November 30

Winston Churchill born (1874); Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" is released, becomes bestselling album in history (1982); HBD model Chrissy Teigen (1985); Exxon and Mobil merge to form one of the world's largest companies (1999); RIP President George H.W. Bush (2018).

November 29

"Chronicles of Narnia" author CS Lewis born (1898); UN General Assembly approves plan to partition Palestine (1947); Warren Commission is established to investigate President Kennedy assassination (1963); RIP social activist Dorothy Day (1980); RIP Beatles guitarist George Harrison (2001).

November 24

Charles Darwin’s “On the Origins of Species” published (1859); Lee Harvey Oswald is shot and killed just two days after assassinating President Kennedy (1963); RIP Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury (1991); RIP “Brady Bunch” actress Florence Henderson (2016).

November 23

First issue of Life magazine published (1936); First episode of "Doctor Who" airs on BBC (1963); Children’s book author Roald Dahl dies (1990); Hockey great Wayne Gretzky scores his 600th goal (1988); HBD Miley Cyrus (1992).

November 22

Author Jack London dies of possible suicide (1916); HBD tennis star and social activist Billie Jean King (1943); President John F. Kennedy assassinated (1963); RIP author C.S. Lewis (1963); British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announces resignation after 11 years (1990).

November 19

President James Garfield born (1831); President Abraham Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address (1863); Indira Gandhi, first and only female prime minister of India born (1917); President Ronald Reagan meets Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for first time (1985); Charles Manson dies while in prison (2017).

November 18

Abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth born (1797); HBD poet and novelist Margaret Atwood (1939); 918 people die in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana (1978); Massachusetts court ruling makes the state the first to recognize same-sex marriage (2003).

November 17

Suez Canal opens (1869); HBD actor Danny DeVito (1944); HBD former US national security adviser Susan Rice (1964); Arnold Schwarzenegger sworn in as governor of California (2003); First known case of COVID-19 traced to man who visited Wuhan, China (2019).

November 16

Blues musician W.C. Handy born (1873); UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, is founded (1945); Benazir Bhutto elected prime minister of Pakistan, becomes first woman in modern history to lead Muslim-majority country (1988); RIP Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (2006).

November 14

Articles of Confederation, the first US Constitution, is passed (1777); Artist Georgia O’Keeffe born (1887); "Macho Man" Randy Savage born (1952); Two million people protest Vietnam War across US (1969); RIP famed anthropologist Margaret Mead (1978).

November 15

Articles of Confederation, the first US Constitution, is passed (1777); Artist Georgia O’Keeffe born (1887); "Macho Man" Randy Savage born (1952); Two million people protest Vietnam War across US (1969); RIP famed anthropologist Margaret Mead (1978).

November 11

Nat Turner is hanged after organizing slave rebellion (1831); Armistice signed by Germany and Allies, ending World War I (1918); Armistice Day, now known as Veterans Day, observed for first time in US (1919); HBD Demi Moore (1962);  HBD Leonardo DiCaprio (1974).

November 12

American suffragist and civil rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton born (1815); Joseph Stalin gains undisputed control of Soviet Union (1927); Actress and Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly born (1929); RIP comic book writer Stan Lee (2018).

November 10

Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther born (1483); US Marine Corps is founded (1775); Singer and actress Jane Froman born (1907); "Sesame Street" debuts (1969); Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0 to public (1983).

November 9

Napoleon Bonaparte leads coup and becomes dictator of France (1799); Actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr born (1914); Astronomer Carl Sagan born (1934); First issue of Rolling Stone published (1967).

November 8

Astronomer Edmond Halley born (1656); X-rays are discovered (1895); Singer Minnie Riperton born (1947); Edward Brooke becomes first African American elected to US Senate since Reconstruction (1966); RIP "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek (2020). 

William Makepeace Thackeray

He was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick.

Thackeray, an only child, was born in Calcutta,^[1] British India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 – 13 September 1815), was secretary to the Board of Revenue in the East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher (1792–1864), was the second daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher, who was also a secretary (writer) for the East India Company.^[2] His father was a grandson of Thomas Thackeray (1693–1760), headmaster of Harrow School.^[3]

Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England that same year, while she remained in India. The ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at Saint Helena, where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and then at Charterhouse School, where he became a close friend of John Leech. Thackeray disliked Charterhouse,^[4] and parodied it in his fiction as "Slaughterhouse". Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death. Illness in his last year there, during which he reportedly grew to his full height of six-foot three, postponed his matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge, until February 1829.^{[citation needed]} Never too keen on academic studies, Thackeray left Cambridge in 1830, but some of his earliest published writing appeared in two university periodicals, The Snob and The Gownsman.^[5]

