311th day of 2009 - 54 remaining
Saturday, November 7, 2009
ELEPHANT DAY
The mighty elephant, trumpeter of the jungle and circus entertainer -- lumbering, powerful fieldworker and mode of transportation -- became a symbol of the Republican Party on this day in 1874.
Now we know that the elephant is the mascot of the Crimson Tide, the football team of the University of Alabama; a symbolism that has never been satisfactorily explained (too many versions). But how was it that an animal who uses its nose to feed and wash itself and can form a circle with others of its kind by attaching trunks to tails, became a symbol of the Grand Old Party (G.O.P.), a political party of the United States?
Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, created a satirical drawing of an elephant about to fall into a giant hole. The elephant represented the Republican party and was used in reference to Ulysses S. Grant’s possible bid for a third term. Grant was a Republican. The symbol stuck and has been used ever since to represent the G.O.P. both in political cartoons and by the party itself.
Roll G.O.P.? Somehow, roll Tide has a better ring...
Events
November 7
1805 - “Great joy in camp we are in view of the ocean, this great Pacific Ocean which we been so long anxious to see. And the roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey shores (as I suppose) may be heard distinctly.” These words were written by William Clark after the Lewis & Clark Expedition sighted the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
1820 - James Monroe, the 5th President of U.S., was reelected. Monroe was unopposed for the Democratic-Republican party nomination and ran unopposed in the general election. Only one elector did not vote for him. The reason (according to legend) was so that George Washington would be the only president unanimously chosen by the electoral college.
1848 - General Zachary Taylor emerged as a hero of the Mexican War (1846-1948) and was nominated as the presidential candidate at the Whig convention in June 1848. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, and was elected the 12th President of the United States this day.
1876 - The cigarette manufacturing machine was patented by Albert H. Hook of New York City. He probably had no idea how appropriate his name was for such an invention...
1876 - The outcome of the election of 1876 was not known until the week before the inauguration itself. Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the greater number of popular votes and lacked only one electoral vote to claim a majority in the electoral college. Twenty disputed electoral votes, however, kept hopes alive for Republican Governor Rutherford B. (Birchard) Hayes of Ohio. When all was said and done, the Electoral college selected Hayes as the 19th President of the United States.
1885 - The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed when the last spike was driven at Craigellachie in British Columbia. The 2,980-mile transcontinental railroad started in Montreal, Quebec, running between Montreal and Port Moody, B.C.
1914 - The New Republic magazine was printed for the first time.
1916 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th U.S. President, was reelected. The outcome of the election was one of the few in U.S. history that hinged on foreign affairs. Europe was fighting a world war, and so far, President Wilson had kept the U.S. neutral. Running with the slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War," Wilson was re-elected by a narrow margin. The very next year, Wilson’s neutrality in the European war ended. The Germans refused to curtail their submarine warfare after 120 Americans were killed aboard the British liner, Lusitania. Congress voted overwhelmingly to go to war and Wilson proclaimed American entrance into World War I a crusade to make the world “safe for democracy.”
1930 - The Waltz You Save for Me, by ‘The Waltz King’ himself, Wayne King, was recorded on Victor. It became King’s theme.
1932 - CBS radio presented the first broadcast of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin played Buck in the serial over the years (1932-1947).
1933 - Pennsylvania’s Blue Laws meant that lots of things couldn’t be done on Sunday. Shopping was one. Drinking was another. Sports was yet another. The votes that were counted this day in the Keystone State eliminated sports from the forbidden activities. Fans in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia rejoiced!
1937 - Dr. Christian debuted on CBS radio. Jean Hersholt played the part of the kindly, elderly Dr. Christian who practiced on the air until 1954. Laureen Tuttle, Kathleen Fitz, Helen Kleeb and Rosemary De Camp played his nurse, Judy. The Dr. Christian theme song was Rainbow on the River. Sponsors of the show included Vaseline (petroleum jelly, hair tonic and lip ice).
1938 - The first broadcast of This Day is Ours was heard on CBS radio. Eleanor McDonald, played by Joan Banks and later by Templeton Fox, had all kinds of problems. Her child was kidnapped, she lost her memory, helped a friend find a killer, etc. The soap opera ran for two years.
