On Nov. 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.
After months of intense deliberation, the Continental Congress reached a historic decision to adopt the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. However, it would take an additional three and a half years for all thirteen states to fully ratify the agreement. The Articles of Confederation served as a vital precursor to the U.S. Constitution, laying the groundwork for the nation’s governance.
As the founders shaped the framework of a new nation, they engaged in lengthy discussions about the balance of power between a centralized government and individual states. The resulting system established a government led by a Congress and a president. Each state held equal representation in Congress, with one vote apiece. This legislative body was granted authority over foreign affairs, the maintenance of an army, and the power to declare war and peace.
Other events of November 15
In 1806, explorer Zebulon Pike sighted the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.
As a U.S. Army officer Pike led two expeditions through the Louisiana Purchase territory. In 1805 he was sent to reconnoiter the upper northern reaches of the Mississippi River. Almost immediately upon his return in 1806 General Wilkinson sent Pike on a second expedition to explore the southwest to the fringes of the northern Spanish-colonial settlements of New Mexico and Texas. On the second expedition, Pike sighted a mountaintop shooting up from the plains. That mountaintop would later be named Pike’s Peak.
In 1864, late in the U.S. Civil War, Union forces led by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman began their “March to the Sea.”
A week after Abraham Lincoln’s re-election as president, Union General William T. Sherman embarked on his bold campaign across Georgia. He began by setting fire to Atlanta’s industrial district and breaking away from his supply lines. Over the following six weeks, Sherman’s forces swept through the state, leaving widespread destruction in their wake. This notorious “March to the Sea” culminated in December with the capture of Savannah, Georgia, a port that was crucial to the Confederates.
In 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C.
Americans were incensed not only by the rising number of American soldiers killed, but also by murders and atrocities committed by the American military in Vietnam. The second moratorium was galvanized by reports of the My Lai Massacre, in which American soldiers were ordered to kill unarmed women, men, and children. This was a breaking point for many Americans. By some estimates, half a million people participated in the demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
In 1988 The Palestinian Declaration of Independence formally established the State of Palestine in the minds of Yasser Arafat and his followers. It was written by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and proclaimed by Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO terrorist organization, in Algiers, Algeria. Arafat proceeded to set up a government in exile in Algiers.
Today in History: November 14
Today in History: November 14. On November 14, 1889, journalist Nellie Bly began an attempt to travel around the world in 80 days; she would successfully complete the journey in just over 72 days. In 1851, Herman Melville’s novel ‘Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale’ was published in the United States, almost a month after being released in Britain. In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first Black child to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. In 1965, the U.S. Army’s first major military operation of the Vietnam War began with the start of the five-day Battle of Ia Drang.In 1993, Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula became the NFL’s all-time winningest coach with a victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Today in History: November 13
Today in History: November 13:On Nov. 13, 2015, Islamic State militants carried out a set of coordinated attacks in Paris at the national stadium, in a crowded concert hall, in restaurants and on streets, killing 130 people in the worst attack on French soil since World War II. In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling which found Alabama bus segregation laws were illegal. In 1971, the U.S. space probe Mariner 9 went into orbit around Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, DC. In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city. In 2001, U.S.-backed Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan entered Kabul as Taliban forces retreated from the capital city.
Today in History: November 12
Today in History: On November 12: 1954, Ellis Island officially closed as an immigration station and detention center. More than 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party. In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in Washington, D.C., and gave the green light to traffic. In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal. In 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The deadliest tropical cyclone on record claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000-500,000 people.
Today in History: November 11
Today in History: November 11: On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I ended as the Allies and Germany signed an armistice aboard a railroad car in the Forest of Compiègne in northern France. In 1620, 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed the Mayflower Compact, calling for a “civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation.” In 1921, the remains of an unidentified American service member were interred in a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony presided over by President Warren G. Harding. In 1966, Gemini 12 blasted off on a four-day mission with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. aboard; it was the tenth and final crewed flight of NASA’s Gemini program.
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