November 11

The nation’s citizenry all too often views national elections as real train wrecks. To be fair, most elections aren’t train wrecks at all. When you have a free moment, I suggest that you toddle on over to your local library and put those dusty books to some use. Once there you can reacquaint yourself with former President and, by an extremely convoluted trail, Republican, John Quincy Adams. On the 11th in 1833, Adams was traveling back to Washington, D. C. by train. Adams was the first president involved in a real train wreck when the Camden & Amboy train he was traveling on broke an axle and derailed near Hightstown, New Jersey. Adams was not injured and managed to resume his trip the following day.

Adams was the second president to abandon the fashion of wearing knee breeches and wear long pants. James Madison was the first.

November 10

In 1869, Sir Henry Morton Stanley was hired by the New York Herald to locate Scottish explorer David Livingston. On the 10th in 1871, he finally found Livingston near Lake Tanganyika and uttered the very famous line “Dr. Livingston, I presume.” There is no reliable evidence to suggest that Livingston responded by stating, “I’ve seen butterflies galore, I’ve seen people big and small and I’ve still not found what I’m looking for.”

November 9

The elections are still a long way off but I am already tired of them and wish they were out of the way so I could relax for a while. I’m tired of all the annoying sound bites and repulsive advertisements. At times, the entire political process makes it difficult for me to find anything good about current events. However, being an optimist, I can generally manage to find something that makes things seem to be something other than terribly dismal. For instance, consider this: On the 9th in 1888, Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not mean to imply that Miss Kelly’s death was a good thing because that was a truly awful thing for Jack to have done. However, what makes the murder a good thing is that Mary Jane was Jack’s last victim. More properly, she was the Ripper’s last known victim; and that is a very good thing indeed.

November 8

On the 8th in 1899, the Bronx Zoo opened its doors to the public, boasting 22 exhibits and 843 animals. In 1905, with fewer than 1,000 American bison alive in the wild, William T. Hornaday, first director of the zoo, who possessed a deep and abiding interest in bison, started to build the Zoo’s herd. Hornaday was instrumental in obtaining national protection for the American bison, a species decimated by hunting in the 19th century. Beginning in 1907, the Bronx Zoo began shipping New York bison to new homes at the Oklahoma Wichita Mountain Preserve. Eventually the Bronx Zoo, under Hornaday’s guidance, would send bison to refuges in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. The descendants of the New York bison are easy to pick out in the herd; they’re the ones with the attitudes and the sneers.

The Bronx Zoo is built on 240 acres of property donated to New York City by tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard IV. The original pavilions of the Bronx Zoo were designed by George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant La Farge, who were also instrumental in the designing of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York. The zoo shares the park with the New York Botanical Gardens, which opened in 1891.

The London Gazette, the oldest surviving English language newspaper began publication on the 7th in 1665. It began life as the Oxford Gazette because King Charles II had left London and fled to Oxford to escape the ravages of the plaque. The publication date is vouched for by no less an authority than Samuel Pepys in his diary. Today, the paper is still published daily except for bank holidays.

November 6

There is one fact of life that I not only did not get in grammar school but have not been able to get it to this day. Such a fuss is made about how we live in a democracy with the rule of “one person, one vote” and the person with the most votes is elected. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? I suppose that the election debacle in Florida where the guy with the least votes got to be president should have washed away any lingering illusions I might have had that votes actually mean something, but I still don’t get it. In the U.S. presidential election, held on November 6, 1888 incumbent Grover Cleveland[i] received 5,534,488 votes and the challenger Benjamin Harrison[ii] received 5,443,892 votes. So, who was elected President? Cleveland? Nope. Harrison got more votes from the Electoral College and became president. Personally, I think they were swayed by the beard, so he became the big cheese[iii].

[i] Cleveland was the first of only two presidents who were for a time police officers. The other was Theodore Roosevelt.
[ii] Benjamin Harrison, on the 7th of June in 1892, became the first President to attend a baseball game.
[iii] My apologies to those involved in the manufacture of dairy products.

November 5

The next item has been a favorite of mine ever since John Lennon asked the question “Do you remember the fifth of November.” On the 5th, in 1605, England’s King James I was scheduled to address both houses of Parliament during the opening session of the 1605 parliament. Guy Fawkes was arrested when he was found in the basement with lots of gunpowder, preparing to assassinate James I and give the British yet another holiday – Guy Fawkes Day.

The leader of the Gunpowder Plot was Robert Catesby, who was also behind a failed attempt to remove Elizabeth I from the throne of England.