1940 - The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge was built in 1940 to connect the city of Tacoma and the surrounding Puget Sound with the Peninsula area. The bridge soon became a popular tourist attraction as people came from all around the area to pay their toll to ride the roller-coaster that was called Galloping Gertie. The design flaws that allowed that coaster effect were to become the bridge’s undoing, and it collapsed a mere four months and seven days after dedication. At approximately 11:00 a.m. this day, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed due to wind-induced vibrations.
1944 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a fourth term, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey. F.D.R. was the only President to be elected for more than two terms; he was elected four times with three different Vice Presidents. He died in office on April 12, 1945, after serving 53 days of his fourth term. Vice President Harry Truman filled the remainder of the term and was elected President in 1948.
1946 - A coin-operated television receiver was displayed in New York City. To sneak a peak at various test patterns and a model of Felix the Cat, folks dropped in a quarter.
1948 - An adaptation of the mystery play, The Storm, became the first production of Studio One on CBS-TV. Margaret Sullivan starred -- for $500. Studio One continued until 1958.
1956 - Elvis Presley hit the charts with Love Me. The song was the first million-seller to make the charts without being released as a single. It was, instead, an EP (extended play) 45 rpm, with three other songs on it: Rip It Up, Paralyzed and When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again -- on RCA Victor.
1963 - Elston Howard of the New York Yankees was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player. Howard was the first black player to receive the honor.
1970 - Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? was released by Columbia. It became the third tune by Chicago to hit the pop music charts. Make Me Smile and 25 or 6 to 4 were previous hits. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? made it to #7 on the charts (January 7, 1971).
1972 - U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were reelected in a landslide victory (60.7% to 37.5%) over Democrats George McGovern and R. Sargent Shriver).
1976 - Gone With the Wind was aired (over two nights) on NBC-TV. The showing was the highest-rated TV show in history. 65 percent of all viewers turned on their sets to watch Scarlet O’Hara and Rhett Butler.
1980 - A movie great died. Steve McQueen, famous for his roles in The Getaway, Papillon, The Sand Pebbles and so many others, died at age 50.
1984 - Joe Namath, quarterback of the New York Jets and famous for passes both on and off the field, married Deborah Lynn Mays on this day.
1987 - Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love was the #1 album in the U.S. The rest of the top-five for the week: 2)-Bad (Michael Jackson); 3)-Dirty Dancing (soundtrack); 4)-Whitesnake (Whitesnake); 5)-A Memory Lapse of Reason (Pink Floyd).
1994 - The Electrical Engineering Times ran a cover story about flaws in Intel’s Pentium computer chip. The bug, an obscure flaw that caused extremely rare computation errors when performing certain types of mathematical calculations, eventually caused Intel to replace any Pentium processor affected by the flaw, regardless of whether the user was a mathmetician or not. Intel took a $475 million charge against earnings for the quarter to cover the expense of replacing all of those chips.
1997 - Bean (“The Ultimate Disaster Movie”), starring Rowan Atkinson, Peter Macnicol and Pamela Reed; Mad City (“One man will make a mistake. The other will make it into a spectacle.”), with Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta and Alan Alda; and Starship Troopers (“A New Kind Of Enemy. A New Kind Of War.”), starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Patrick Muldoon, Michael Ironside and Marshall Bell.
1999 - Joseph Chebet and Adriana Fernandez put the frustration of second place behind them, as they won the New York City Marathon. Chebet of Kenya, the runner-up the previous two years, used a powerful last-second kick to finish with a time of 2:09:20. Fernandez of Mexico, who also finished second the previous year, easily won the women’s division with a time of 2:25:06, the second-fastest in the race's history. “I was feeling very strong and decided to take off,” Fernandez said.
