November 25, 2020
Day 330 of 366

November 25th is the 330th day of the year. It is Independence Day in Suriname, celebrating their separation from the Netherlands in 1975.

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Play Day with Dad, National Parfait Day, Blasé Day, Shopping Reminder Day, Tie One On Day, and National Jukebox Day. Those last two are typically observed on the day before Thanksgiving.

Historical items of note:

• In 1487, Elizabeth of York was crowned Queen of England.
• In 1491, the siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ended with the Treaty of Granada.
• In 1783, the last British troops left New York City, commonly known as Evacuation Day, three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
• In 1844, German engineer and businessman Karl Benz was born. He founded Mercedes-Benz.
• In 1914, baseball player and coach Joe DiMaggio was born.
• In 1915, Albert Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. These equations relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it.
• In 1920, Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán was born.
• In 1926, actor and producer Jeffrey Hunter was born. He was the first Captain Christopher Pike on Star Trek.
• This day in 1940 marked the first flights of both the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder.
• In 1947, the “Hollywood Ten” were formally blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios for defying Congress.
• Also in 1947, actor John Larroquette was born.
• In 1950, English-American author Chris Claremont was born.
• In 1952, Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It would become the longest continuously-running play in history.
• In 1965, Scottish television and film actor Dougray Scott was born.
• In 1968, twin sisters Jacqueline and Jill Hennessy were born. Both are Canadian actresses. Jacqueline is also a journalist and Jill is also a singer.
• In 1971, actress Christina Applegate was born.
• In 1984, thirty-six top musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio and recorded Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

• In 1986, actress Katie Cassidy was born.
• In 1996, the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade closed after twenty-four years of operation.

November 25th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

This United Nations day is designed to raise awareness of the fact that women around the world are subject to rape, domestic violence, and other forms of violence, and that the scale and true nature of the issue is often hidden.

The event is related to the 1960 murder of the Mirabal sisters. Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and Dedé Mirabal were Dominican women who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (known as El Jefe) and were involved in clandestine activities against his regime. Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa were assassinated on this date in 1960. The last sister, Dedé, died of natural causes on February 1, 2014.

The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into symbols of both popular and feminist resistance, and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women was designated in 1999 in their honor.

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

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