November 23 is:
National Cashew Day
National Espresso Day!
Annapolis, Maryland, became US capital in November, 1783. (until June 1784). This city served as the seat of the Confederation Congress (former Second Continental Congress) and temporary national capital of the United States in 1783–1784. At that time, General George Washington came before the body convened in the new Maryland State House and resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army. A month later, the Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, with Great Britain recognizing the independence of the United States. The city and state capitol was also the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which issued a call to the states to send delegates for the Constitutional Convention to be held the following year in Philadelphia. The United States Naval Academy, established 1845, is adjacent to the city limits.
Publication of Federalist Paper #9: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection written by Alexander Hamilton. Critics of the Constitution say the proposed Confederation is too large, too diverse, to survive. Hamilton argues republican government with the distribution of power into distinct departments, the introduction of legislative checks and balances, the institution of courts composed of judges, and the representation of the people in the legislature allow that “the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided”.
Publication of Federalist Paper #11: The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy written by Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton discusses the importance of a Union to trade and commerce. It is beneficial to the United States as one country to set regulations that are uniform throughout the country when it comes to trading rights with foreign countries. In order to enforce those regulations, a federal navy is needed. A navy would also protect trade between the states. And a navy would provide protection along the Atlantic seaboard. He says: “The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.”
Birthday of Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804), fourteenth president of the United States.
U. S. President from March 4, 1853 to March 4, 1857
While President-elect, Pierce had been traveling from Boston to Concord by train with his wife and son, Benjamin. Suddenly the railroad car toppled off the tracks. Pierce and his wife were only slightly injured but Benjamin was nearly decapitated and died. Jane Pierce did not attend the Inaugural or take any part in White House social affairs for two years.
From Internet Public Library.org
Points of Interest:
- Pierce was arrested while in office for running over an old woman with his horse, but his case was dropped due to insufficient evidence.
- He defeated his old commanding officer from the Mexican War, Winfield Scott, when he was elected president.
- Pierce was wounded during the Mexican War.
- One of the Democratic party’s slogans during Pierce’s campaign for president was: “We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852.”
- Because of religious considerations Pierce affirmed rather than swore the Presidential oath of office.
- Pierce gave his 3,319-word inaugural address from memory, without the aid of notes.
- Pierce was the only President to have no turnover in his cabinet.
- Pierce was the only elected President who sought but did not win his party’s nomination for a second term.
- During his second year at Bowdoin College in Maine, Pierce had the lowest grades in his class. He changed his study habits, and graduated third in his class. Among his class mates were Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
- Franklin Pierce was the first President to have a Christmas tree in the White House.
- He installed the first central-heating system and the first bathroom with hot and cold water in the White House.
- Pierce was an avid fisherman.
- Pierce died of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of years of heavy drinking.
- Barbara Pierce Bush, wife of George H. W. Bush and mother of George W. Bush was a fourth cousin of Franklin Pierce.
November 23, 1889 – The first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
Life magazine was reborn as a photo magazine in 1936 and enjoyed instant success. It had been published as a weekly humor magazine during the Great Depression.
In 1964, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey of Houston performed the first successful coronary artery bypass graft procedure.
Former First Lady Abigail Smith Adams was born on November 22, 1744. She was the wife of 
Publication of 
Birthday of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (November 22, 1819). English novelist famous for “Silas Marner”, “Mill on the Floss” and others.
“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” was first heard on Eddie Cantor’s show on November 22, 1934. It became an instant hit with orders for 500,000 copies of sheet music and more than 30,000 records sold within 24 hours.
1963 – Death of 
Birthday of Jean Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire), (November 21, 1694) French Enlightenment author, historian and philosopher. Author of “Candide”. Known for his wit and attacks on the established Church. He was a key figure in the European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment.
In 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia took the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
Former First Lady Florence Harding died of renal failure on November 21, 1924, at Marion, Ohio, U.S., wife of
1942 – Tweety Bird, aka Tweety Pie, debuted in “Tale of Two Kitties”
Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, was born (November 20, 1917) Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. in North Wilkesboro, N.C. His parents were Cornelius Calvin Sale Sr. and Ada Mae Kirdy. When he was ten months old, his mother died in the 1918 Flu Pandemic. In accordance with his mother’s wishes, his father dispersed their children among relatives. Calvin Jr. was adopted by his aunt and uncle, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, who changed his name to Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him in the coal-mining region of southern West Virginia. Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959. He served as a United States Senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. In the 1940s, Byrd organized and led a local Klan chapter as its Exalted Cyclops, but he wasn’t a Grand Wizard as his often reported.
Birthday of Robert F Kennedy (November 20, 1925), U.S. Attorney General and Senator from New York. Brother of President John F. Kennedy. He was a Democratic candidate for president in 1968 when he was assassinated.
Birthday of President
Birthday of 
On Nov. 19, 1863,
Birthday of Louis Jacques Daguerre (November 18, 1789), French inventor of the “daguerreotype” method of producing permanent pictures.
Death of 
Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England died on November 17, 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I of England. Sometimes called the Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor.
1934 
Britney Spears, at 21 years old, becomes the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1849 – A Russian court sentenced writer Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group. At the last moment, a note from Tsar Nicholas I was delivered to the scene of the firing squad, commuting the sentence to ten years’ hard labor in Siberia. Dostoevsky’s seizures, which may have started in 1839, increased in frequency in Siberia, and he was diagnosed with epilepsy. On his release, he was forced to serve as a soldier, before being discharged on grounds of ill health. He survived until 1881. Dostoevsky was the author of Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov.
In 2010, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel was convicted on 11 of 13 charges related to financial misconduct, prompting fellow lawmakers to censure the 80-year-old New York Democrat. Despite the ethics violations, Rangel was re-elected in 2012 and 2014.
In 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike saw a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Originally called “El Capitán” by Spanish explorers, the mountain was renamed Pike’s Peak. The Arapaho name is heey-otoyoo’ (“long mountain”).)
In Washington, D.C. on November 15, 1939, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the 
1943 – The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps”.
Birthday of Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765), American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat; the first was called North River Steamboat. In 1807 that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers, from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 miles, in 62 hours.
Death of Georg Wilhelm Hegel (Nov 14, 1831), German philosopher, and a major figure in German Idealism. He achieved recognition in his day and—while primarily influential in the continental tradition of philosophy—has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. His dying words were “Only one man understood me and he didn’t understand.”
Birthday of Claude Monet (November 14, 1840), French landscape painter. In almost every sense he was the founder of French Impressionist painting, the term itself coming from one of his paintings, Impression, Sunrise. His paintings can be viewed at 
In 1889, pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) began a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in 72 days.
Birthday of Mamie Eisenhower (November 14, 1896), wife of 
Birthday of King Charles II (November 14, 1948), (Charles Philip Arthur George), is the eldest child and heir of Queen Elizabeth II. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (born 1982), and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced. Diana died in a car crash the following year. In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who now uses the title Queen Consort.
Birthday of Condoleezza Rice, (November 14, 1954) American political scientist and diplomat; former Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration.
Birthday of Curt Schilling, (November 14,1966), baseball pitcher. He helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 1993 and won World Series championships in 2001 with the Arizona Diamondbacks and in 2004 and 2007 with the Boston Red Sox.