Moments in Time – October 21, 2020

#Middlebury

  • On Nov. 3, 1777, Gen. George Washington is informed that a conspiracy is afoot to discredit him with Congress and have him replaced by Gen. Horatio Gates. Major Gen. Thomas Conway led the effort. Conway offered his resignation in March 1778 by way of apology, and was surprised and humiliated when Congress accepted.
  • On Nov. 4, 1928, Arnold Rothstein, New York’s most notorious gambler, is fatally shot during a poker game. Police made arrests after following his trail of blood back to a suite where a group of men were playing cards.
  • On Nov. 5, 1930, Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novels “Main Street” (1920), “Babbitt” (1922), “Arrowsmith” (1925) and “Elmer Gantry” (1927). In 1926, he had turned down the Pulitzer Prize awarded him for “Arrowsmith.”
  • On Nov. 7, 1957, The Gaither Report called for by President Dwight Eisenhower to review the nation’s defense readiness urges a vigorous $30 billion campaign to build fallout shelters. It suggested that American citizens were completely unprotected from nuclear attack.
  • On Nov. 2, 1960, a landmark obscenity case over “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” by D.H. Lawrence, ends in the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had been sued for obscenity in publishing an unexpurgated version of the novel, which deals with the affair between the wife of a landowner and the estate’s gamekeeper.
  • On Nov. 6, 1982, Shirley Allen is arrested for poisoning her husband, Lloyd Allen, with ethylene glycol, commonly known as antifreeze. After witnessing her mother spike Lloyd’s drinks with the deadly substance, Shirley’s own daughter turned her in to the authorities.
  • On Nov. 8, 1994, 59% of California voters approve Proposition 187 banning undocumented immigrants from using major state public services such as nonemergency health care and education. The ballot measure never took effect, and California has since repealed Prop 187.

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