November 12 in Pop Culture History

November 12th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

November 12th History Highlights

  • William ‘Pudge’ Heffelfinger became the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid ($250) game for the Allegheny Athletic Association, in 1892.
  • 1927 – Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party.
  • 1980 – The NASA space probe Voyager I made the closest approach to Saturn and took the first clear images of its rings.
     
  • John Lennon and Yoko Ono released the 1968 album Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with a cover photo of the pair, both naked. Most of the albums were sold with a brown paper bag over the cover.
  • If you were born on November 12th,
    You were likely conceived the week of… February 19th (same year)

November 12th is…

National Chicken Soup for the Soul Day
National French Dip Day
National Happy Hour Day
National Pizza with the Works Except for Anchovies Day
World Pneumonia Day

November 12th Birthday Quotes

“Getting angry doesn’t solve anything.”
– Grace Kelly

“People are gonna believe what they want to believe And like I said before, I really don’t give a damn.”
– Tonya Harding

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”
– George S. Patton

“To the artist, there is never anything ugly in nature.”
– Auguste Rodin

“The more simple we are, the more complete we become.”
– Auguste Rodin

November 12th Birthdays

1840 – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor, and illustrator, created The Thinker (died in 1917)
1885 – George Patton, American General (died in 1945)
1889 – DeWitt Wallace, American publisher, and philanthropist (co-founded Reader’s Digest, died in 1981)
1917 – Jo Stafford, American singer (died in 2008)
1922 – Kim Hunter, American actress (died in 2002)
1929 – Grace Kelly, American actress, later Princess Grace of Monaco (died in 1982)
1930 – Bob Crewe, American Singer/Songwriter, and producer (died in 2014)
1934 – Charles Manson, American cult leader (died in 2017)
1944 – Al Michaels, American sportscaster
1945 – Neil Young, Canadian Singer/Songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1947 – Buck Dharma, American Singer/Songwriter, and guitarist
1958 – Megan Mullally, American actress, and singer
1961 – Nadia Comaneci, Romanian Olympic Gymnast
1968 – Sammy Sosa, Dominican-American baseball player
1970 – Tonya Harding, American figure skater
1976 – Tevin Campbell, American R&B Singer/Songwriter, and actor
1980 – Ryan Gosling, Canadian actor, producer, and singer
1982 – Anne Hathaway, American actress
1984 – Omarion, American singer, songwriter, actor, and dancer

November 12th History

1799 – Andrew Ellicott wrote the about first known record of a meteor shower observed in the US. We now know they were the Leonids.

1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, the father of modern anesthetics, used chloroform (“perchloride of formyle”) for the first time as an anesthetic in an operation.

1892 – William “Pudge” Walter Heffelfinger was the first professional (paid) US Football player. He got $25 and a $500 bonus for a single game.

1922 (Volcano Eruption & Tsunami) Chile/Argentina – over 1,000 people were killed.

1927 – The Holland Tunnel connecting NY and NY – the world’s first underwater vehicular tunnel – officially opened.

1929 – Commander Richard E. Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole.

1933 – First known photo of the so-called Loch Ness Monster was taken by Hugh Gray.

1936 – The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic.

1940 – The Armistice Day Blizzard killed nearly 150 people and stretched from Kansas to Michigan.

1946 – The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, Illinois, instituted the first drive-in banking service in America.

1952 (Earthquake & Tsunami) Kamchatka.

1954 – Ellis Island in New York closed after providing entrance to the US for 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1924.

November 12, 1955 (fiction) The Hill Valley Clock Tower was struck by lightning, Back to the Future, Film

1956 – The largest iceberg on record was sighted by the USS Glacier, a U. S. Navy icebreaker, about 150 miles west of Scott Island in the Southern Hemisphere. It had broken from the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic. It was about 208 miles long and 60 miles wide.

1966 – #1 Hit November 12, 1966 – November 18, 1966: Johnny Rivers – Poor Side Of Town

1966 – The first photograph was taken from Earth’s atmosphere by the satellite Gemini XII.

1970 – Broadway Show – Sleuth (Play) November 12, 1970

1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy a beached eight-ton sperm whale near Florence, Oregon with half a ton of dynamite. It mainly made a beggir mess.

Arches National Park: Established on November 12, 1971, in Utah, this park spans 120 square miles. Known for its more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the iconic Delicate Arch.

1981 – Mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marked the first time a manned spacecraft is launched into space twice.

1981 – First balloon crossing of the Pacific was completed. The Double Eagle V launched from Nagashima, Japan on November 10, 1981.

1983 – #1 Hit November 12, 1983 – December 9, 1983: Lionel Richie – All Night Long (All Night)

1988 – #1 Hit November 12, 1988 – November 18, 1988: The Escape Club – Wild, Wild West

1989 – Broadway Show – Grand Hotel (Musical) November 12, 1989

1993 – The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, was held in Denver, Colorado.

1997 – Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

2001 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 on its way to the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 onboard and five people on the ground.

2004 – A jury in Redwood City, California, convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay.

November 12, 2010 – Avalon High aired on The Disney Channel

2011 – #1 Hit November 12, 2011 – January 6, 2012: Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris – We Found Love

November 12 is French Dip Day

The French dip is a sandwich so delicious it’s worth celebrating with National French Dip Day on November 12th. Made from tender beef or pork swimming in pan drippings and spice-infused mustard, then topped off by an extra layer of bread dipped into more au jus – this dish has been enjoyed at lazy summer cookouts for generations! Follow these easy steps to make your very own decadent delicacy:

French Dip Ingredients:

1 pound lean beef or pork
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 baguette, sliced into sandwich-sized pieces

Heating Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Season the beef or pork with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the meat to the skillet and cook until browned all over.
3. Remove the meat from the skillet and add the onion. Cook until softened, then add the garlic and cook for an additional minute.
4. Stir in the flour, oregano, and thyme. Add the red wine vinegar and beef broth, bring to a simmer, and cook until thickened.
5. Add the Dijon mustard and cooked meat to the sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
6. Place the baguette slices on a baking sheet and top with the meat mixture. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the bread is crispy and the meat is hot.
7. Serve immediately with au jus for dipping. Enjoy!

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The Capital of Egypt is Cairo

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” – Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in Wall Street, 1987

That’s a nice ham you’ve got there.
… it’d be a shame if somebody put an ‘s’ at the front and an ‘e’ at the end.

I decided to clean my kitchen today, but I had found that all of the stuff that gets kicked under the fridge had coalesced into a colony of angry fungus people and they made an attempt to escape. They had a wormhole generator and there were noodly arms coming out of it.
I fear for my life.

The smallest US state (Rhode Island) has a larger population than the largest U.S. state (Alaska).

The most lethal sports riot in history happened in Constantinople AD 532, was over chariot racing, and saw tens of thousands dead and half the city destroyed.

4 chutes = 2 parachutes

“It’s… different. When you got girls in bikinis screaming for you, it strokes your ego. But when you got people thanking for saving their lives… it’s humbling. The best thing that came out of that was a chance to put my family back together. I can’t risk screwing that up again.” – Fin Shepard, Sharnado

Five Card Poker Odds, nothing wild: Full House – Three of one number or “face”, two of another same pair, 1 in 700

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