I hope it isn't contagious

November 8, 1954 -
I was raised by a strong mother and I never felt like I had to be a role, you know, I was just me, who I am.







Rickie Lee Jones, The Duchess of Coolsville, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer, was born on this date.


November 8, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin released their untitled fourth album, containing the hits Black Dog, Rock and Roll, Stairway to Heaven, Misty Mountain Hop, Going to California and When the Levee Breaks, on this date.



And kids remember, according to the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly, if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, you can hear:



So, don't play you albums backwards (many of you have no idea what albums are.)


Today in History:
November 8, 1431 -
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Dracula), Transylvanian prince, inspiring the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, was probably born on this date.



People had better things to do back then (like find something to eat or keep warm) than keep track of the birth date of some sadistic royal person.


November 8, 1519 -
The Aztec and their leader, Moctezuma, foolishly welcomed Hernando Cortez and about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire, on this date.



The Aztec ruler Moctezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest.

Oops.


November 8, 1789 -
Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, from Georgetown, Kentucky, distilled the first sour-mash whiskey for public sale on this date.

His customers from the surrounding area called his product Bourbon County Whiskey -- after the county of its origin.


November 8th, 1895  -
Wilhelm Röntgen discovered x-rays on this date, when he discovered treated cardboard he was using in routine experiments glowed in certain situations – the result of radiation hitting the surface.



During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.


November 8, 1923 -
Adolf Schicklgruber, failed artist and World War I veteran, launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and Ludendorff dictator.



No one really taken him too seriously at the time. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking.


November 8, 1957 -
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb, called Operation: Grapple X, over Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, on this date.  (The U.K. had become an actual thermonuclear power with the detonation of Grapple X.)



It was a bit more powerful than they expected and caused infrastructure damage and destroyed some buildings on the island.  I'm guessing this finally answers the question for me: No, I do not wish to spend Christmas (or any time for that matter) on Christmas Island.


November 8, 1994 -
Once you put yourself in the hands of the government, you could end up in Utah.



Michael O'Donoghue writer for National Lampoon magazine and the first head writer for Saturday Night Live, died on this date, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of what were thought to be chronic migraine headaches.


An 85-foot Norway spruce that belonged to a central Pennsylvania family (the Sigafoos Family) will serve as Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree this year in New York. The tree was cut down on the 5th and made it to the ice rink yesterday





The tree lighting will be on December 3rd - remember to avoid midtown at all cost on that date.

There are 19 days until Thanksgiving
There are 37 days until the start of Hanukkah (Ok, I'm being driven crazy - Hanukkah starts at sundown on the 16th of December at 4:46 pm. Do I count the 16th as the beginning of Hanukkah or do I count the 17th as the first full day.  I believe if I were a child I would eagerly count the evening of the 16th as the start, so that's what I'm going with.)
There are 47 days until Christmas.



And so it goes.