Milestones: Tuesday, November 28, 2023

November 28, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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TRAVERSING OCEANS — FERDINAND MAGELLAN REACHED THE PACIFIC OCEAN ON NOV. 28, 1520, more than 14 months after having sailed from Spain. The Portuguese navigator and explorer thus became the first from Europe to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. He had, on Oct. 21, 1520, discovered what was later called the Strait of Magellan near the southernmost tip of South America. Only three of the five ships that had embarked on the quest made it to the strait, the other two were wrecked or abandoned. It took 38 days to navigate the strait alone, and 99 days to cross the waters.

Finding the waters strangely calm, Magellan named them “Pacific,” from the Latin “pacificus” (tranquil).

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‘PILGRIM’S PROGRESS’ — JOHN BUNYAN, BORN NOV. 28, 1628, AT BEDFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, became a celebrated preacher and author of the now-classic “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Bunyan, who was born and raised in the Anglican church, endured a period of great misfortune that cost him the lives of his mother and sister within a month. He suffered from mental torment, nightmares and “spiritual despair.” His conversion to Puritanism, a 16th-17th century reform movement, was gradual and provided the antidotes to his spiritual darkness. He wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” (1678), which became the signature characteristic expression of the Puritan religious perspective. An immensely popular work across all social classes, “The Pilgrim’s Progress” epitomized the period’s folk tradition.

Bunyan also wrote the allegory titled “The Holy War” (1682), a spiritual autobiography titled “Grace Abounding” (1666) and some doctrinal and controversial works.

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WILDCAT STRIKE PUSHES DIVESTMENT — THE LONGSTANDING ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT OVER THE HOLY LAND SINCE 1948 erupted on Nov. 28, 1973, when a group of Arab Americans led 2,500 Arab Detroit auto workers, in a wildcat strike, essentially shutting down at Chrysler’s Dodge Main plant. The Arab Workers Caucus led the unofficial strike, (as the union hadn’t officially authorized it; and the workers’ goal was to get the United Auto Workers to divest from their investments in Israel). The strike was timed around the B’nai Brith’s award ceremony honoring UAW president Leonard Woodcock. Detroit since the early 20th century had a major center of Arab immigrants, who were angry upon discovering that their union’s pension portfolio had almost $1 million invested in the State of Israel.

The Arab Workers Caucus continued its fight, bringing the divestment cause to the 1974 UAW union convention.

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THE FIRST YANKEE IN PARLIAMENT — THE FIRST WOMAN — AND AN AMERICAN AT THAT, EVER TO SIT IN THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, WAS ELECTED ON NOV. 28, 1919. American-born Nancy Astor, who during a visit to England had met and fallen in love with Waldorf Astor, who was the great-great-grandson (five generations later) of the American fur trader John Jacob Astor. Four years after they married (Nancy having divorced her previous husband) Waldorf Astor was elected to the House of Commons as a conservative. Almost a decade later, he inherited a viscountcy and with it a seat in the House of Lords. Nancy, already a society hostess and member of the Cliveden set, with its influence over politics, campaigned flamboyantly for her husband’s seat in the lower Chamber of Parliament, snagging a major victory.

However, Lady Astor was not the first woman to be elected to the Commons; that distinction went to Irish nationalist Constance Markiewicz, who in 1918 was elected to Parliament for a Dublin constituency. But she never served as an MP after protesting the British government by her refusal to enter London.

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WORLD WAR CLOSES STOCK EXCHANGE — THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE (NYSE) REOPENED for bond trading on Nov. 28, 1914, after nearly four months, considered the longest stoppage in the exchange’s history. World War I’s outbreak in Europe had shuttered the NYSE in July, as foreign investors sold their portfolios to raise money for the war effort. The remainder of the world’s financial markets did the same. However, American officials, deciding that bond trading would help safeguard the U.S. economy and would also raise funds for the war effort as well, reopened the NYSE for this purpose. Stock trading resumed on Dec. 12, 1914, and disastrously so, with a 24.39% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. War uncertainties also propelled this, particularly since future U.S. involvement was still uncertain.

The First World War, however, did shift the center of financial power from London to New York. The next shutdown of the NYSE wasn’t until the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, but the exchange reopened much sooner than four months.

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FIRST RACE WON AT 7 MPH — THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE RACE TOOK PLACE in Chicago on the morning of Nov. 28, 1895, when six “motocycles” took off in snowy weather for a 54-mile race, reports the Library of Congress online archive. “Motocycle” Number 5, which inventor J. Frank Duryea piloted, won the race, 10 hours later, clipping along at 7.3 miles per hour. Duryea won $2,000; the person who named this horseless contraption won $500. This took place two years after J. Frank Duryea and brother Charles had designed, built and tested what they asserted to be America’s first gasoline-powered automobile.

Indeed, the idea of an internal combustion engine dates back to the time of the 6th U.S. president, John Quincy Adams, according to the Library of Congress, with Samuel Morey filing a patent bearing the signatures of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, for an internal combustion engine.

See previous milestones, here.