Armistice Day: World War I ends

On November 11, 1778, Patriot Colonel Ichabod Alden refuses to believe intelligence about an approaching hostile force. As a result, a combined force of Loyalists and Native Americans, attacking in the snow, killed more than 40 Patriots, including Alden, and took at least an additional 70 prisoners, in what is known today as the Cherry […]

On November 11, 1864, on orders from Union General William T. Sherman, Union soldiers begin destroying all railroads, factories and commercial buildings in Atlanta, Georgia—anything that could help support the Confederacy’s military or economic goals. (Historical records cite the destruction starting anywhere from November 10 to November 12.) The actions dealt a crippling blow to […]

On November 11, 1942, Congress approves lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37. In September 1940, Congress, by wide margins in both houses, passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act, and the first peacetime draft was imposed in the history of the United States. The registration of men between the ages […]

On November 11, 1971, Rolling Stone magazine publishes journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s most famous work: a two-part, semi-fictional account of his time covering an off-road desert race in Las Vegas—while tripping on LSD and contemplating the death of the American Dream. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American […]

On November 11, 1978, a stuntman on the Georgia set of “The Dukes of Hazzard” launches the show’s iconic automobile, a 1969 Dodge Charger named the General Lee, off a makeshift dirt ramp and over a police car. That jump, 16 feet high and 82 feet long (its landing totaled the car), made TV history. Although […]