On This Day November 20th

 OTD

November 20th is the 324th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 41 days remain until the end of the year.

 

 Events

1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese Bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.

1789 – New Jersey became the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1805 – Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.

1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 3,200 kilometers (2,000 mi) from the western coast of South America. (this incident partly inspired Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick.)

1873 – Garnier Expedition: French forces under Lieutenant Francis Garnier captured Hanoi from the Vietnamese.

1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.

1945 – Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy completes the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0, the first graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft, is released.

2022 – The 2022 FIFA World Cup begins in Qatar. This is the first time the tournament will be held in the Middle East.

 

Birthdays

1602 – Otto von Guericke, German physicist and politician (d. 1686)

1625 – Paulus Potter, Dutch painter (d. 1654)

1752 – Thomas Chatterton, English poet (d. 1770)

1858 – Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)

1866 – Kenesaw Mountain Landis, American lawyer and judge (d. 1944)

1876 – Rudolf Koch, German designer (d. 1934)

1889 – Edwin Hubble, American astronomer and cosmologist (d. 1953)

1900 – Chester Gould, American cartoonist and author, created Dick Tracy (d. 1985)

1908 – Alistair Cooke, British-American journalist and author (d. 2004)

1913 – Libertas Schulze-Boysen, German opponent of the Nazis (d. 1942)

1925 – Robert F. Kennedy, US Navy officer, lawyer, and politician, 64th United States Attorney General (d. 1968)

1941 – Dr. John, American singer and songwriter (d. 2019)

1973 – Neil Hodgson, English motorcycle racer and sportscaster

1992 – Kristiina Mäkelä, Finnish triple jumper

 

Holiday Spotlight

National Absurdity Day

  The natural philosophy of absurdism began in the 19th century in the mind of a Danish philosopher called Kierkegaard. Its premise is that humans search for meaning in a meaningless universe. As the years passed, this philosophy gained popularity and became the touchstone for a movement in theatre and literature in Europe and North America.

 In the 1950s and 1960s, the peak of such artistic movements as the Theater of the Absurd and Surrealism gave rise to an entire genre of literature based on non sequitur behaviors and otherworldly plots. One of the works from this time, “Waiting for Godot,” is based entirely around a pair of characters waiting at a tree for their friend, Godot — whom we never meet — to arrive.

 The origins of National Absurdity Day are apropos to the subject at hand. They’re entirely unknown. We like to think of this day as an opportunity to embrace a new and freeing philosophy in all our words and deeds, to see what it’s like to unsubscribe from the order and organization of everyday human life for a few hours.

 Absurdism can be challenging to define since it is, by nature, anti-establishment and anti-order. Embracing absurdity requires us to move directly past all the tacit rules that we tend to accommodate each day, from how we dress to how we speak to how we sit in a public place.

 Today, an elementary school is the primary location for National Absurdity Day celebrations. This is one of the only places where people can truly embrace the meaning of the day without paying significant consequences—it’s not so easy for adults in the working world.

 

Other Include

Africa Industrialization Day

Beautiful Day

Do Dah Day (Pasadena) - November 20, 2023

Future Teachers of America Day

Globally Organized Hug a Runner Day (G.O.H.A.R.D.)

Name Your PC Day

National Pay Back Your Parents Day

National Peanut Butter Fudge Day

National Sovereignty Day (Argentina)

Revolution Day (Mexico)

Universal Children's Day