Birthdays
November 7
1867 - Madame Marie Curie (Marja Sklodowski)
Nobel Prize-winning physicist [1903]: study of radiation; chemist: discovered radium and polonium; died July 4, 1934
1902 - Ed (Edward Benton) Dodd
cartoonist: Mark Trail; died May 27, 1991
1903 - (Ira) Dean Jagger
Academy Award-winning actor: Twelve O’clock High [1949]; Elmer Gantry, Bad Day at Black Rock, White Christmas, King Creole, The Robe, Vanishing Point, Mr. Novak; died Feb 5,1991
1913 - Albert Camus
Nobel Prize-winning writer [1957]; Le Mythe de Sisyphe; died Jan 4, 1960
1914 - Archie Campbell
CMA Comedian of the Year [1969], country singer, comedian: Trouble in the Amen Corner, Beeping Sleauty, Rindercella, The Men in My Little Girl’s Life; Hee Haw, Grand Ole Opry; died Aug 29, 1987
1918 - Billy Graham
evangelist: TV host: Hour of Decision, The Billy Graham Crusade
1922 - Al Hirt
musician: trumpet: Java, Sugar Lips, Flight of the Bumble Bee as theme song for TV’s The Green Hornet; played in singer Don Gibson’s band; a regular on: Make Your Own Kind of Music, Fanfare; died Apr 27, 1999
1926 - Joan Sutherland
singer: opera soprano
1938 - Dee (Delectus) Clark
singer: Just Keep It Up, Raindrops, Ride a Wild Horse; died Dec 7, 1990
1938 - Jim (James Lee) Kaat
baseball: pitcher: Washington Senators, Minnesota Twins [all-star: 1962, 1966/World Series: 1965], Chicago White Sox [all-star: 1975], Philadelphia Phillies, NY Yankees, SL Cardinals [World Series: 1982]; sportscaster: ABC Sports
1938 - Barry Newman
actor: Petrocelli, Nightingales, The Edge of Night, Vanishing Point
1942 - Johnny Rivers (John Ramistella)
singer: Poor Side of Town, Memphis, Secret Agent Man, Slow Dancin’, Baby I Need Your Lovin’
1943 - Joni Mitchell (Roberta Anderson)
songwriter: Willy, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock; singer: Help Me, Free Man in Paris, Both Sides Now
1944 - Tommy Hart
football: San Francisco 49ers DE
1944 - Joe Niekro
baseball: pitcher: Chicago Cubs, SD Padres, Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Houston Astros [all-star: 1979], NY Yankees, Minnesota Twins [World Series: 1987]; died Oct 27, 2006
1957 - Christopher Knight
actor: The Brady Bunch, Another World, A Very Brady Christmas, Good Girls Don’t, The Brady Bunch Movie
1964 - Dana Plato
actress: Diff’rent Strokes, Return to Boggy Creek, Beyond the Bermuda Triangle; died May 8, 1999
1972 - Jason London
actor: The Man in the Moon, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, Mixed Signals, Broken Vessels, Alien Cargo; twin brother of Jeremy London
1972 - Jeremy London
actor: I’ll Fly Away, Party of Five, White Wolves II: Legend of the Wild, Breaking Free, The Babysitter, The Red Lion, Bad to the Bone; twin brother of Jason London
Chart Toppers
November 7
1946Five Minutes More - Frank Sinatra
South America, Take It Away - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
You Keep Coming Back like a Song - Dinah Shore
Divorce Me C.O.D. - Merle Travis
1954I Need You Now - Eddie Fisher
This Ole House - Rosemary Clooney
Papa Loves Mambo - Perry Como
More and More - Webb Pierce
1962He’s a Rebel - The Crystals
Only Love Can Break a Heart - Gene Pitney
All Alone Am I - Brenda Lee
Mama Sang a Song - Bill Anderson
1970I’ll Be There - The Jackson 5
We’ve Only Just Begun - Carpenters
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
I Can’t Believe That You’ve Stopped Loving Me - Charley Pride
1978You Needed Me - Anne Murray
MacArthur Park - Donna Summer
Double Vision - Foreigner
Sleeping Single in a Double Bed - Barbara Mandrell
1986True Colors - Cyndi Lauper
Typical Male - Tina Turner
I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On - Robert Palmer
It’ll Be Me - Exile
Happy Birthday Johnny Rivers
Guapo Vic.
WELCOME TOO ABADSS 
Re: This Day in History November 7
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