#TodayInHistory – November 14

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November 14 – Some important events on this day.

1524 👉🏼 Francisco Pizarro begins his 1st great expedition, near Colombia
1666 👉🏼 Diarist Samuel Pepys reports on 1st blood transfusion (between dogs)
1680 👉🏼 Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch’s Comet/Newton’s Comet)
1851 👉🏼 “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville first published by Harper and Brothers in the US
1856 👉🏼 American Gail Borden is issued a patent for technology related to his invention of condensed milk
1881 👉🏼 Leon Gambetta forms French government
1883 👉🏼 “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson is first published as a book by Cassell & Co.
1889 👉🏼 New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins her attempt to surpass fictitious journey of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg by traveling around the world in under 80 days. She succeeds, finishing the trip in 72 days, 6 hours
1896 👉🏼 Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation
1908 👉🏼 Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light
1918 👉🏼 Republic of Czechoslovakia created with Tomáš Masaryk as its 1st president
1920 👉🏼 The Russian Bolshevik army occupies Sebastopol, ending anti-communist attempts to regain the government of Russia
1985 👉🏼 Volcano Nevado del Ruiz Colombia erupts, 1000s killed
1994 👉🏼 1st trains for public run in Channel Tunnel under English Channel
1997 👉🏼 Disney’s “Lion King” sets Broadway record of $2,700,000 daily sale
2012 👉🏼 CFBDSIR 2149-0403 is discovered, the closest rogue planet to earth (100 light-years away)

2017 👉🏼 Zimbabwe Army seizes key sites in capital Harare following tensions over Robert Mugabe’s dismissal of vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for almost 40 years. Emerging as a political leader during the Rhodesian Bush War (Zimbabwe’s name under British rule), he served as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987 and as President from 1987 until his ousting in a military-backed coup in 2017.
However, Zimbabwe’s economy drastically declined under Mugabe’s leadership. Once the breadbasket of Africa, unemployment was high and the economy remains one of the poorest in the world. Policies of forcible land reform against white farmers and other economic mismanagement had led to vast inflation and dissent against Mugabe’s rule, and in turn led to violent crackdowns against opponents. Mugabe was 94 when he was ousted, and the question of his succession hung over his government. He and some allies in his ZANU-PF political party had attempted to install his wife, Grace Mugabe, as his successor. This was met with a strong pushback from other factions. On November 6, 2017, the vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was removed from his position, as he was considered a strong opponent of Grace Mugabe and a potential successor in his own right.
This appears to have made the military act. On this day, the army took control of the broadcasting corporation and key sites in the capital, Harare. Mugabe was placed under house arrest. After days of negotiations, and impeachment proceedings beginning in Parliament, Mugabe finally resigned as President on November 21 and was succeeded by Mnangagwa.