Sunday, November 20, 2011

TODAY IN HISTORY

NOVEMBER 20
1910
:The Mexican Revolution begins when Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosi, calling for the overthrow of the authoritarian presidency of Porfirio Diaz and the revival of democracy in Mexico. Madero will be elected president in 1911, but will be overthrown and killed two years later.

1820: The Nantucket whaling ship Essex is rammed and sunk by a giant sperm whale 2,000 miles west of South America. The unusual event will inspire Herman Melville's tale of Captain Ahab and the great white whale, Moby Dick. The real-life crew of the Essex, led by Capt. George Pollard, escape the doomed ship in three whaleboats, yet have to resort to cannibalism on the open ocean. Eight crew members survive for three months before being rescued.

1979: Robert Anderson performs the first transfusion of artificial blood at the University of Minnesota Hospital, to a Jehovah's Witness patient who refused human blood on religious grounds.
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