Today is Monday, Nov. 9, the 314th day of 2020. There are 52 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
- On Nov. 9, 1989, communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West; joyous Germans danced atop the Berlin Wall.
On this date:
- In 1620, the passengers and crew of the Mayflower sighted Cape Cod.
- In 1938, Nazis looted and burned synagogues as well as Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom or deliberate persecution that became known as “Kristallnacht.”
- In 1961, U.S. Air Force Maj. Robert M. White became the first pilot to fly an X-15 rocket plane at six times the speed of sound. The Beatles' future manager, Brian Epstein, first saw the group perform at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, England.
- In 1965, the great Northeast blackout began as a series of power failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours, leaving 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity.
- In 1967, a Saturn V rocket carrying an unmanned Apollo spacecraft blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a successful test flight.
- In 1976, the U.N. General Assembly approved resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as “illegitimate.”
- In 2000, George W. Bush’s lead over Al Gore in all-or-nothing Florida slipped beneath 300 votes in a suspense-filled recount, as Democrats threw the presidential election to the courts, claiming “an injustice unparalleled in our history.”
- In 2005, three suicide bombers carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three U.S.-based hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing 60 victims and wounding hundreds.
- In 2007, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (pur-VEHZ' moo-SHAH'-ruhv) of Pakistan placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto (BEN'-uh-zeer BOO'-toh) under house arrest for a day, and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass rally against his emergency rule.
- In 2011, after 46 seasons as Penn State’s head football coach and a record 409 victories, Joe Paterno was fired along with the university president, Graham Spanier, over their handling of child sex abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
- In 2012, retired four-star Army Gen. David Petraeus abruptly resigned as CIA director after an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was revealed by an FBI investigation.
- In 2018, President Donald Trump issued an order to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally; the measure would be blocked by court challenges.
Today’s Birthdays:
Baseball Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog is 89. Actor Charlie Robinson is 75. Movie director Bille August is 72. Actor Robert David Hall is 72. Actor Lou Ferrigno is 69. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is 68. Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin is 61. Rock musician Dee Plakas (L7) is 60. Actor Ion Overman is 51. Rapper Pepa (Salt-N-Pepa) is 56. Rapper Scarface (Geto Boys) is 50. Blues singer Susan Tedeschi is 50. Actor Jason Antoon is 49. Actor Eric Dane is 48. Singer Nick Lachey (98 Degrees) is 47. Country musician Barry Knox (Parmalee) is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Sisqo (Dru Hill) is 42. Country singer Corey Smith is 41. Country singer Chris Lane is 36. Actor Emily Tyra is 33. Actor Nikki Blonsky is 32. Actor-model Analeigh Tipton is 32.