it pass overhead at: www.heavens-above.com
December 12, 1954 Israel forced a Syrian Airways Dakota passenger plane to land at Israel's Lydda airport. The four passengers and five crew were held and investigated for two days before being freed. Allegedly Israel wanted hostages to bargain for the release of five Israeli soldiers captured a few days earlier inside Syria while retrieving equipment being used to wiretap Syrian phone lines. This also comes from Donald Neff's Fifty Years of Israel. Similarly European countries forced Bolivian president Evo Morales' plane to land in July 2013, thinking Edward Snowden might be onboard. The USA and EU countries only have a problem when an unfavored country like Belarus does this, though it seems like a much more serious step to stop and search a head of state's flight, the equivalent of Air Force One.
The
Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (National Agrarian Bank) on Milan's Piazza Fontana was bombed December 12, 1969, killing 12 and wounding 88; there were other bombings and attempted bombings elsewhere in Italy the same day. Initially more than 80 anarchists were arrested, and late on December 15th anarchist railroad worker Giuseppe Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth-floor window at a police station, which was ultimately ruled an accident. Later fascists were charged for the bombings. There are allegations that intelligence agencies of NATO countries, including the CIA, abetted the bombings to stop massive strikes and keep the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) out of the government. This also relates to NATO's formerly secret terrorist network, called Gladio in Italy. Italy's Years of Lead began in fall 1969 and lasted until the late 80's. The PCI was the largest "Western" communist party and scared the bourgeoisie, but it took a revisionist course and became a prominent example of Eurocommunism. In 1991 it became the social-democratic (or "democratic socialist") Democratic Party of the Left. See: www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/20/gladio-the-story-of-a-conspiracy/ And the Ukrainian government wants to involve its people in NATO's terrorism and wars of aggression.
There was a military coup in the Republic of Korea December 12, 1979, followed by a bloodier coup beginning May 17, 1980
The national liberation war in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, ended December 12, 1979 and Wikipedia sets the beginning of hostilities as July 4, 1964, when a civilian, Pieter Johan Andries (Andrew) Oberholzer, was killed in an ambush. Southern Rhodesia had unilaterally declared independence from the UK November 11, 1965. Northern Rhodesia is independent Zambia.
The Nanking Massacre or Rape of Nanking began December 13, 1937 and continued into January during the Second Sino-Japanese War. At the time Nanking (or Nanjing) was the capital of the Republic of China.
Plowshares Number Two
December 13, 1980 Peter De Mott damaged the USS Florida (SSBN-728), an Ohio-class submarine originally equipped with Trident ballistic nuclear missiles, just before it was launched at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. DeMott was a member of Jonah House in Baltimore, Maryland and a former seminarian and Vietnam veteran. During the launch ceremony for the USS Baltimore (SSN-704), a Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine, DeMott came upon a security van left unlocked and with its keys in the ignition, and spontaneously used it to dent the USS Florida's rudder. He was convicted of criminal mischief and criminal trespass and was imprisoned for one year (
Swords Into Plowshares). According to
Wikipedia, the
USS Florida launched Tomahawk cruise missiles to
disable Libyan air defenses at the start of Obama's 2011 war, the first military action by that doubtlessly very costly submarine or any of its sister ships. For more on DeMott see:
www.commondreams.org/news/2009/02/21/peace-activist-peter-demott-dead-after-fall and
www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/committed-life-peter-demott
Republican NC Governor William Woods Holden was impeached December 14, 1870, and convicted March 22, 1871, making him the second governor in US history to be impeached and the first to be removed from office. He was pardoned April 12, 2011 and is so far the only NC governor to be impeached.
December 14, 1981 Israel's Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, applying Israeli laws to the Golan Heights, Syrian and disputed Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. This was seen as annexation and condemned even by the Reagan administration, demonstrating how much more pro-Zionist the US government has become. The Trump administration gave US recognition to this March 25, 2019. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem May 14, 2018 might have been recognition of Israel's claim to all of the city and a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 478. The Biden administration hasn't reversed what Trump did, but condemns Russia.
The Dayton Accords were signed December 14, 1995 in Paris, ending the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There has been talk in the mainstream media of renewed contention in the Balkan country on the Adriatic Sea, a republic in the former Yugoslavia.
Muntadhar al Zaidi famously threw his shoes at George W Bush December 14, 2008 in Baghdad, among other things saying "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq!"
China's Chang'e 3 spacecraft carried out a soft landing on the Moon December 14, 2013, the first such landing since the USSR's Luna 24 in 1976 and making China the third country to carry out such a lunar landing. A rover, Yutu, was deployed.
US vaccinations against the coronavirus began December 14, 2020.
