Nov 20

Head is a psychedelic motion picture starring television group The Monkees and was distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was written and produced by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson, and directed by Rafelson. The film’s title appears to be a sort of joke as the Beatles had released the film, Help, and the physical beginning of a movie is called the “head.”

The distorted consciousness and psychedelic elements of Head resemble that of an LSD trip, a widespread recreational drug at the time. Some film critics now consider the film to be an allegorical deconstruction of The Monkees’ experiences as pawns of the Hollywood starmaking machine. The storylines and peak moments of the movie came from a weekend visit to a resort in California where The Monkees, Rafelson and Nicholson brainstormed into a tape recorder.

Head makes fun of the band’s image and the band members’ personae. A poor audience response at an August 1968 screening in Los Angeles eventually forced the producers to edit the picture down from its original 110-minute length. The 86-minute version premiered in New York City on November 6, 1968 and later debuted in Hollywood on November 20. It was not a commercial success but eventually found a cult following.

Nov 19

Richard “Dick” Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues. He was born in Gibson, Nebraska and directed a live Saturday-morning radio show in eighth grade. Before leaving for college, he worked as a caddy and began doing magic shows for $35 a night.

Cavett attended Yale University, appearing in and directing dramas on the campus radio station. He was a copyboy at Time when he wrote some jokes and gave them to Jack Paar, then host of The Tonight Show, and was hired as a talent coordinator. Cavett continued as a writer after Johnny Carson took over. Cavett began a brief career as a stand-up comedian in 1964 and went on to host a special that received good reviews.

This led to the morning version of The Dick Cavett Show in 1968 which he hosted intermittently in various formats and on various TV and radio networks. Cavett has been nominated for 11 Emmy Awards and won three. His most well—remembered talk show incarnation aired on ABC form 1969 to 1974. His show often featured controversial interviews on taboo subjects that most other talk show hosts avoided.

Nov 18

William Tell is a legendary hero of disputed historical authenticity and who is said to have lived in Switzerland in the early 14th century. Tell was known as an expert marksman with the crossbow. At the time, the Hapsburg emperors were seeking to dominate the local area.

A pole was raised in the village’s central square with a hat on top and all the townsfolk were demanded to bow before it. Tell passed by it without bowing and was arrested. He received the punishment of being forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son, Walter, or else both would be executed. On November 18, 1307, Tell split the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow without mishap.

When queried about the purpose of the second bold in his quiver, Tell replied that if he had killed his son in the trial, he would have turned the crossbow on the man responsible for staging the trial. Enraged, the authorities bound Tell and brought him to his ship. In a storm, he was able to escape and shot the man who forced him to perform the trial. Tell’s defiance sparked a rebellion leading to the formation of the Swiss Confederation.

Nov 17

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is an armed revolutionary group based in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Since 1994, they have been in a declared war “against the Mexican state.” Their social base is most indigenous but they have supporters in urban areas as well as an international web of support.

Their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos. The group takes their name form Emiliano Zapata, the anarchist commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and thus see themselves as his ideological heirs. In reference to inspirational figures, in nearly all EZLN villages exist murals accompanying images of revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevara, and Subcomandante Marcos.

Some consider the Zapatista movement the first “post-modern” revolution: an armed revolutionary group that has abstained from using their weapons since their 1994 uprising was countered by the overpowering military might of the Mexican Army. The Zapatistas try to garner support by making use of the Internet to disseminate their communiqués. Awareness has also been raised due to the support by the band Rage Against the Machine. The Zapatista feature prominently in the band’s songs, in particular “People of the Sun.”

Nov 16

Skylab 4 was the fourth Skylab mission and placed the third crew on board. It started with the launch of three astronauts on a Saturn IB rocket and lasted 84 days. Astronauts performed scientific experiments in the areas of medical activities, solar observations and other experiments.

The all-rookie astronaut crew had problems adjusting to the same workload level as their predecessors when activating the workshop. The crew attempted to hide on astronaut’s early motion sickness from flight surgeons. The crew’s initial task of unloading and stowing the thousands of items needed for their lengthy mission also proved to be overwhelming.

As the activation of Skylab progressed, the astronauts complained of being pushed too hard and the ground crews disagreed with them. During the course of the mission, this culminated in the crew announcing an unscheduled day off, mutinying against Mission Control by turning off the communications radio while getting some rest. After a radio conference to air frustrations, their workload schedule was modified, and by the end of their mission the crew had completed even more work than had been planned before the launch. These experiences provided important lessons in planning subsequent manned spaceflight work schedules.

