TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, NOV. 14, the 318th day of 2021. There are 47 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1910, Eugene B. Ely became the first aviator to take off from a ship as his Curtiss pusher rolled off a sloping platform on the deck of the scout cruiser USS Birmingham off Hampton Roads, Virginia.
In 1851, Herman Melville’s novel “MobyDick; Or, The Whale” was published in the United States, almost a month after being released in Britain.
In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave the go-ahead for Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s plan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond; the resulting Battle of Fredericksburg proved a disaster for the Union.
In 1881, Charles J. Guiteau went on trial for assassinating President James A. Garfield. (Guiteau was convicted and hanged the following year.)
In 1915, African American educator Booker T. Washington, 59, died in Tuskegee, Alabama.
In 1940, during World War II, German planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry.
In 1965, the U.S. Army’s first major military operation of the Vietnam War began with the start of the five-day Battle of Ia Drang. (The fighting between American troops and North Vietnamese forces ended on Nov. 18 with both sides claiming victory.)
In 1969, Apollo 12 blasted off for the moon.
In 1970, a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 crashed while trying to land in West Virginia, killing all 75 people on board, including the Marshall University football team and its coaching staff.
In 1996, singer Michael Jackson married his plastic surgeon’s nurse, Debbie Rowe, in a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. (Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.)
In 2005, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees won his second American League Most Valuable Player award in three seasons.
In 2013, former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was led off to prison to begin serving a life sentence at 84 for his murderous reign in the 1970s and ’80s. (Bulger was killed Oct. 30, 2018, hours after arriving at a federal prison in West Virginia.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Kathleen Hughes is 93. Former NASA astronaut Fred Haise is 88. Composer Wendy Carlos is 82. Writer P.J. O’Rourke is
74. Britain’s Prince Charles is 73. Rock singer-musician James Young (Styx) is
72. Singer Stephen Bishop is 70. Former presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett is
65. Actor Laura San Giacomo and actor D.B. Sweeney are 60. Rapper Reverend Run (Run-DMC), actor Patrick Warburton, rock musician Nic Dalton and country singer Rockie Lynne are 57. Retired MLB All-Star pitcher Curt Schilling is 55. Rock musician Brian Yale is 53. Rock singer Butch Walker is 52. Actor Josh Duhamel is 49. Actor Brian Dietzen and rapper Shyheim are 44. Rock musician Tobin Esperance (Papa Roach) and actor Olga Kurylenko are 42. Actor Cory Michael Smith is 35. Actor Graham Patrick Martin and NHL forward Taylor Hall are 30. New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor is 28.