11.01.2009
IT HAPPENED THIS DAY NOV 1 TO NOV 15

November 1
1936 Mussolini Coins Axis to Describe New Alliance
During a speech in Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini, the leader of Fascist Italy, describes the new alliance between Nazi Germany and his country as an "axis" running between Berlin and Rome. One week before, Italy and Germany had signed a treaty of general coordination on foreign policy. In 1939, in the last few months preceding the outbreak of full-scale war in Europe, the Axis was reinforced by a new military alliance between Germany and Italy, known as the "Pact of Steel." In 1940, Japan, which had signed a cooperative pact with Italy and Germany in late 1936, strengthened its participation in the Axis alliance with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. From thereon, the expression "Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis" gained currency in both Allied and Axis nations.
November 2
1776 First Traitor to the American Revolution
During the Revolutionary War, William Demont, an adjutant to American Colonel Robert Magraw, deserts from the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion and offers the British intelligence information concerning the Patriot defense of New York. Demont, the first traitor to the American cause in the War for Independence, reveals to the British the location of Fort Washington in New York, thus enabling Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen to conquer the fort with a force of 3,000 Hessians. Three years later, Patriot General Benedict Arnold becomes the most famous American traitor of the war when he offers to betray the garrison at West Point to the British in exchange for ten thousand pounds.
November 3
1942 BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN ENDS:
A major turning point in World War II came at the Battle of El Alamein on November 3, 1942. In the North African desert, British forces under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and German divisions under Field Marshall Rommel battled in a forty-mile corridor between land and sea. Rommel could move only forward or backward--and eventually, only backward. Nine thousand Italian and German soldiers were captured, and the Axis fled Africa.
November 4
1939 Congress Revises U.S. Neutrality
Two months after England and France declared war on Nazi Germany, Congress passes the Neutrality Act of 1939, repealing the prohibition of arms exports to belligerent powers as specified in the Neutrality Act of 1937. The 1939 act authorized the "cash and carry" sale of arms, requiring that warring nations immediately pay for arms upon purchase, and convey the purchases on their own ships. Despite these regulations, the isolationist America of the 1930s finds itself increasingly drawn into World War II under the guidance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1940, the U.S. gives fifty destroyers to England in exchange for naval and air bases, and in 1941, the Lend-Lease Bill is passed, authorizing the U.S. to lend arms and supplies to democratic nations.
November 5
1911 FIRST BOMBS DROPPED:
It took several years for military minds to think of the airplane as more than a sporting device. However, on November 5, 1911, Italians proved that planes could be used for less sporting activities when they dropped bombs on an oasis in Libya. During World War I, aerial bombing evolved as a deadly form of warfare. Munitions plants were the early targets, but cities and towns later suffered devastation from the skies.
November 6
1917 Canadians Take Passchendaele
After three months of horrific fighting, the Third Battle of Ypres finally ends when Canadian forces take the village of Passchendaele in Belgium. In one of the bloodiest battles of World War I, a combination of over-ambitious aims, terrible weather conditions, and misguided persistence by British Field Marshal Douglas Haig led to nearly 250,000 total casualties suffered by both sides. At the time Canadian and Australian forces were scheduled to begin the long-planned offensive, Allied artillery and unusually heavy rains had turned the battlefield into a sea of mud. Soldiers fought in the mud, slept in the mud, and a fair number drowned in the mud. When the offensive is finally called off after the Canadian victory at Passchendaele, the total Allied advance amounted to only five miles.
November 7
Civil War History
1861 Engagement at Belmont, Missouri
1861 Battle of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina
1863 Engagement at Rappahannock Bridge, Virginia
1863 Action at Kelly's Ford, Virginia
November 8

1923 The Beer Hall Putsch Begins
Adolf Hitler, president of the far-right Nazi Party, launches the Beer Hall Putsch, his first attempt at seizing control of the German government by force. In 1921, Britain and France, as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, demanded thirty-three billion U.S. dollars in war reparations from Germany. Germany's democratic government complied, but at the cost of severe inflation in Germany. The German mark, which at the beginning of 1921 was valued at five marks per dollar, had fallen to a disastrous four billion marks per dollar by November of 1923. The ranks of the nationalist Nazi Party swelled with resentful Germans, who sympathized with the party's bitter hatred of the democratic government, leftist politics, and German Jews. In early November, the government resumed war reparation payments, and the Nazis decided to strike. Hitler planned a coup against the Bavarian government that he hoped would spread to the dissatisfied German army, who in turn would bring down the democratic government in Berlin. On the evening of November 8, Nazi forces under Hermann Goring surround the Munich beer hall where Bavarian government officials are meeting with local business leaders. A moment later, Hitler bursts in with a group of Nazi storm troopers, discharges his pistol into the air, and declares that "the National Revolution has begun." Threatened at gunpoint by Hitler, the Bavarian leaders reluctantly agree to support Hitler's new regime. However, early the next morning, Hitler's triumph rapidly dissipates when the Bavarian government recounts its support and the Nazis find the German army and Munich police standing in opposition to their coup.

