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. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, was born in the small village of Caprese in 1475. The son of a government administrator, he grew up in Florence, a center of the early Renaissance movement, and became an artists apprentice at age 13. Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the wing of Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. After demonstrating his mastery of sculpture in such works as the Pieta (1498) and David (1504), he was called to Rome in 1508 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—the chief consecrated space in the Vatican. Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564 at the age of 88. In addition to his major artistic works, he produced numerous other sculptures, frescoes, architectural designs, and drawings, many of which are unfinished and some of which are lost. In his lifetime, he was celebrated as Europes greatest living artist, and today he is held up as one of the greatest artists of all time, as exalted in the visual arts as William Shakespeare is in literature or Ludwig van Beethoven is in music. 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. 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. Nov 1, 1950: An assassination attempt threatens President Harry S. Truman On this day, 2 Puerto Rican Nationals 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 one of the would be assassins. The surviving assailant 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. The assailants 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. The would be assassin was sentenced to death, but in an admirable act of forgiveness on July 24, 1952, Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 10:46:52 +0000
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