November 17

1968

The Oakland Raiders scored two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets—and no one saw it, because they were watching the movie Heidi instead. With just 65 seconds left to play, NBC switched off the game in favor of its previously scheduled programming, a made-for-TV version of the children’s story about a young girl and her grandfather in the Alps. Viewers were outraged, and they complained so vociferously that network execs learned a lesson they’ll never forget: “Whatever you do,” one said, “you better not leave an NFL football game.” The game is now known as The Heidi Game or The Heidi Bowl.

1973

President Nixon insisted that he was “not a crook" while at Walt Disney World. Nixon made the now-famous declaration during a televised question-and-answer session with Associated Press editors. Nixon, who appeared “tense” to a New York Times reporter, was questioned about his role in the Watergate burglary scandal and efforts to cover up the fact that members of his re-election committee had funded the break-in. Nixon replied “people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” He did, however, admit that he was at fault for failing to supervise his campaign’s fund-raising activities.

2003

Ex-soldier John Muhammad was found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and dominated national headlines in October 2002. Police charged that Muhammad and his 17-year-old accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, killed 10 people and wounded three others during a three-week killing spree that became known as the “Beltway sniper” attacks. After just over six hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Muhammad of the October 9, 2002, shooting of Dean Meyers while he pumped gas at a Sunoco station in Manassas, Virginia.

November 18

1883

America’s railroads began using a standard time system involving four time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. Within each zone, all clocks were synchronized. The railroad industry’s plan was adopted by much of the country, although the time-zone system didn’t become official across the United States until the passage of the 1918 Standard Time Act, which also established daylight savings time. By the mid-20th century, most of the world had adopted a system of international time zones, in which the planet is divided into 24 zones spaced at intervals of approximately 15 degrees of longitude.

  

1928

Walt Disney released "Steamboat Willie," Mickey Mouse's first sound cartoon. The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters, but for its technical innovation of synchronized sound. In 1998 the film was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." This is the date used for Mickey's birthday.

1966

Sandy Koufax, the ace pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, retired from baseball at just 30 years old. He was retiring after a great season–he’d led the Dodgers to a National League pennant and won his third Cy Young award. Unfortunately, Koufax suffered from chronic arthritis in his pitching arm, and he was afraid that if he kept playing baseball, eventually he wouldn’t be able to use his left hand at all. During his career, Koufax threw one no-hitter every year from 1962 to 1965, and in 1965 he threw a perfect game. His pitches were notoriously difficult to hit; getting the bat on a Koufax fastball, Pittsburgh’s Willie Stargell once said, was like “trying to drink coffee with a fork.” In 1971, the 36-year-old Koufax became the youngest person ever to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

November 19

1863

At the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War. Reception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was initially mixed, divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written.

1975

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a film about a group of patients at a mental institution, opened in theaters. Directed by Milos Forman and based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson and was co-produced by the actor Michael Douglas. The film went on to become the first film in four decades to win in all five of the major Academy Award categories: Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched), Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Picture.

2004

Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers jumped into the stands to confront a Detroit Pistons fan who threw a drink at him as he rests on the scorers' table. This ignited what became known as "Malice at the Palace," one of the more infamous moments in sports history. NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Artest for the remainder of the season, 73 games. Stephen Jackson (30 games), Jermaine O'Neal (25) and Anthony Johnson (five) also were suspended. Ben Wallace, whose shove started the brawl, received a six-game suspension. Other players received one-game suspensions for leaving their bench.

 

November 20

  

1923

The U.S. Patent Office granted Patent No. 1,475,074 to 46-year-old inventor and newspaperman Garrett Morgan for his three-position traffic signal. Though Morgan’s was not the first traffic signal (that one had been installed in London in 1868), it was an important innovation nonetheless. By having a third position besides just “Stop” and “Go,” it regulated crossing vehicles more safely than earlier signals had. The signal Morgan patented was a T-shaped pole with three settings. At night, when traffic was light, it could be set at half-mast (like a blinking yellow light today), warning drivers to proceed carefully through the intersection. He sold the rights to his invention to General Electric for $40,000.

1966

John Kander and Fred Ebb's Tony Award winning "Cabaret" opened at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 1165 performances. The musical is set in 1929–1930 Berlin during the waning days of the Weimar Republic as the Nazis were ascending to power. Cabaret focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around American writer Clifford Bradshaw's relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bowles. The award-winning musical inspired numerous subsequent productions in London and New York as well as the popular Academy Award winning 1972 film of the same name.

