Nov 1, 1512: Sistine Chapel ceiling opens to public The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, one of Italian artist Michelangelos finest works, is exhibited to the public for the first time. Nov 1, 1765: Parliament enacts the Stamp Act In the face of widespread opposition in the American colonies, Parliament enacts the Stamp Act, a taxation measure designed to raise revenue for British military operations in America. Defense of the American colonies in the French and Indian War (1754-63) and Pontiacs Rebellion (1763-64) were costly affairs for Great Britain, and Prime Minister George Grenville hoped to recover some of these costs by taxing the colonists. In 1764, the Sugar Act was enacted, putting a high duty on refined sugar. Although resented, the Sugar Act tax was hidden in the cost of import duties, and most colonists accepted it. The Stamp Act, however, was a direct tax on the colonists and led to an uproar in America over an issue that was to be a major cause of the Revolution: taxation without representation. Passed without debate by Parliament in March 1765, the Stamp Act was designed to force colonists to use special stamped paper in the printing of newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and playing cards, and to have a stamp embossed on all commercial and legal papers. The stamp itself displayed an image of a Tudor rose framed by the word America and the French phrase Honi soit qui mal y pense—Shame to him who thinks evil of it. Outrage was immediate. Massachusetts politician Samuel Adams organized the secret Sons of Liberty organization to plan protests against the measure, and the Virginia legislature and other colonial assemblies passed resolutions opposing the act. In October, nine colonies sent representatives to New York to attend a Stamp Act Congress, where resolutions of rights and grievances were framed and sent to Parliament and King George III. Despite this opposition, the Stamp Act was enacted on November 1, 1765. The colonists greeted the arrival of the stamps with violence and economic retaliation. A general boycott of British goods began, and the Sons of Liberty staged attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors in Boston. After months of protest and economic turmoil, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766. However, the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies. Parliament would again attempt to force unpopular taxation measures on the American colonies in the late 1760s, leading to a steady deterioration in British-American relations that culminated in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. Nov 1, 1800: John Adams moves into White House On this day in 1800, President John Adams, in the last year of his only term as president, moved into the newly constructed Presidents House, the original name for what is known today as the White House. Adams had been living in temporary digs at Tunnicliffes City Hotel near the half-finished Capitol building since June 1800, when the federal government was moved from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington, D.C. In his biography of Adams, historian David McCullough recorded that when Adams first arrived in Washington, he wrote to his wife Abigail, at their home in Quincy, Massachusetts, that he was pleased with the new site for the federal government and had explored the soon-to-be Presidents House with satisfaction. Although workmen had rushed to finish plastering and painting walls before Adams returned to D.C. from a visit to Quincy in late October, construction remained unfinished when Adams rolled up in his carriage on November 1. However, the Adams furniture from their Philadelphia home was in place and a portrait of George Washington was already hanging in one room. The next day, Adams sent a note to Abigail, who would arrive in Washington later that month, saying that he hoped none but honest and wise men [shall] ever rule under this roof. Although Adams was initially enthusiastic about the presidential mansion, he and Abigail soon found it to be cold and damp during the winter. Abigail, in a letter to a friend, wrote that the building was tolerable only so long as fires were lit in every room. She also noted that she had to hang their washing in an empty audience room (the current East Room). John and Abigail Adams lived in what she called the great castle for only five months. Shortly after they moved in, Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams in his bid for re-election. Abigail was happy to leave Washington and departed in February 1801 for Quincy. As Jefferson was being sworn in on March 4, 1801, John Adams was already on his way back to Massachusetts, where he and Abigail lived out the rest of their days at their family farm. Nov 1, 1930: Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is dedicated On this day in 1930, President Herbert Hoover turns a telegraphic golden key in the White House to mark the opening of the 5,160-foot-long Detroit-Windsor Tunnel between the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan, and the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario. The tunnel opened to regular traffic on November 3. The first passenger car it carried was a 1929 Studebaker. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Detroiters and Windsorians had been trying to find a way to move people and goods back and forth across the Detroit River. For decades, railroad interests proposed tunnels and bridges galore, but powerful advocates of marine shipping always managed to block those projects: They did not want to lose business to faster and more capacious trains. (Plans for bridges were particularly troubling to those shippers, since just one low-hanging over-the-water crossing had the potential to keep high-masted sailing vessels off the river altogether.) In 1871, the regions railroads finally won permission to build a trans-national tunnel, and workers began to dig into the river at the foot of Detroits San Antoine Street; however, they were forced to abandon the project just 135 feet under the river when they struck a pocket of sulfurous gas that made workers so ill that none could be persuaded to return. Likewise, in 1879, another tunnel had to be abandoned when it ran right into some unexpectedly difficult to excavate limestone under the river. The first successful Michigan-to-Canada tunnel project finally opened in 1891: the 6,000-foot-long Grand Trunk Railway Tunnel at Port Huron. Soon enough, it was clear to most people on both sides of the border that they needed to build some sort of structure for transporting automobiles across the river. In June 1919, the mayors of Detroit and Windsor decided to build a city-to-city tunnel that would serve as a memorial to the American and Canadian soldiers who had died in World War I. Even after advocates of the under-construction Ambassador Bridge tried to frighten away the tunnels backers, spreading rumors about the danger of subterranean carbon monoxide poisoning, tunnel boosters were undeterred. (They were, one said, inspired by God to have this tunnel built.) Construction began in 1928. First, barges dredged a 2,454-foot-long trench across the river; next, workers sank nine 8,000-ton steel-and-concrete tubes into the trench and welded them together. An elaborate ventilation system kept the air in the tunnel safe to breathe. In the first nine weeks it was open, nearly 200,000 cars passed through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Today, about 9 million vehicles use the tunnel each year. Nov 1, 1950: An assassination attempt threatens President Harry S. Truman On this day, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Truman escaped unscathed. In the autumn of 1950, the White House was being renovated and President Truman and his family were living in the nearby Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue. On the afternoon of November 1, Truman and his wife were upstairs when they heard a commotion—and gunshots—coming from the front steps of the house. Indeed, the pair of would-be assassins had strolled up to the front door of Blair House and opened fire. They never made it past the entry steps, however, due to the quick reaction of police officers and guards. Secret Service Agent Leslie Coffelt was mortally wounded in the ensuing melee, but not before he managed to kill Torresola. Collazo later revealed to police just how poorly planned the assassination attempt was: the assailants were unsure if Truman would even be in the house when they launched their attack at 2 oclock in the afternoon.Torresola and Collazo were political activists and members of the extremist Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, a group fighting for full independence from the United States. The Independistas, as they were commonly called, targeted Truman despite his support of greater Puerto Rican autonomy. Apparently unfazed by the attempt on his life, Truman kept his scheduled appointments for the day. A President has to expect these things, he remarked dryly. Oscar Collazo was sentenced to death, but in an admirable act of forgiveness on July 24, 1952, Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 11:21:05 +0000
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