Nov 15

The Quebec general election of 1976 was held to elect members to the National Assembly of the Province of Quebec, Canada. It was one of the most significant elections in Quebec history, rivaled only by the 1960 general election, and caused major repercussions in the rest of Canada.

The Parti Quebecois, led by Rene Levesque, defeated the incumbent Quebec Liberal Party, led by Robert Bourassa. The Parti Quebecois’ campaign focused on providing “good government,” to contrast the many scandals that had plagued the Liberals since 1973. The PQ’s stated goal of achieving independence for Quebec from Canada was portrayed as only secondary, however the election of a separatist government in Quebec caused great distress in the rest of Canada.

It led to extensive discussions about performing the Canadian Confederation and finding ways of accommodating Quebec. The Parti Quebecois used its term in office to introduce numerous bills to implement its agenda. The first bill introduced was legislation to confirm French as the sole official language of Quebec, and to implement measures to make this a social reality. The bill was withdrawn, significantly altered and re-introduced as the Charter of the French Language which remains in effect today.

Nov 14

Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered DC-9 commercial jet flight from Stallings Field in Kinston, North Carolina to Ceredo, West Virginia. On November 14, 1970, the aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the airport, killing all 75 people on board. The plane was carrying 37 members of the Marshall University football squad, eight members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters, and four flight crew members.

The team was returning home after a 17-14 loss against the East Carolina University Pirates. At the time, Marshall University’s athletic teams rarely traveled by plane. The team had originally planned to cancel the flight, but changed plans and chartered the DC-9. The aircraft collided with the tops of trees on a hillside west of the runway.

As a result of the impact, the plane burst into flames and the accident was deemed “unsurvivable.” On November 15, a memorial service was held at the Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse where there were moments of silence, remembrances, and prayers. Classes at Marshall were canceled. The crash almost led to the university football program being discontinued.

Nov 13

Bill Doggett was an American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist and organist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, a church pianist, introduced him to music when he was nine years old. By the time Doggett was 15, he had joined a Philadelphia area combo, playing local theaters and clubs while attending high school.

In 1942, he was hired as The Ink Spots’ pianist and arranger. In 1949, he replaced Will Bill Davis in Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five. It was there that Doggett first achieved success playing the Hammond organ and is also reputed to have written one of Jordan’s biggest hits, “Saturday Night Fish Fry.” In 1951, Doggett organized his own trio and began recording for King Records. His best known recording is “Honky Tonk,” a rhythm and blues hit of 1956 which sold four million copies.

Doggett won the Cash Box award for best rhythm and blues performer from 1957 to 1959. He arranged for many bandleaders and performers, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lionel Hampton. As a jazz player, Doggett started in swing music and later played soul jazz. He continued to play and arrange until he died of a heart attack in New York City.

Nov 12

The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place from November 12, 1941 to November 15, 1942 and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days and related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island.

Allied forces had landed on Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942 and seized an airfield that was under construction by the Japanese military. Several subsequent attempts by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy to recapture the airfield failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy in an attempt to once again retake the airfield.

To allow the convoy to approach the island and deliver its cargo, the Japanese navy sent several warship forces to bombard the airfield. U.S. forces intercepted the Japanese convoy and warships with aircraft and warship attacks. In the resulting battle, both sides lost numerous warships in two extremely destructive nighttime surface engagements, with the U.S. suffering more warships sunk. However, the U.S. was successful in turning back attempts by the Japanese to bombard the airfield.

Nov 11

The Flat Hat Club or F.H.C. Society was the first of the collegiate secret societies or fraternities founded in the present United States, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The initials of the F.H.C. Society stand for a Latin phrase that translates into “brotherhood, humaneness, and knowledge.”

As members of the first American collegiate fraternity in the modern sense, the brothers of the F.H.C. devised and employed a secret handshake, wore a silver membership medal, issued certificates of membership, and met regularly for discussion and fellowship. The Society became publicly known as the “Flat Hat Club” in probably allusion to the motherboard caps then commonly worn by all students at the College.

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the most famous member of the Flat Hat Club. Other notable members of the original society included Col. James Innes, St. George Tucker, and George Wythe. A second Latin-latter fraternity, the P.D.A. Society was founded at William and Mary in March 1773 in imitation of the F.H.C. Society. The modern F.H.C. Society was revived in May 1972. It remains an all-male fraternity with most of its activities comparatively secret within the university.

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