November 9
1923 Nazis Suppressed in Munich
In Munich, armed policeman and troops loyal to Germany's democratic government crush the Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazis first attempt at seizing control of the German government by force. The previous evening, the Beer Hall Putsch began as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler took control of a beer hall where Bavarian government leaders were meeting. Threatened at gunpoint by Hitler, the Bavarian leaders reluctantly agree to support Hitler and his far-right Nazi Party as the new rulers of the German state of Bavaria. Hitler hoped that his "National Revolution" would spread to the dissatisfied German army, who in turn would bring down the government in Berlin. However, in the early morning of November 9, the Bavarian leaders recount their coerced support of Hitler, and order a rapid suppression of the Nazis. At dawn, government troops surround the main Nazi force occupying the War Ministry building. A desperate Hitler responds by leading a march toward the center of Munich, in a last-ditch effort to rally support. Near the War Ministry building, three thousand Nazi marchers come face to face with a hundred armed policemen. Shots are exchanged, and after a minute, sixteen Nazis and three policemen are dead. Nazi Hermann Goering is shot in the groin and Hitler suffers a dislocated elbow, but manages to escape. Three days later, Hitler is arrested and subsequently sent to Landsberg jail, where he spends his nine months in prison writing his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and working on his oratorical skills. Upon his release, the Nazi Party is reorganized as a fanatical mass movement that gains a majority in the Reichstag by legal means in 1932, and by 1934 Hitler is the sole master of a Germany intent on war and genocide.
November 10
1775 Birth of the U.S. Marine Corps
During a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress passes a resolution stating that "two Battalions of Marines be raised" for service as landing forces for the U.S. naval fleet. This resolution, sponsored by future U.S. president John Adams, establishes the Continental Marines and is considered the birth of the United States Marine Corps. Less then two weeks later, Samuel Nichols of Philadelphia is commissioned captain, and becomes the first marine commandant. Serving on land and at sea during the War for Independence, the original marines distinguished themselves in a number of significant operations, including an amphibious raid into the Bahamas under the command of Captain Nicholas in March of 1776. In 1783, with the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Navy and thus the U.S. Marines temporarily go out of existence. However, on July 11, 1798, Congress passes an act calling for the establishment of a permanent U.S. Marine Corps, and the next day William Ward Burrows of South Carolina is named the first major of the modern U.S. Marines.
November 11
1918 WORLD WAR I ENDS:
At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, the Great War ended as Germany, bereft of manpower, supplies, and food, signed an armistice agreement. The war's tolls were nine million soldiers dead, twenty-one million wounded, and seven million taken prisoner or missing in action. Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each lost nearly a million or more lives, and American forces counted 51,000 dead. In addition, some six million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure. In Germany, by the time the armistice was signed, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family had already fled.
November 12
1948 Japanese War Criminals Sentenced
An international war crimes tribunal in Tokyo passes death sentences on seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, who served as premier of Japan from 1941 to 1944. Eight days before, the trial ended after thirty months with all twenty-five Japanese defendants being found guilty of breaching the laws and customs of war. In addition to the death sentences imposed on Tojo and others principles, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war, sixteen others are sentenced to life imprisonment. The remaining two of the original twenty-five defendants are sentenced to lesser terms in prison. Unlike the Nuremberg trial of German war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors representing Great Britain, France, the U.S., and the U.S.S.R., the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor--American Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the U.S. attorney general. However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided. In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside of Japan judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.
November 13
1860South Carolina Enters the Civil War
South Carolina resolves to raise 10,000 volunteers to defend the state
November 14
1940 Coventry Devastated by German Bombings
During the Battle of Britain, a devastating two-day German bombing strike is launched against Coventry, an industrial city in England. Nearly five hundred Luftwaffe bombers descend on the historic city after nightfall, destroying twelve factories and much of the city center, including a fourteenth-century cathedral. Nearly four hundred people are killed and over eight hundred injured. Winston Churchill later describes the attack on Coventry as "the most devastating raid which we sustained." However, the effect on the aircraft factories in the suburbs is slight and temporary, and Coventry is soon able to resume its contribution to the impending British victory in the Battle of Britain.
November 15
1956 HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION ENDS:
On October 23, 1956, students, intellectuals, and workers poured into the streets of Budapest, demanding an end to Soviet domination and Communist rule. On November 4, thousands of Soviet tanks rolled in to crush what had become a nationwide revolt. Outraged citizens fought back with little more than their bare hands, and they were hopelessly outmatched. Over 25,000 people were killed in Budapest alone and many more wounded. The Soviets installed a new government of their choosing on November 15.