November 20 in History

Francisco Madero, a wealthy landowner with democratic convictions and a slight build that belied enormous political courage, issued the Plan de San Luis Potosi from exile in San Antonio, Texas, calling for armed revolution against Porfirio Diaz, the dictator who had ruled Mexico for 34 years. The plan named November 20, 1910, as the date for the uprising to begin, launching a decade-long revolution that would kill between one and two million people and fundamentally reshape Mexican society. Diaz had come to power in 1876 promising democratic reform, then created one of Latin America's most durable authoritarian regimes. His "Porfiriato" modernized Mexico's infrastructure, attracted foreign investment, and built railroads, but the benefits flowed almost entirely to a small elite. Vast haciendas controlled the countryside while peasant communities lost their communal lands. Workers in mines and factories labored under conditions that amounted to debt slavery. When Diaz told an American journalist in 1908 that Mexico was ready for democracy, Madero took him at his word and ran for president. Madero's campaign attracted massive popular support, alarming Diaz enough to have his challenger arrested and jailed during the 1910 election. Released on bail, Madero fled to Texas and drafted his revolutionary plan. The document declared the recent election void, named Madero provisional president, and called on Mexicans to take up arms on November 20. The initial uprising was ragged. Madero's planned insurrection in Puebla was discovered before it could begin. Only scattered fighting broke out on November 20 itself. But the call to revolt ignited far more than Madero had anticipated. In the northern state of Chihuahua, Pancho Villa assembled a guerrilla army. In the southern state of Morelos, Emiliano Zapata rallied peasants demanding land reform under the cry "Tierra y Libertad."

Twenty-one men took their seats in the dock at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, facing charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy. The International Military Tribunal, convened by the victorious Allied powers, was attempting something unprecedented in the history of warfare: holding individual leaders criminally responsible for the actions of a state. The trial that began on November 20, 1945, would last nearly a year and establish principles of international law that endure to this day. The decision to hold trials rather than simply execute Nazi leaders was far from obvious. Winston Churchill initially favored summary execution. Stalin suggested shooting 50,000 to 100,000 German officers, a proposal he may or may not have made in jest. Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, wanted to dismantle German industry entirely. The insistence on a legal proceeding came primarily from American Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who argued that judicial process would create an indisputable historical record and establish the principle that aggressive war was a crime. The tribunal brought together judges and prosecutors from the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, four nations with radically different legal traditions forced to agree on rules of procedure, evidence, and jurisdiction. The chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, delivered the opening statement, declaring that "the wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated."

President John F. Kennedy announced the lifting of the naval quarantine around Cuba, formally ending the thirteen-day confrontation that had brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer to nuclear war than any other event in the Cold War. The crisis was over, but the world it left behind was permanently changed, haunted by the knowledge of how close two superpowers had come to destroying civilization. The crisis had begun on October 16, when U-2 reconnaissance photographs revealed Soviet medium-range ballistic missile installations under construction in Cuba, capable of striking most major American cities within minutes of launch. Kennedy rejected both a surgical air strike, which his military advisors could not guarantee would destroy all the missiles, and an invasion, which risked Soviet retaliation against Berlin. He chose instead a naval blockade, euphemistically termed a "quarantine" to avoid the legal implications of a blockade being an act of war. For thirteen days, the world waited. Soviet ships carrying additional missile components approached the quarantine line. American B-52 bombers circled with nuclear weapons aboard. Strategic Air Command went to DEFCON 2, one step below nuclear war, for the only time in history. In Cuba, Soviet forces had tactical nuclear weapons that local commanders were authorized to use against an American invasion, a fact Washington did not know. The resolution came through a combination of public diplomacy and secret channels. Khrushchev sent two letters, the first proposing withdrawal of missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba, the second demanding removal of American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Kennedy publicly accepted the first offer and privately agreed to the second, with the condition that the Turkey deal remain secret. Attorney General Robert Kennedy delivered this message to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on the night of October 27.

An enormous sperm whale, estimated at 85 feet long, rammed the whaling ship Essex twice in the open Pacific, staving in her bow planks and sinking the 238-ton vessel in a matter of minutes. The attack, 2,000 miles west of South America, left twenty crew members adrift in three small whaleboats with minimal provisions, beginning one of the most harrowing survival ordeals in maritime history and providing Herman Melville with the factual foundation for Moby-Dick. The Essex, commanded by Captain George Pollard Jr., had departed Nantucket in August 1819 on a whaling voyage expected to last two to three years. On the morning of November 20, 1820, first mate Owen Chase was supervising repairs to a damaged whaleboat when he spotted a massive bull sperm whale lying motionless on the surface. The whale suddenly charged the ship, striking the bow with its head. It circled, turned, and struck again with what Chase described as "tenfold fury and vengeance," crushing the bow timbers. The Essex began taking on water immediately and listed to port. The crew salvaged what provisions they could, including 600 pounds of hardtack, 200 gallons of water, and navigational instruments, and set out in three 20-foot whaleboats. Pollard wanted to sail for the nearest land, the Marquesas Islands, roughly 1,200 miles to the west. Chase and the crew argued against it, fearing rumored cannibals on those islands, an irony that would become grimly apparent. They chose instead to sail south and east toward South America, a route of over 3,000 miles against the prevailing winds. What followed was 95 days of starvation, dehydration, and escalating horror. Rations ran out. Men began dying. The survivors, driven by desperation, resorted to cannibalism, first eating those who had died of natural causes, then drawing lots to determine who would be killed so the others might live. Pollard's young cousin, Owen Coffin, drew the short lot and was shot by another crewman.