Caricature of Thackeray by Thackeray

Thackeray then travelled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple, but soon gave that up. On reaching the age of 21 he came into his inheritance from his father, but he squandered much of it on gambling and on funding two unsuccessful newspapers, The National Standard and The Constitutional, for which he had hoped to write. He also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. Forced to consider a profession to support himself, he turned first to art, which he studied in Paris, but did not pursue it, except in later years as the illustrator of some of his own novels and other writings.^{[citation needed]}

Thackeray's years of semi-idleness ended after he married, on 20 August 1836, Isabella Gethin Shawe (1816–1894), second daughter of Isabella Creagh Shawe and Matthew Shawe, a colonel who had died after distinguished service, primarily in India. The Thackerays had three children, all girls: Anne Isabella (1837–1919), Jane (who died at eight months old) and Harriet Marian (1840–1875), who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, biographer and philosopher.

Thackeray now began "writing for his life", as he put it, turning to journalism in an effort to support his young family. He primarily worked for Fraser's Magazine, a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued conservative publication for which he produced art criticism, short fictional sketches, and two longer fictional works, Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Between 1837 and 1840 he also reviewed books for The Times.^[6] He was also a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator John Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers, later collected as The Book of Snobs. This work popularised the modern meaning of the word "snob".^[7] Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854.^[8]

Thackeray portrayed by Eyre Crowe, 1845

Tragedy struck in Thackeray's personal life as his wife, Isabella, succumbed to depression after the birth of their third child, in 1840. Finding that he could get no work done at home, he spent more and more time away until September 1840, when he realised how grave his wife's condition was. Struck by guilt, he set out with his wife to Ireland. During the crossing she threw herself from a water-closet into the sea, but she was pulled from the waters. They fled back home after a four-week battle with her mother. From November 1840 to February 1842 Isabella was in and out of professional care, as her condition waxed and waned.^[3]

She eventually deteriorated into a permanent state of detachment from reality. Thackeray desperately sought cures for her, but nothing worked, and she ended up in two different asylums in or near Paris until 1845, after which Thackeray took her back to England, where he installed her with a Mrs Bakewell at Camberwell. Isabella outlived her husband by 30 years, in the end being cared for by a family named Thompson in Leigh-on-Sea at Southend until her death in 1894.^[9] After his wife's illness Thackeray became a de facto widower, never establishing another permanent relationship. He did pursue other women, however, in particular Mrs Jane Brookfield and Sally Baxter. In 1851 Mr Brookfield barred Thackeray from further visits to or correspondence with Jane. Baxter, an American twenty years Thackeray's junior whom he met during a lecture tour in New York City in 1852, married another man in 1855.^{[citation needed]}

In the early 1840s Thackeray had some success with two travel books, The Paris Sketch Book and The Irish Sketch Book.

November 5

 "Gone with the Wind" actress Vivien Leigh born (1913); Franklin D. Roosevelt is first and only US president elected to third term (1940); Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death (2006); Android operating system from Google unveiled (2007).

November 4

Journalist Walter Cronkite born (1916); Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes first woman elected governor in the US (1924); HBD Sean "Diddy" Combs (1969); Iran hostage crisis begins (1979); Barack Obama becomes first African American elected US president (2008).

Kenneth Bruce Gorelick

 (born June 5, 1956), known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album Duotones brought him commercial success.[1] Kenny G is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with global sales totaling more than 75 million records.

November 3

RIP American sharpshooter Annie Oakley (1926); HBD journalist and fashion icon Dame Anna Wintour (1949); The Soviet Union launches first animal into space (1957); US arms sale to Iran revealed (1986); One World Trade Center officially opens on former site of Twin Towers (2014).

November 2

Marie Antoinette born (1755); Nobel Prize-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw dies (1950); First president of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated (1963); Martin Luther King Jr. Day is created in the US (1983).

November 1

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling exhibited to public for first time (1512); Earthquake and tsunami in Lisbon kills 60,000-90,000 (1755); Silent film star Laura La Plante born (1904); HBD Apple CEO Tim Cook (1960); RIP football great Walter Payton (1999).

October 29

Sir Walter Raleigh is executed (1618); International Red Cross is formed (1863); "Joy of Painting" host Bob Ross born (1942); HBD Gabrielle Union (1972); John Glenn becomes the oldest NASA astronaut in space at age 77 (1998).