Table of Contents November 30 History, Trivia, and Fun Facts |
November 30 History Highlights |
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The Sylacauga (Hodges) Meteorite |
36-year-old Elizabeth (Liz) Hodges was lounging, half-asleep in her home on November 30, 1954. The people in the town saw an orange smoking streak go through the sky, sonic booming, breaking up, and a 9-pound hot rock landed in her house. The townsfolk thought it was a Russian Missile. This was at the height of the Cold War. The US Air Force got involved, and took the meteorite from Liz, to study. A Neighbor found a piece on his property but sold it right away, HE got enough money for a new car. The Air Force promised Liz that they’d give it back to her, as long as it wasn’t Russian. Nobody had ever been hit by a meteorite before, so THIS was probably the rarest Space Rock ever, given that hit a human being, so she thought she’d at least make some money from it. But… As Liz and her lawyer were starting to take offers, and a few months later, the Air Force was going to give it back, and her Landlord, a Mr. Biidie Guy, said that the meteorite was HIS property, since it landed in his house. They settled out of court, and LIZ gave Birdie $500, about $5K today, to win unrestricted rights to the Stone from Space, but by that time, it was a year later, and nobody wanted to buy it. Liz Hodges ended up Donating the meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, about two years later. |
November 30 is… |
Cities For Life Day Computer Security Day National Mousse Day National Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day |
| November 30 Birthday Quotes |
“A sound heart is a safer guide than an ill-trained conscience.” “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.” “When a great genius appears in the world the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” “You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.” “I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.” “Music is the soundtrack of your life.” “Hello. My name is Iรฑigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” “If you want to stay young-looking, pick your parents very carefully.” |
November 30 Birthdays |
1667 – Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist, and essayist (died in 1745) 1835 – Mark Twain, American novelist, humorist, and critic (died in 1910) 1872 – John McCrae, Canadian physician, soldier, and poet (In Flanders Fields, died in 1918) 1874 – Winston Churchill, English colonel, journalist, and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Nobel Prize laureate, died in 1965) 1918 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., American actor (died in 2014) 1920 – Virginia Mayo, American actress (died in 2005) 1924 – Allan Sherman, American actor, comedian, singer, producer, and screenwriter (died in 1973) 1926 – Richard Crenna, American actor, director, and producer (died in 2003) 1927 – Robert Guillaume, American actor and singer (died in 2017) 1929 – Dick Clark, American TV host, and producer (founded Dick Clark Productions, died in 2012) 1930 – G. Gordon Liddy, American lawyer, radio host 1936 – Abbie Hoffman, American activist and author (co-founded the Youth International Party, died in 1989) 1937 – Ridley Scott, English director, and producer (Alien, Blade Runner) 1942 – Eugene Krabs, restaurateur (The Krusty Krab) 1951 – Daniel Petrie, Jr., American director, producer, and screenwriter 1952 – Mandy Patinkin, American actor, and singer 1953 – June Pointer, American singer (Pointer Sisters, d. 2006) 1955 – Kevin Conroy, American actor (animated Batman) 1955 – Billy Idol, English Singer/Songwriter (White Wedding, Mony Mony) 1958 – Stacey Q, American pop Singer/Songwriter, dancer, and actress 1959 – Cherie Currie, American Singer/Songwriter, musician, and actress (The Runaways) 1960 – Mandy Patinkin, American actor 1962 – Bo Jackson, American football and baseball player 1968 – Des’ree, English Singer/Songwriter 1975 – Mindy McCready, American Singer/Songwriter (died in 2013) 1977 – Steve Aoki, American DJ, and producer (founded Dim Mak Records) 1978 – Clay Aiken, American singer (American Idol) 1982 – Elisha Cuthbert, Canadian actress 1985 – Kaley Cuoco, American actress (Big Bang Theory) 1985 – Chrissy Teigen, American model |
November 30 History |
