November 26: This Day In History

Ed WilsonNovember 26, 2014 – Segment 1

Marc talks about what happened on this day in history, including the day Baltimore-born sculptor Ed Wilson passed away, the day Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a holiday, and the day hall of fame abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth died.

–Independence Day, Mongolia, celebrates the independence of Mongolia from China, in 1924. The country was a communist state under the Mongolian people’s Revolutionary Party.

–Constitution Day, India – A day to honor the Constitution of India

Today is,

1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.

1784 – The Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established.

1789 – a day of thanksgiving was set aside by President George Washington to observe the adoption of the U.S Constitution.

1825 – The first college social fraternity, Kappa Alpha, was formed at Union in Schenectady, N.Y.

1827 – Ellen G. White, American author, co-founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (d.1915)

1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln declares November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day.

1868 – Ignoring orders to kill only warriors, an Army contingent led by General Custer massacred 103 Cheyenne in their sleep, during the Battle of the Washita, in Oklahoma Territory.

1895 – The National Negro Medical Association was founded.  At the turn of the 20th century, they became the National Medical Association with the following manifesto: “Conceived in no spirit of racial exclusiveness, fostering no ethnic antagonism, but born of the exigencies of American environment, the National Medical Association has for its object the banding together for mutual cooperation and helpfulness, the men and women of African descent who are legally and honorably engaged in the practice of the cognate professions of medicine, surgery, pharmacy and dentistry.” Today, the NMA is headquartered in Washington, D. C. and represents more than 25,000 Black doctors.

1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.

1940 – The 500,000 Jews living of Warsaw, Poland were forced by the Nazis to live within a walled ghetto.  The move is described by the Germans as a “health measure”.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/fischer.html

 1971 – The Black Affairs Administration Act comes into force, and provided for black self-government in townships in South Africa.  It is repealed by section 69 of the Black Communities Development Ac tfo No. 4 of 1984.

1986 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission., in response to the Iran Contra Scandal.  http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=tower_commission_1

1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland.

2000 – George w. Bush is certified the winner of Florida’s electoral votes b6 Katherine Harris, making hm the winner of the US presidential election.

2008 – Terrorists launched commando-style attacks on two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a crowded train station in Mumbai, India, killing 166 people.http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/world/asia/mumbai-terror-attacks/http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/world/asia/mumbai-terror-attacks/

2010 – Nineteen-year-old Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested by federal agents during a sting in Portland, Ore. accused of planning to detonate van of explosives during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Births

1792 – Sarah Grimke, American abolitionist and early feminist https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/youngandbrave/asgrimke.html

1814 – Louise Aston, German author and feminist, advocate of women’s rights, democracy and love outside of marriage, known for dressing in men’s clothes and smoking cigars (d.1871.)

1858 – Katherine Drexel, American founder of Sisters of the Blesses Sacrament http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/drexel.htm

1876 – William H. Carrier, American inventor and industrialist

1899 – Bruno Hauptmann, kidnapper of the  son of Charles and Anne Morrow Linndbergh.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hauptmann

1909 – Eugene Ionesco, Romanian born French dramatist

1912 – Eric Sevareid, American journalist (d.1992)

1942 – Dang Thuy Tram, Vietnamese civilian doctor killed on the battlefield in disputed circumstances during the Vietnam War.  Her wartime diaries attracted international interest when published in 2005. (d.1970)

1969 – Kara Walker, collage artist, as born in Stockton California,  Walker earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. She first gained national attention with her 1994 mural “Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart.” In 1997, she was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur “Genius” grant, the second youngest recipient of a grant. In 2007, Walker was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Walker’s works are in the collections of numerous museums, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, Solomon Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Collection, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a professor of visual arts in the MFA program at Columbia University.(thewright.org)

Deaths

1883 – Sojourner Truth, hall of fame abolitionist and women’s rights activist, died.

1911 – Paul Lafargue, Cuban born Creole French revolutionary Marxist social journalist, literary critic and activist andthe son-in-law of Karl Marx, died on this day in a suicide pact with his wife Laura.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lafargue

1970 – Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr., the first African American general in the United States Army, died. Davis was born July 1, 1877 in Washington, D. C. He entered the military service in 1898. Over his fifty year career in the military, he had many assignments, including several stints as professor of military science and tactics at Wilberforce University and Tuskegee University. Davis retired from the military July 20, 1948 in a public ceremony presided over by President Harry S. Truman. His United States military decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star. His foreign awards and honors include the Croix de Guerre with Palm from France and the Grade of Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa from Liberia. Davis was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His biography, “America’s First Black General: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. 1880 – 1970,” was published in 1989. Davis’ name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.(Thewright.org)

1996 – Ed Wilson, sculptor, died.  Wilson was born March 28, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland. After serving in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946, Wilson earned his Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1953. Wilson’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is apparent in his works like “Minority Man” (1957). In 1964, he accepted a position at Harpur College of the State University of New York and was soon after made chairman of the college’s department of art and art history. Wilson worked primarily on civic commissions therefore his works were generally not displayed in museums but in public spaces.

Sources: The People History; This Day in Labor History; Wikipedia List of Historical Anniversaries; This Day in Women’s History; This Day in African History;History.com; History Orb; Yenoba; Selected Black Facts; Phil Konstantin’s North American Indian History; and This Day in Music