Milestones: Wednesday, November 22, 2023

November 22, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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SOMBER 60TH ANNIVERSARY — JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY, THE 35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WAS ASSASSINATED ON FRIDAY, NOV. 22, 1963, while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who on this rare occasion accompanied her husband, witnessed the scene unfolding when Kennedy was shot. Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m. Central Time, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Texas Governor John Connally. Doctors took Kennedy into immediate surgery at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital but could not save him and pronounced the President dead 30 minutes later. At the time of his assassination, Kennedy was 46.

Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President aboard Air Force One before it took off from Dallas’ Love Field. The next day, Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring Nov. 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that Monday, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington as the hearse bearing Kennedy’s casket made its way to St. Matthew’s Cathedral for the funeral Mass.

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LEADER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION — ANGELA MERKEL IS SWORN IN AS THE FIRST WOMAN CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY ON NOV. 22, 2005. Merkel, a scientist by profession, became one of the strongest and most respected leaders in European politics, with some people naming her the most powerful woman in the world. Although, she has been acclaimed for being very straightforward, with no airs. Merkel was raised and educated in East Germany, earning her doctorate in quantum chemistry, and worked as a research scientist. It was after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, and when she was already 35 years old, she was elected to the Bundestag in the first election after unification in 1990. Following a tight election, she became Chancellor in 2005 and worked to build the European Union into a strong international force, becoming known as the EU’s de facto leader.

Merkel enjoyed a warm relationship with Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama but had a frostier approach to President Trump and his administration. She chose not to run for re-election in 2021 and had already stepped down from her party’s leadership three years earlier.

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PATRON SAINT OF MUSIC — THE FEAST DAY OF SAINT CECILIA, observed each year on Nov. 22, honors the 2nd-century A.D. Roman virgin and Christian martyr who became the patron saint of music. It is believed that instead of physically consummating her marriage to Valerian, she succeeded in converting him to Christ, at which point he had a vision of an angel standing next to his betrothed. He and Cecilia aided the families of Christians who were being martyred until they themselves also died for the faith.

Cecilia is believed to have sung her heart to God when faced with earthly marriage and thus became the patron saint of musicians, particularly of choirs, organists and pipe organs.

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QUINTESSENTIALLY FRENCH — CHARLES ANDRÉ MARIE De GAULLE, BORN ON NOV. 22, 1890, WAS A MILITARY LEADER AND AUTHOR who presaged how his nation would battle the Nazis. He wrote “The Army of the Future” (1934), in which he predicted just the type of armored warfare that was used against his country by Nazi Germany in WWII. After the Nazis invaded his country, De Gaulle declared the existence of “Free France” and made himself head of that organization. Upon observing that the Vichy puppet government was openly collaborating with Nazi Germany, the French citizens looked to de Gaulle for leadership. His arrival in liberated Paris on Aug. 26, 1944, was De Gaulle’s moment of triumph when he entered liberated Paris on Aug. 26, 1944.

De Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic by a landslide majority of French voters on Dec. 21, 1958, 65 years ago next month, and served a decade before resigning in April 1969.

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A PICTURE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS — LIFE MAGAZINE WAS LAUNCHED ON Nov. 23, 1936, with the first publication of this pictorial magazine. The cover photo featured Margaret Bourke-White’s photo of the Fort Peck Dam’s spillway. Although the magazine actually had an incarnation as a humor publication, the Great Depression caused that to fold. American publisher Henry Luce, who had already become a veteran news editor during his college days, bought out the name “Life” and re-launched the magazine as a photo-based publication, intent on “showing” the news.

Luce was also the publisher of Time, the successful news magazine. LIFE was published weekly until 1972 and as special editions until the end of the 20th century.

See previous milestones, here.