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November 9: Germany's "Night of broken glass" takes place, Berlin Wall destroyed 20 years ago
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Maine Fast Fact: A fire in Portland in 1866 destroyed much of what is now the Old Port.
Births:
- 1877: Muhammad Iqbal, Persian poet, philosopher and politician, his vision of an independent state for the Muslims of British India inspired the creation of Pakistan
- 1914: Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-born American actress and scientist
- 1918: Spiro Agnew, 39th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Richard Nixon
- 1922: Dorothy Dandridge, American actress, first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress
- 1941: Tom Fogerty, American musician, guitarist in the band Creedence Clearwater Revival
- 1947: Robert David Hall, American actor
- 1951: Lou Ferrigno, American bodybuilder and actor, star of The Incredible Hulk television series
- 1964: Sandra “Pepa” Denton, American musician, part of the female rap group Salt-N-Pepa
- 1972: Eric Dane, American actor, known for his role as Dr. Mark Sloan on the television series Grey’s Anatomy
- 1973: Nick Lachey, American pop singer, actor and television personality, former husband of singer Jessica Simpson and starred in the hit-reality television series Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica
- 1978: Sisqo, American singer
Deaths:
- 1911: Howard Pyle, American writer and illustrator, author of the novel The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
- 2006: Ed Bradley, American journalist, known for his 26 years of work on the CBS news show 60 Minutes
History:
- 1620: The Pilgrims on board the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
- 1857: The American magazine The Atlantic is founded in Boston.
- 1887: The United States receives the rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
- 1906: President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first president to make an official trip outside the United States when he goes to inspect progress on he Panama Canal.
- 1918: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates his throne and Germany is proclaimed a Republic.
- 1921: Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the photoelectric effect.
- 1938: Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath dies from a gunshot wound from Jewish resistance fighter Hershel Gynsszpan; Synagogues and Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria are looted and burned by Nazis on Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass.”
- 1953: Cambodia declares its independence from France.
- 1960: Robert McNamara is named the first non-Ford family member president of Ford Motor Company.
- 1965: The Northeast Blackout of 1965 hits Ontario, Canada, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, leaving about 25 million people without electricity for up to 13 and a half hours; Roger Allen LaPorte, a Catholic Worker member protesting the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.
- 1967: The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine is published.
- 1976: The United Nations General Assembly approves ten resolutions which condemns apartheid in South Africa and one which characterizes white-ruled government as “illegitimate.”
- 1979: The NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detects a purported Soviet nuclear strike but the alert is cancelled after reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking early warning radars.
- 1989: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall and allows its citizens to travel to West Germany, people start demolishing the Berlin Wall.
- 1990: Mary Robinson becomes Ireland’s first female President and the first from the Labour Party.
- 2001: The northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan falls to the northern alliance in the first territorial advance for the rebels against the ruling Taliban.
- 2004: Houston Astros pitcher Roger Clemens wins his record seventh Cy Young Award.
- 2005: Suicide bombers in Amman, Jordan attack three hotels, killing at least 60 people.
November 9 is Independence Day in Cambodia, celebrating its independence from France that it received in 1953. It is Allama Iqbal Day in Pakistan, a day celebrating the life of Muhammad Iqbal, the inspiration of the creation of Pakistan as an independent state for the Muslims of British India. Today is also Inventors' Day in Europe, celebrated on the birthday of Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-born actress and scientist known for co-inventing a form of spread spectrum communications technology, a key to the wireless communication known today.
And today is also World Freedom Day, a day to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall which took place 20 years ago today. In Germany, today is known as Schicksalstag (“Fateful Day”) because of five important events in German history that took place today: In 1848, Liberal leader Robert Blum is executed, symbolizing the failure of the Revolutions of 1848; the dethroning of Emperor Wilhelm II in 1918; the Beer-Hall Putsch, marking the emergence of the Nazi Party in 1923; Kristallnacht in 1938 when more than 1,300 Jews are killed; and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, all making up important times in Germany’s history.