3340 BC – Earliest believed record of an eclipse, in Ireland. 1609 – Galileo Galilei realized that the moon was a landscape, not a flat surface on a circle in the sky. 1858 – The Mason Jar was invented and patented (#22,186) by Philadelphia tinsmith John Landis Mason. 1872 – First international soccer game was played. Final score: Scotland-England 0-0 (in Glasgow) 1875 – A patent (#170,460) was issued for a “Biscuit Cutter” to Alexander P. Ashbourne. 1886 – The first commercially successful U.S. alternating current power plant was opened at Buffalo, NY by George Westinghouse. 1897 – A patent (#594,501) for a “Device for Rolling Cigarettes” was issued to American inventor J.A. Sweeting. 1931 – The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer was published. 1936 – London’s Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire. 1940 – Lucille Ball married Desi Arnaz in Greenwich, Connecticut. 1954 – First proven meteorite known to strike a woman/person (Liz Hodges, in Sylacauga, Alabama). It took a year of pleading with the air force, but she was allowed to keep the 9-pound meteorite. 1956 – CBS became the first network to broadcast from videotape. It was a rebroadcast to the West Coast of the 15-minute Douglas Edwards and the News program. It was recorded on 2-inch tape with an Ampex Mark IV machine. 1968 – #1 Hit November 30, 1968 – December 13, 1968: Diana Ross & the Supremes – Love Child 1971 – TV movie Brian’s Song, aired for the first time on ABC 1979 – Pink Floyd released The Wall double album. “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding, how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” 1982 – Michael Jackson’s second solo album, Thriller, possibly the biggest-selling album in history, was released worldwide. 1985 – #1 Hit November 30, 1985 – December 6, 1985: Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin – Separate Lives 1991 – #1 Hit November 30, 1991 – December 6, 1991: P.M. Dawn – Set Adrift On Memory Bliss 1992 – Guns N’ Roses performed their hit song November Rain in Bogotรก, Colombia. When they started to play it, a soft rain fell over the city and stopped right after they finished the song. 1993 – The Brady Bill, requiring a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers, was signed into law. 1994 – Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro caught fire off Somalia, with 3 people dead, and most of the nearly 1,000 passengers and crew escaping in lifeboats. It sank on December 2nd. 2004 – Longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, finally lost, leaving him with $2,520,700 – television’s biggest game show winnings. 2009 – CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) started. “CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has today become the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator, having accelerated its twin beams of protons to an energy of 1.18 TeV in the early hours of the morning.” CERN is experimenting with things like “The Big Bang” but hopefully on a smaller scale. #1 Hit November 30, 2019 – December 13, 2019:ย Post Maloneย –ย Circles |
Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts |
US President #34 Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) He initiated the use of Air Force One. Despite Star Wars being set a “long time ago in a galaxy far far away” they have insanely advanced technology, yet they don’t have glasses. The Capital of Cameroon is Yaounde After the Library of Congress was burned by the British in 1814, Thomas Jefferson offered his entire personal library as a replacement – more than doubling the previous size of the library to 6,487 volumes TV Quotes… “Well, isn’t that special?” (Dana Carvey as the Church Lady) on Saturday Night Live. The Scooby Gang includes Scooby-doo Fred “Freddie” Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville “Shaggy” Rogers. I just got done with my performance review and it’s pretty clear that my boss is clueless to the difference between a “debacle” and a “fiasco”. A group of Antelope is called a Herd. “I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m just ‘Crewman Number Six.’ I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I’ve gotta get outta here.” – Guy Fleegman From Russia with Love was the last film JFK saw at the White House, on November 20, 1963, before going to Dallas. Roulette Odds: 0,00,1,2,3 combination: Payoff: 6:1 True Odds: 13.16% The Bohemian Rhapsody lyric “Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango”, it refers to a clown character from 17th-century theatre being asked to do a Spanish dance, which has a lively triple meter rhythm like a waltz. |
More Pop Culture History Resources |
