Random News and Notes 9 November
On this Date:
- 1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte participates in a coup and declares himself dictator of France.
- 1848 – The first U.S. Post Office in California opens in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets. At the time there are only about 15,000 European settlers living in the state.
- 1862 – General Ambrose Burnside formally assumes command of the Union Army of the Potomac following the removal of George B. McClellan.
- 1900 – Russia completes its occupation of Manchuria.
- 1906 – President Theodore Roosevelt leaves Washington, D.C., for a 17-day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside of the United States.
- 1914 – The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecks the German cruiser Emden, forcing her to beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean.
- 1918 – Germany is proclaimed a republic as the kaiser abdicates and flees to the Netherlands.
- 1935 – Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China.
- 1938 – Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.
- 1956 – The French philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre—long an admirer of the Soviet Union—denounces both the USSR and its communist system following the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary.
- 1965 – Roger Allen LaPorte, a 22-year-old former seminarian and a member of the Catholic worker movement, immolates himself at the United Nations in New York City in protest of the Vietnam War.
- 1965 – Nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada go dark in the worst power failure in history, when a switch at a station near Niagara Falls fails.
- 1967 – NASA launches Apollo 4 into orbit with the first successful test of a Saturn V rocket.
- 1970 – The Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge by the state of Massachusetts regarding the constitutionality of the Vietnam War. By a 6-3 vote, the justices rejected the effort of the state to bring a suit in federal court in defense of Massachusetts residents claiming protection under a state law that allowed them to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
- 1971 – John Emil List slaughters his entire family in their Westfield, New Jersey, home and then disappears. Though police quickly identified List as the most likely suspect in the murders, it took 18 years for them to locate him and close the case.
- 1972 – Bones discovered by the Leakeys push human origins back 1 million years.
- 1983 – Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, is kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million.
- 1989 – The Berlin Wall is opened after dividing the city for 28 years.
- 1990 – The federal government seizes all of the assets of country singer Willie Nelson—freezing his bank accounts and padlocking his real estate holdings. The beloved entertainer had been struggling to repay a $16.7 million dollar tax debt.
- 1993 – Stari Most, a 427-year-old bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is destroyed, believed to be caused by artillery fire from Bosnian Croat forces.
- 1998 – Largest civil settlement in US history: 37 brokerage houses are ordered to pay $1.3 billion to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price fixing.
We start the news in the People’s Republic of New York. Frau Gauleiter Hochul is suing the Seneca Indian nation over sovereignty claims. The state filed federal suits challenging the sovereign status of a Buffalo parcel eyed for a gas station, convenience store, and cannabis dispensary, plus a 207-acre Grand Island property. PRNY officials claim the sites don’t qualify under the 1990 Seneca Nation Settlement Act.
This editor is somewhat torn over this one. On one hand, he has a reflexive dislike of anything coming out of the Governors office and on the other hand, he has serious legal and moral issues with the various Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Nation) land claims in New York, so he’ll leave it up to you to decide.
In yet another aviation incident, a Cessna 172 flipped over on a Taxiway at John Wayne airport in Santa Ana California yesterday. The incident happened around 2:38 p.m. on November 7, 2026, when the Cessna taxied behind United Airlines Flight 2611, a Boeing 737. Video from the incident shows the light aircraft lifting and rolling onto its roof in seconds as the larger jet powered up, Instructor Jason Ryu and student Kunal Gawli reported the jet blast overwhelmed their controls.
FAA is investigating conflicting accounts—airport officials cite high winds, while the flight school blames the jet exhaust. No injuries were reported and airport operations were unaffected.
There is a bit of a scandal brewing with the Blue Angels. The Navy dismissed Marine Corps Maj. Scott Laux – the #6 pilot on the team – on Nov. 6, abruptly ending his second season with the elite Blue Angels flight team. His photo and bio were quickly scrubbed from the official site, and the squadron flew with just five jets at their season finale in Pensacola, Florida. Also dismissed and scrubbed was PAO Capt. Danielle Cribb, the team’s public affairs officer whom Laux “mentored”.
Navy officials offered no further details on the decision or any links between the cases.
Sure Jan.
There was a miracle of sorts in the Pacific last week. A Royal Caribbean pianist fell overboard from the Ovation of the Seas around 2:30 a.m. on November 6 and treaded water for nearly nine hours before Newport Beach fishermen Sean Norton and Grant Garrett found him and pulled him aboard during their return from a marlin trip. The unusually warm 76-degree water from El Niño conditions likely aided his survival, and he was handed to lifeguards in stable condition. The crew member, who fell overboard without a life jacket, told Norton, ‘Thank you. I thought I was gonna die.’
The Coast Guard is now investigating the fall.
There is a breaking incident unfolding in DC. An individual drove a car into a sign near Lafayette Square Park and the White House this morning. Eyewitnesses saw the driver exit the vehicle, fight with officers, and yell ‘Oh my God’ while being led away in custody. The White House and surrounding area was locked down.
No injuries were reported and the car checked clear of explosives.