November Highlights and Video Clips

 

Because of overwhelming feedback, we are making "Quick Clips from the Video Archives" a permanent feature in our monthly newsletter. If you have suggested topics, you'd like included, please let us know.

During November, HBO is featuring the film Apollo 13. Learn the story behind the film with rare NASA photos, a NASA video and Commander Jim Lovell's book about the mission.

FOLLOW AWESOME STORIES ON TWITTER

 

On the 2nd of November, 1947, Howard Hughes flew his gigantic wooden airplane dubbed "The Spruce Goose." This historical footage provides background on the "flying boat" and features the only time it flew.

GUNPOWDER PLOT - GUY FAWKES at the HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

 

On the 5th of November, 1605, London's Houses of Parliament were set to open. The event was delayed, due to an outbreak of plague in the city, which provided extra time for a group of conspirators to further develop their plan - to blow-up Parliament. Their actions, they believed, would also kill the king and the Prince of Wales. These video clips recreate, and explain, the story of the Gunpowder Plot.

KRISTALLNACHT - THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS

 
A German diplomat in Paris was shot by a Jewish teenager on the 7th of November, 1938. After the man died days later, Joseph Goebbels engineered a scheme of retribution against Jewish businesses and synagogues. Hitler's troops began a virulent rampage - on the evening of November 9, 1938 - smashing windows and destroying buildings. That night - called Kristallnacht (or, the Night of Broken Glass) - the Nazis burned more than 200 synagogues throughout Germany.

 

In these video clips, survivors of Kristallnacht relate what happened to them and their families. There was so much broken glass in Germany, at the time, that it "amounted to half-a-year's production of the Belgian glass industry."

LAST DAY OF WORLD WAR ONE - THE ARMISTICE

 

Although a cease fire had been agreed upon before dawn, to take effect about six hours later (at 11:00 a.m., Paris time, on the 11th of November 1918), at least ten thousand soldiers were killed from fighting on the last day of World War I. About three thousand of them were Americans.

When Adolf Hitler, then a German foot soldier, learned that his country had agreed to the Armistice, he reportedly burst into tears. He vowed to devote the rest of his life "to erasing that shame."

SHERMAN'S MARCH to the SEA - BURNING ATLANTA

 

As the Union General, William T. Sherman, and his troops undertook their "March to the Sea," parts of the South went up in flames. By the 14th of November, 1864, Sherman's men were burning Atlanta. This clip, from Gone with the Wind, portrays how that devastation may have appeared.

VIETNAM WAR - THE FIRST GROUND BATTLE

 

On Sunday, the 14th of November 1965, American combat troops had been in Vietnam for eight months. On that day, Lt Col Hal Moore and his troops were transported into the Ia Drang valley by helicopter. They did not know they were about to be ambushed in the first ground battle of the Vietnam War. This clip features historical footage and an interview with retired Lt. General Hal Moore.

DOSTOEVSKY - PERSONALLY FACES A FIRING SQUAD

 

On the 16th of November, 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for being part of an allegedly subversive group. Not yet a famous writer, he was minutes away from death - by firing squad - when the Tsar changed his sentence from death to a term in prison.

ELIZABETH 1 - LEARNS SHE IS QUEEN

 

On the 17th of November, 1558, Princess Elizabeth - daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn - learned that her half-sister had died, thereby elevating Elizabeth to the throne of Britain. In this video clip, Glenda Jackson (in the role of Elizabeth) recreates the moment when the Princess first heard the news.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN and the GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

 

After the devastating Battle of Gettysburg, in which so many Union and Confederate soldiers died, President Lincoln gave a short speech to dedicate the battlefield cemetery. Known as the Gettysburg Address, it is one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history.

WOLFE TONE and THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY

 

Wolfe Tone, Irish hero, was a leader of Ireland's rebellion against Britain during 1798. He died that year - on November 19th - after he was captured, "tried" and sentenced to death. To commemorate the 1798 uprising, Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836-1883) wrote the lyrics to a haunting ballad - The Wind that Shakes the Barley. It is performed, in this clip, by Lisa Gerrard.

NUREMBERG WAR-CRIME TRIALS

 

Beginning on the 20th of November, 1945, the Allied powers commenced a series of War Crime Trials in Nuremberg. In one of those trials, German judges were accused of unjust actions. This clip recreates the verdict which was rendered against them.

ASSASSINATION OF JFK - John, Jr. Salutes His Father

 

While President John F. Kennedy was visiting Dallas with his wife, Jackie, he was assassinated on the 22nd of November, 1963. The death of the popular President shocked the country. A few days later, his accused assassin was murdered - on live television - by Jack Ruby. One of the most touching events in a week of extraordinary difficulty, was the moment when three-year-old John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluted his father's coffin.

CHARLES DARWIN - PUBLISHES ORIGIN OF SPECIES

 

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. Who was this man whose work revolutionized the world of science?

INCENDIARY BOMBS OVER TOKYO

 

Beginning in November, 1944, American B-29s began their raids over Japan's capital. Then a city of mostly wooden buildings, Tokyo was massively damaged by the fire bombs.

 

Although he died young, King Tut - an Egyptian Pharaoh - is one of the most famous rulers of ancient times. The reason? His previously undisturbed tomb was discovered by archaeologists - as was the Pharaoh's mummy. On the 26th of November, 1922, archaeologists entered King Tut's tomb. What they found stunned the world.

MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE of DISCOVERY - PASSAGE to the PACIFIC

In the fall of 1520, Ferdinand Magellan discovered a passage to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Atlantic.  It took more than a month for Magellan, and his expedition, to cross the lengthy strait which now bears his name.  Weeping for joy, he realized he'd found the fabled passage when his ships sailed into the Pacific on the 28th of November, 1520.