1982

The UC Berkeley football team won an improbable last-second victory over Stanford when they complete five lateral passes around members of the Cardinals’ marching band, who had wandered onto the field a bit early to celebrate the upset they were sure their team had won, and score a touchdown. After catching the last pass of the series, Cal’s Kevin Moen careened through the confused horn section and made it safely to the end zone. Then he slammed into trombone player Gary Tyrell. (A photograph from the Oakland Tribune of the jubilant Moen and the terrified Tyrell in the moment just before the collision is still displayed triumphantly all over Berkeley.)

November 21

1877

Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a way to record and play back sound. He stumbled on one of his great inventions, the phonograph, while working on a way to record telephone communication at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His work led him to experiment with a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his surprise, played back the short song he had recorded, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Public demonstrations of the phonograph made the Yankee inventor world famous. Edison set aside this invention in 1878 to work on the incandescent light bulb, and other inventors moved forward to improve on the phonograph.

1976

Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone as the underdog prizefighter Rocky Balboa, debuted in New York City. The movie, which opened in theaters across the United States was a huge box-office hit and received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay for the then-little known Stallone. Rocky ultimately took home three Oscars, including one for Best Picture, and made Stallone one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. In first installment of the Rocky franchise, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) is an uneducated, small-time club fighter and debt collector who gets an unlikely shot at the world heavyweight championship held by Apollo Creed.

1980

350 million people around the world tuned in to television’s popular primetime drama “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R. Ewing, the character fans loved to hate. J.R. had been shot on the season-ending episode the previous March 21st, which now stands as one of television’s most famous cliffhangers. The plot twist inspired widespread media coverage and left America wondering “Who shot J.R.?” for the next eight months. A full 76% of Americans tuned into the November 21st episode to solve the mystery, identifying Kristin Shepard, J.R.’s wife’s sister and his former mistress, as the culprit.

November 22

1718

Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard, was killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia. Queen Anne’s Revenge served as the flagship of a pirate fleet featuring up to four vessels and more than 200 men. Teach became the most infamous pirate of his day, winning the popular name of Blackbeard for his long, dark beard, which he was said to light on fire during battles to intimidate his enemies. Blackbeard’s pirate forces terrorized the Caribbean and the southern coast of North America and were notorious for their cruelty.

1963

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States at 2:39 p.m.

1988

In the presence of members of Congress and the media, the Northrop B-2 “stealth” bomber was shown publicly for the first time at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The aircraft, which was developed in great secrecy for nearly a decade, was designed with stealth characteristics that would allow it to penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defenses unnoticed. At the time of its public unveiling, the B-2 had not even been flown on a test flight. It rapidly came under fire for its massive cost–more than $40 billion for development and a $1 billion price tag for each unit. As of 2018, twenty B-2s are in service with the United States Air Force, which plans to operate them until 2032, when the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is to replace them.

November 23

1904

III Summer (Modern) Olympic Games closed in St Louis. The first Olympic Games held in the US were scheduled for Chicago, but the location was changed to St. Louis when Olympic organizing committee officials decided to combine the Olympics with the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, a large fair celebrating the 100th anniversary of the U.S. acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. The Games were poorly attended by both spectators and athletes. The remoteness of St. Louis and growing tension in Europe over the Russo-Japanese War kept away many of the world’s best athletes.

1921

US President Warren G. Harding signed the Willis-Campbell Act. It was a piece of legislation intended to clarify and tighten regulations around the medicinal use of alcohol during Prohibition. The law specified that only "spirituous and vinous liquors" (i.e. spirits and wine, thus excluding beer) could be prescribed medicinally, reduced the maximum amount of alcohol per prescription to half a pint, and limited doctors to 100 prescriptions for alcohol per 90-day period. It was commonly known as the "beer emergency bill". The Act kept in force all anti-liquor tax laws that had been in place prior to the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, giving authorities the right to choose whether or not to prosecute offenders under prohibition laws or revenue laws, but at the same time guaranteeing bootleggers that they would not be prosecuted in both ways.

1936
The first issue of the pictorial magazine Life was published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam's spillway by Margaret Bourke-White. The magazine was launched by influential American publisher Henry Luce, who had already enjoyed great success as the publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine. Whereas the original mission of Time was to tell the news, the mission of Life was to show it.