Bill of Rights Day is December 15th (the US Bill of Rights was ratified December 15, 1791). Durham City and County used to make annual proclamations for December 15th, thanks to a campaign by the
Durham Bill of Rights Committee, but that might no longer be done. The DBORDC no longer exists, but there might still be an
Orange County BORDC, and there is a national organization (it changed names in 2016):
rightsanddissent.org/news/bill-rights-day-celebrate-mobilize-remember/ Normally there is or was a
public reading of the Bill of Rights at Chapel Hill's Peace and Justice Plaza on the 15th.
Federalist Party leaders discussed the secession of the New England states, among other things, at the Hartford Convention, held December 15, 1814 to January 5, 1815 in Hartford, Connecticut. This was during the War of 1812 (June 18, 1812 – February 17, 1815); the Battle of New Orleans was January 8, 1815 and raised up Andrew Jackson, who seems to have been an early 19th century 'Donald Trump' to his opponents.
Sitting Bull was killed December 15, 1890 at Standing Rock.
December 15, 1970 the Soviet space probe Venera 7 (Venus 7
) was the first human spacecraft to land on another planet and send telemetry, confirming that our physically similar sister planet is actually a hell of runaway greenhouse warming, sulfuric acid, and crushing atmospheric pressure, not a tropical and watery cloud-covered world. On the other hand, in 2020 phosphine, a chemical produced by earthly life might have been detected in the Venusian cloudtops, possibly indicating that Venus is a life-bearing planet after all. There are arguments that Venus would be a more interesting planet to visit than Mars, or one mission could visit both, getting a gravitational assist on the way to Mars.
The US and UK bombed Iraq December 16 - 19, 1998, calling it Operation Desert Fox. This occurred during the effort to impeach President Bill Clinton. The US attacked Iraqi military and civilian targets off and on throughout the period between the two US-Iraq wars (1991 to 2003), so it could be seen as one long period of war and Clinton laid the groundwork for George W Bush and Obama's war, weakening Iraq's defensive capability and preparing domestic public opinion and the world for renewed war. What future wars are being prepared now?
The Wright Flyer aircraft first flew December 17, 1903 in NC.
India seized Goa from Portugal December 17-19, 1961.
Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest outside a government office in Tunisia December 17, 2010, setting in motion the protest movement that overthrew authoritarian President Ben Ali January 14, 2011 and spread to other countries, becoming the Arab Spring. Bouazizi was left comatose and died January 4, 2011. Many others in Tunisia and a few people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Europe set themselves on fire in similar acts of protest in early 2011.
The Cuban 5 political prisoners were all free by December 17, 2014. They had been arrested in 1998 while monitoring anti-Cuban terrorist groups in Florida:
freethefive.org/ The Obama administration released the last of the Cuban 5 as part of its effort to improve relations with Cuba, which Trump worked to undo, but Biden has continued Trump's policies. So-called "doves" in the US government could be hoping for a repeat of the Libyan scenario, in which the Libyan government agreed to US and EU demands in exchange for normalization, but was overthrown at the first opportunity (and Russia and China allowed this to happen with UN approval). I thought that "Havana
Syndrome" might be a manufactured excuse for the Trump administration.
The USSR launched Vega 1 December 15 and Vega 2 December 21, 1984, to Venus and Halley's Comet.
The Myrotvorets website, alleged to be a Ukrainian SBU and CIA operation, was created December 15, 2014, according to Wikipedia.
The Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice will be Thursday, December 21st in 2023, with the longest night of the year. The Earth is actually closest to the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere's winter.
Thomas Sankara, called Africa's Che Guevara, was president of
Burkina Faso from 1983 until he was assassinated October 15, 1987. Sankara was born
December 21, 1949, in the northern town of Yako, in what was then the French colony of
Upper Volta. Some of his writings are posted at:
www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/index.htm
The USSR launched Vega 2 to Venus and Halley's Comet December 21, 1984; Vega 1 had been launched earlier, December 15th.
The Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, was December 24, 1814.
Sen Katayama, co-founder of the Japanese Communist Party and an official in the Comintern, was born December 26, 1859. He was one of the first members of the CPUSA and was also active in Canada and Mexico; he is buried in Moscow's Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Some of his writings are available at
www.marxists.org/archive/katayama/index.htm and there is a book about his legacy at
redstarpublishers.org
December 26, 1862, following the Dakota War, 38 Dakota or Dakota Sioux were hung, the largest mass execution in US history. 303 Dakota were convicted of murder or rape, some in trials lasting less than 5 minutes, and without defense attorneys. Lincoln commuted the sentences of 264 prisoners and one more received a reprieve. Those who were executed were buried in a mass grave, possibly after skin was taken from some of the bodies. Graverobbers later stole bodies for anatomy specimens. Except for a group that helped the American settlers, the rest of the Dakota lost their reservation and were exiled from Minnesota over the next few months, and many died during the journey. Any Dakota found in Minnesota could be killed, with the offer of a $25 dollar bounty. The unrelated Ho-chunk tribe was also expelled. Nonetheless some Dakota remained or returned to Minnesota 20 years later.
Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was born November 23 or 24 in what is now Poltava, Ukraine. He was appointed as the USSR's ambassador to Spain but passed away December 26, 1933 in France. In 1932 he represented the USSR at the League of Nations.
American entomologist E.O. Wilson, known for his work on ants, sociobiology, island biogeography, biodiversity, and the online Encyclopedia of Life, though he was also condemned by the PLP, died December 26, 2021. He was born June 10, 1929 in Birmingham, Alabama.
The great Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami / Boxing Day Tsunami/ Sumatra/Andaman Earthquake was December 26, 2004 off northern Sumatra, Indonesia, close to Aceh.
Kwanzaa begins December 26th and that is Boxing Day and the day of December's Full Moon, with various names.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was founded at a small unity meeting January 1, 1965 but was strong enough by 1978 to carry out a revolution, though the uprising began due to government repression.
The asteroid Ceres was discovered January 1, 1801 by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, working in Sicily, and at the time on Ceres was in the constellation Triangulum, the (Northern) Triangle, between Aries and Andromeda, sometimes seen as a celestial Nile River delta or island of Sicily, the home of the Roman agricultural goddess Ceres. 1 Ceres is the first and largest asteroid yet found by astronomers, the largest member of the Asteroid Belt, and the closest dwarf planet. It is even geologically active and potentially could support life or once did. Perhaps an outpost will be established there some day.
Kim Jong-un was born January 8, 1982 (this is the DPRK's official date while other countries dispute the year).
Iran fired ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq January 8, 2020 in retaliation for the Trump administration'sassassination of Qassem Soleimani and others a few days earlier.
Conservationist Aldo Leopold was born January 11, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa. He is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously in 1949. For more information, see: www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/
The USA's extraterritorial prison on stolen Cuban territory – Guantanamo or Gitmo – opened January 11th.
Following US calls for full-spectrum dominance, including in space, and missile shields, China used a missile to destroy one of its old weather satellites January 11, 2007. The Dong Neng-3 missile, possibly an anti-satellite weapon, was tested February 5, 2008. More recently Russia and India have also tested anti-satellite weapons. The USSR and the USA worked on such weapons throughout the Cold War, and the first successful interception seems to have been by the USSR in February 1970. The US tested anti-satellite missiles fired from a modified F-15 fighter in 1984-85.
Warfare in space could produce debris that would prevent human use of space long-term and anti-ballistic missile weapons make a nuclear war more likely. One country would think it had an edge and could escape retaliation by using nuclear weapons first, so other countries would be more likely to use their weapons, under the idea of 'use them or lose them.'
The genome of the coronavirus was published January 11, 2020.
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was born January 12, 1907 in Zhytomyr, now in western Ukraine. He led the early Soviet space program to successes such as putting Sputnik I and Yuri Gagarin into orbit, and sending the first spacecraft to the Moon (though it was not intended to be a soft landing). His name was hidden, to avoid assassination attempts by the US government, until after his death on January 14, 1966. He was honored with the placement of his ashes in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
Among the Iranian scientists probably assassinated by Israel, the USA, or Arab countries during the Bush and Obama years, Ardeshir Hosseinpour might have been murdered or died in an accident January 15, 2007, Masoud Alimohammadi was killed January 12, 2010, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed January 11, 2012, and in January 2015 an assassination attempt was foiled.
German naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian passed away January 13, 1717 in Amsterdam. She was born April 2, 1647 in Frankfort, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire.
January 21, 2024 is V.I. Lenin's 100th death anniversary.
Explorer 1, the USA's first satellite, was launched February l, 1958.
The Charonne Massacre was February 8, 1962 at a Paris Metro station, where the police killed nine trade unionists demonstrating against a French terrorist group during the Algerian War.
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping passed away February 19, 1997. He was born August 22, 1904. His predecessor, Hua Guofeng, was born February 16, 1921 and passed away August 20, 2008.
According to the website Prisoner Solidarity, Tsutomu Shirosaki might be released from prison in Japan on February 20, 2027: prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/tsutomu-shiros
The Biden administration's first bombing of targets in partially-occupied Syria, following the precedents set by Obama and Trump, was February 25, 2021.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was declared February 27, 1976 in Bir Lehlou, part of Western Sahara held by the Polisario Front. Tifariti replaced Bir Lehlou as the provisional capital of the SADR on this day in 2008.
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