THE RENAISSANCE

 

The Renaissance - a time of remarkable cultural achievement - is known for a flourishing of the arts and learning. Some of its leading figures were Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Who were these people - and - how did the Renaissance begin?

 

November is Native-American Heritage Month in the U.S. This list of topics will help to highlight their history and culture.

 

In 1934, Charles Howard hired Tom Smith to help him break into horse racing - the "sport of kings." Sent to the East Coast to find a good horse, Smith saw Seabiscuit for the first time. Bad-tempered, the horse had been raced too often. But there was something about him that later made Smith tell Howard: "Get me that horse."

Seabiscuit was an unlikely choice, but Tom Smith saw something special that few others saw in the knobby-kneed thoroughbred. And there was something more. Something unusual. When the future champion saw his future trainer for the first time, he nodded at him. Perhaps the horse also sensed something special in the man.

THE "SPRUCE GOOSE"

 

Allene Hughes was concerned about her son when she wrote to Lt. Aures, a stockade leader at Dan Beard's Outdoor School in Pennsylvania. It was the month before World War I erupted in Europe, and young Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. - an only child - was twelve years old.

His mother always worried about him. It was a time - before preventive vaccinations were available - when infantile paralysis (polio, the infectious disease which paralyzed President Franklin Roosevelt) was spreading among children everywhere. Howard, a somewhat sickly child, benefitted from his summers at the Outdoor School. He would return home in much better condition than when he left. But at camp, Howard was around other children. Other children had germs.

Fear of germs, and what they could do to him, had deep - ultimately paralyzing - roots in Howard's life. Before that happened, however, Howard Hughes experienced one of his most glorious moments. On the 2nd of November, 1947, he piloted his huge wooden airplane, "The Spruce Goose," on its first - and only - flight.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

 
Using the mercenary Guy Fawkes as their "trigger man," Robert Catesby and a small group of like-minded friends concocted a plan to kill King James I and members of Parliament in 1605. The conspiracy (known today as "The Gunpowder Plot") was engineered for maximum effect: Blow up the houses of Parliament on opening day, November 5, 1605. What happened next is still remembered every November 5th - on "Guy Fawkes Day."

SUSAN B. ANTHONY - ARRESTED for VOTING

 

Susan B. Anthony, the famous advocate for women's rights, supported Thomas Greeley in the 1872 presidential election. Of course, the 19th Amendment - giving American women the right to vote - wouldn't be law for nearly fifty years. So what difference did it make that Susan Anthony supported Greeley?

It made a significant difference to Anthony. She voted in the 1872 presidential election. Three weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day 1872, she was arrested for exercising her right - as an American citizen - to vote. She was 52 years old. Her trial would soon become what some historians call "a mockery of justice."

NEZ PERCE and the CORPS OF DISCOVERY

 

On November 7, 1805, William Clark made an entry in his journal: "Ocian in view! O! The joy." Actually, it wasn't the Pacific Ocean after all, since the coast was still twenty miles away.

How the Corps of Discovery had come that far at all was, at least in part, due to help they had received from the Nez Perce. Later, the U.S. government thanked those Native Americans with territorial land reductions.

BERLIN WALL FALLS

 

On the 11th of November, 1989, Berliners tore down the first slab of the "Berlin Wall." How did that happen? Why was the wall built in the first place?

ELIZABETH I

 

Legend has it that Elizabeth Tudor was sitting under an oak tree, at Hatfield House, when courtiers paid her a visit on November 17, 1558. The men had been dispatched to advise the princess that she was now Queen of Britain.

The time in which she ruled is known as the Elizabethan Age. One of her most important achievements was the defeat of the Spanish Armada, thirty years after her coronation.

COLD MOUNTAIN: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

 

In November of 1997, Charles Frazier won a National Book Award for his novel Cold Mountain. What is the story behind that successful book and film adaptation? We take you on a trip to the National Archives, and into the depths of the Official Record of the Civil War, to find out for yourself.

WOLFE TONE: DEATH of an IRISH HERO

 

As 1921 neared its end, people in Ireland debated whether to sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Britain. Was it in Ireland's best interests? What would Wolfe Tone, the Irish hero who died in prison on the 19th of November, 1798, have thought of the concept?

PILGRIMS and the "MAYFLOWER COMPACT"

 

The ship's log, of a vessel named Mayflower, tells us that a group of travelers we call "The Pilgrims" met aboard ship to decide how they would govern themselves in their new home. They created a document - "The Mayflower Compact" - to "regulate their civil government." Who were these people? Why had they left their homeland? What did their "compact" provide? And ... whatever happened to the Mayflower?

EDWIN HUBBLE: NAMESAKE of SPACE TELESCOPE

 

Edwin Hubble, the famous astronomer who declared the universe is expanding, was born on the 20th of November, 1889. His work inspired the Hubble Space Telescope - actually an orbiting observatory - which consistently provides scientists with incredible images of space. Learn about the observatory and the man whose work still influences scientific thinking.

ASSASSINATION of PRESIDENT KENNEDY

 
On the 22nd of November, 1963, Americans were stunned when their President, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas. This story tells what happened, with links to primary sources at the National Archives and exhibits from the Warren Commission Report.

C.S. LEWIS and THE CHRONICLES of NARNIA

 
Nearly at the same moment President Kennedy died in Dallas, the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis - died in Britain. Who was he?

During World War II, when his voice was the second-most familiar on the BBC (after Churchill's), Lewis and his brother took care of four children who had been evacuated from London during "The Blitz." Those children made an impact on the two brothers, becoming an inspiration for the four children in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. 

THE WARSAW GHETTO

 

In November of 1940, the "Ghetto" in Warsaw was sealed off from the rest of the city. Why was the ghetto formed in the first place? What happened to cause its end?