SBI: A Thinning Crowd

November 25 is my birthday, and, as a good historian, I like to know what happened on this very important date in history. Therefore, today’s post is a list of a few events.

1. 1783: The last British troops left New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. (To get this straight, the American Revolution was over, and the British were still sticking around. The United States must have learned something from them. We tend to hang around after the occupied areas want us gone.)

2. 1876: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife’s sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River. (If anyone has a right to protest in the United States, then it is the Native Americans.)

3. 1947: The “Hollywood Ten” are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios. (I am a staunch capitalist, but the Red Scare was a sad time in American history.)

4. 1963: President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (People often ask me about Kennedy’s presidency. Their opinions vary from his sainthood to his evilness. Honestly, I don’t think he was in office long enough for anyone to know how good he would have been. However, I think he, like most, was somewhere between the two extremes.)

Other people born today:

1835: Andrew Carnegie (He was slightly successful in the business world.)

1844: Karl Benz (He was slightly successful in the automotive world.)

1846: Carrie Nation (She wanted prohibition of alcohol in the United States. Can you imagine?)

1914: Joe DiMaggio (He owns baseball’s most unbreakable record and married Marilyn Monroe. What else can you say?)

1920: Ricardo Montalban (As Mr Roarke, he offered people the chance to live their deepest fantasies. The show would have been a lot better on Cinemax.)

1926: Jeffrey Hunter (He played Captain Pike in the pilot episode of “Star Trek”, but I like him better in the greatest western of all time, “The Searchers”.)

1941: Percy Sledge (He sang “When a Man Loves a Woman”.)

1960: John F. Kennedy, Jr. (That famous photograph of him saluting his father’s casket was made on his third birthday.)

1983: Joey Chestnut (He is the current world champion in various eating contests, including hot dogs.)

As Walter Cronkite used to say, “That’s the way it is – November 25, 2011.”

Tags: American Revolution, Andrew Carnegie, History, Joe DiMaggio, John F. Kennedy, November 25