30 November, 1993

Schindler’s List released. I haven’t watched that movie in forever. I should watch it again.

Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 historical fiction novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

29 November, 1935

Schrödinger's cat!

This thought experiment was published on this day in 1935.

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.

28 November, 1717

Queen Anne’s Revenge!

The ship that would be known as Queen Anne's Revenge was a 200-ton vessel believed to have been built in 1710. She was handed over to René Duguay-Trouin and employed in his service for some time before being converted into a slave ship, then operated by the leading slave trader René Montaudin of Nantes, until sold in 1713 in Peru or Chile. She was briefly re-acquired by the French Navy in November 1716, but was sold by them for commerce five months later in France, again for use as a slaver.^[7] She was captured by Blackbeard and his pirates on 28 November 1717, near the island of Saint Vincent in the West Indies.^[8]

27 November, 1896

Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra) by Richard Strauss, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel, debuts in Frankfurt.

This was made famous as the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey

26 November, 1941

A rare double “On This Day” post for me. But I’m going to be hitting Pearl Harbor pretty hard over the next two weeks, and this is where it kind of officially begins.

The Kidō Butai  sets sail for Pearl Harbor, it’s exact destination still under sealed orders.

The Kidō Butai (機動部隊, "Mobile Unit/Force") was the Combined Fleet's tactical designation for its combined carrier battle groups.^[15] The title was used as a term of convenience; it was not a formal name for the organization. It consisted of Japan's six largest carriers, carrying the 1st Air Fleet.

Thus began the first phase of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor.

On November 26, 1941, a Japanese task force (the Striking Force) of six aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku—departed Hittokapu Bay on Kasatka (now Iterup) Island in the Kuril Islands, en route to a position northwest of Hawaii, intending to launch its 408 aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor: 360 for the two attack waves and 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave.

26 November, 1942

Here’s looking at you, kid.

Casablanca premieres in the U.S.

Possibly the best movie ever made.

25 November, 1952

The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie opens in London.

It’s still running!

24 November, 1971

The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper begins.

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in United States airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on the afternoon of November 24, 1971.^[1][2] He extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,278,000 in 2020) and parachuted to an uncertain fate over southwestern Washington. The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular lore as D. B. Cooper.

23 November, 1963

The first episode of Dr. Who!

I’ve never watched a single episode.

21 November, 1931

Frankenstein!

Horror film "Frankenstein" is released, starring Boris Karloff as the monster, directed by James Whale and based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus"

20 November, 1945

The Nuremberg Trials begin.

At the end of World War II in Europe, the victorious Allied powers created the first international court to try war criminals from Nazi Germany. Headquartered in the German city of Nuremberg, the first and most famous trials of the major war criminals were held between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946, with verdicts announced on September 30 and October 1.
In the end, a large number of senior Nazi leaders were sentenced to death, including Hermann Goering (who killed himself with cyanide the night before his sentence was to be carried out), Karl Dönitz, Martin Bormann (who was missing but sentenced to death in abstentia), Alfred Jodl, Joachim von Ribbentrop and various others. Some leaders, like Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer, were given prison terms in Spandau Prison. The death sentences were carried out on October 16, 1946.
Described as "the greatest trial in history" by one of the presiding judges, Nuremberg was a leap in international law, and would set a precedent for trying war crimes in an international court. The effect of Nuremberg can be seen in the modern-day International Criminal Court and with the prosecution of criminals for actions during wars in Yugoslavia and beyond.

19 November, 1863

The Gettysburg Address!

I used to know it by heart, back when you had to memorize things like this in school.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

18 November, 1928

The birth of Mickey Mouse in “Steamboat Willie”!

17 November, 1970

The first computer mouse is patented!

16 November, 2001

The film version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (still hate that title) was released in the United States.

15 November, 1971

50 years ago today!

Intel releases the first microprocessor for commercial use, the 4004.

What you need to know

• Intel is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its 4004 microprocessing chip.
• It is the invention that paved the way for microprocessors as we know them today.
• It debuted in 1971, though its story began in 1969 alongside plans for a calculator.

In case you've been out of the loop, it turns out calculators and chips go hand-in-hand these days when it comes to groundbreaking news. First, Texas Instruments—the folks behind many of the most popular calculators on planet Earth—got put on blast in a discussion regarding who was responsible for the global chip shortage. Then, Intel came out with a celebratory smattering of informative content regarding the anniversary of the Intel 4004 chip, which came about due to a 1969 mission to build a calculator.

14 November, 1883

Treasure Island is published. I remember reading this in grade school. Hard to believe it’s over 100 years old.

 

13 November, 1940

Fantasia! Released on this day in 1940.

 

12 November, 1933

Nessie Lives!

The first photograph of the so-called “Loch Ness Monster” taken by Hugh Gray on this day.

11 November, 1921

100 years ago today. the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier opens in Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend.

It doesn’t look like this anymore.