Birthdays

Jon Stewart - November 28, 1962
Jonathan "Jon" Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian. He is best known as the host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program airing on Comedy Central. In 2000 and 2004, the show won two Peabody Awards for its coverage of the presidential elections relevant to those years, called "Indecision 2000" and "Indecision 2004", respectively. He is the co-author of America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which was one of the best-selling books in the U.S in 2004.


C.S. Lewis - November 29, 1898
Clive Staples Lewis, commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, and lay theologian. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.

Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies over the years. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularized on stage, in TV, in radio, and in cinema.


Winston Churchill - November 30, 1874
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, historian, writer, and artist. He was the only British Prime Minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the first person to be recognized as an Honorary Citizen of the United States. Some of Churchill's more inspirational quotes - uttered during the dark years of World War II when Great Britain was under direct attack from Nazi Germany - include the following:

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour."

"Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense".



Events

November 27, 1759 - Reverend Francis Gastrell's Ejectment
One of the many sightseeing options available to those visiting Hollywood, California is a tour that points out the homes of movie stars. For those who live in the neighborhood, or for those who have purchased homes that used to belong to movie stars, I would imagine this gets a bit annoying. Perhaps they can relate to the good Reverend Francis Gastrell. You see, back in the mid 1700s, the Reverend had purchased a castle-like home in Stratford-on-Avon in England. This wasn't just any home - it was a home that had been previously owned by none other than William Shakespeare, and in the yard of this home was a mulberry tree that was believed to have been planted by Shakespeare himself. This tree became quite a tourist attraction, and the home's new owner (Gastrell) was not one bit happy about it. His solution was to chop down the tree and sell it for firewood. Either because of a true sense of loss, or because the tourist trade had been lucrative for local businesses, the residents of the town didn't take very kindly to Gastrell's actions. Gastrell was forced to leave the town, and to ensure that Stratford was never again forced to endure the Reverend or his descendents, a bylaw was passed prohibiting anyone named Gastrell from ever taking up residence in Stratford.


December 2, 2001 - Enron Bankruptcy
On this date in 2001, the Enron Corporation - an American energy company based in Houston, Texas - filed for bankruptcy.   At its peak, Enron employed approximately 22,000 and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion. Fortune Magazine named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001 it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud . Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption.


December 2, 1823 - Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy that was introduced on December 2, 1823, which said that further efforts by European governments to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed by the United States of America as acts of aggression requiring US intervention. The Monroe Doctrine asserted that the Western Hemisphere was not to be further colonized by European countries, and that the United States would not interfere with existing European colonies nor in the internal concerns of European countries.

US President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress. It became a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets, invoked by U.S. presidents, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, and others.