Assassination Averted
NOVEMBER 5, 1605 - The Gunpowder Plot to blow up the English
Parliament and assassinate King James I, was foiled when the conspirators were
captured after an anonymous tip. Mastermind of the scheme Robert Catesby
hoped to establish England as a Catholic state. Perhaps the most well-known of the
conspirators was Guy Fawkes who had years of military experience with
explosives and was left in charge of executing the plot. Several conspirators,
including Catesby, were killed a few days later as they resisted arrest. Fawkes
was tried for treason and executed. In the United Kingdom November 5th is celebrated as Guy Fawkes Night with fireworks and the burning of Guy Fawkes effigies.
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Grand Old Mascot
NOVEMBER 7, 1874 -
The Republican Party was first portrayed as an elephant in
a political cartoon appearing in Harper's Weekly magazine. The cartoon shows a
donkey, the symbol of the Democratic Party, dressed as a lion and scaring other
animals in the forest, including the elephant. The cartoonist Thomas Nast is
credited with establishing both the elephant and the donkey as the symbols of
their respective parties.
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Cease Fire on 11/11 at 11
NOVEMBER 11, 1918 - At 11:00 am the
armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany
took effect, marking the end of World War I. The treaty was signed inside a
railway car in the Compiègne Forest
in France. It
marked the end of the conflict that began on June 28, 1914 and left more than 15 million dead. Incidentally during World War II Germany
and France
signed an armistice treaty in the same railway car in Compiègne
Forest on June 22, 1940. The second treaty was signed after
Germany had won
a decisive victory and established German control over Northern
France. German leader Adolf Hitler intentionally chose to sign the
treaty in the same railway car in an effort to humiliate the French.
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