A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on November 19th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On November 19, 1703, one of History’s most celebrated prisoners died while still in prison, an unidentified man known to us as “The Man in the Iron Mask.” On November 19, 1887, Emma Lazarus, the author of “The New Colossus,” a sonnet that appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, died in New York city at the…
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A Brief History On November 19, 1887, Emma Lazarus, the author of “The New Colossus,” a sonnet that appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, died in New York city at the age of 38, possibly of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Despite her brief life, her famous poem is familiar to almost all Americans. Is it in fact the most famous American poem? Digging Deeper Here are some contenders for that title, and you can tell us if one of these poems is the most famous American verse or nominate your own in the comments section for…
A Brief History On November 19, 1911, the infamous “Doom Bar” located at the mouth of the River Camel in Cornwall, England where it empties into the Celtic Sea claimed another pair of ships, sinking both. The Island Maid and Angele both had run aground on the permanent sandbar, formerly known as the less poetic “Dunbar sands,” killing everyone aboard the Angele except, oddly enough, the captain. As can be expected by the demonstrative name, the Doom Bar is infamous for causing the sinking or grounding of many ships over the years. The River Camel estuary serves as access to…
A Brief History On November 19, 1998, the United States House of Representatives began hearings on the Monica Lewinsky-President Bill Clinton sex scandal that would result in Clinton being impeached for lying about the affair. With Clinton out of office since January of 2001, it would seem the incident would be long forgotten, except for the 2016 Presidential campaign in which the Bill Clinton’s alleged history of sexual harassment/predation was brought up in retaliation for the revelations about Donald Trump’s alleged record of sexual harassment. Combined with recent events in the past couple years, the incidents that have been alleged…
A Brief History On November 19, 1703, one of History’s most celebrated prisoners died while still in prison, an unidentified man known to us as “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Ironically (even the word “ironically” is ironic in this case!), the mask kept over the prisoner’s face was black velvet, not iron. The iron part of the story came from a work by Voltaire in 1771 when he claimed the mask was an iron one. Voltaire also claimed the man was an illegitimate brother of the French King, Louis XIV. Novelist Alexandre Dumas (he of The Three Musketeers fame)…