Category: Today

On November 18, 1307, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell is an enduring Swiss folk hero, and the subject of a famous opera by Rossini.

In 1926, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”

On November 17, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.

On that date in 1800, the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.

On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation — after 16 months of deliberation.

On November 14, 1918, Czechoslovakia became a republic. Born on the same date in 1947, American writer P.J. O’Rourke.

November 13 is World Kindness Day, which has been celebrated in various countries since 1998. It is not an official celebratory day of the U.S.A., nor of the United Nations. But individuals are free to be kind this day . . . or any day, for that matter.

On November 12, 1905, Norwegians established, by referendum, a monarchy not a republic. Exactly 14 years later, to the day, Austria became a republic.

On November 11, 1889, the State of Washington was admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.

In 1921 on this date, US President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

On November 10, 1821, the First Cry of Independence in the Villa de los Santos (a small town in the interior of the country) occurred in Panama. The November 10 date has since become Panama’s “Cry of Independence Day” in the country. November is a month of independence celebrations in Panama, but the November 10 celebration marks the first signs of the struggle for separation from Spain.

On November 8, 1965, Queen Elizabeth gave her Royal Assent to The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom.

The U.S. Congress overrode President Richard M. Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution, on November 7, 1973. This resolution ostensibly limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.