Explore 26 November

Explore 26 November: Howard Carter looks into Tutankhamun’s tomb and sees ‘wonderful things’, India adopts its constitution, Mongolia becomes a people’s republic and France puts its first satellite into orbit. Meet Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Schulz and Tina Turner, born on this date.

This day through time →10 verified events across 4 eras

⌛10Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉2Firsts &
Discoveries ♫1Culture
Stories

Howard Carter at work in the tomb of Tutankhamun, photographed by Harry Burton.

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Harry Burton · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1922

Howard Carter looks into Tutankhamun’s tomb

After years of fruitless digging in the Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter found a step cut in the rock on 4 November 1922 and followed a stairway down to a sealed doorway. His patron Lord Carnarvon hurried out from England to join him.

On 26 November 1922 Carter made a small hole in the inner doorway and held up a candle. When Carnarvon asked whether he could see anything, Carter replied, ‘Yes, wonderful things.’ Beyond lay the nearly intact burial of the boy king Tutankhamun, the richest find in the history of Egyptology.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Geographic: Unmasking Howard Carter, the man who found Tutankhamun ↗

B. R. Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee, presents the final draft of the constitution to Rajendra Prasad, 25 November 1949.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1949

India adopts its constitution

India’s Constituent Assembly first met in December 1946 and spent nearly three years debating a constitution clause by clause, with the lawyer B. R. Ambedkar chairing the drafting committee. On 26 November 1949 the Assembly adopted it.

With 395 articles it was the longest written constitution of any country. It came into force on 26 January 1950, when India became a republic. Since 2015 India has marked 26 November as Constitution Day, Samvidhan Divas.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India: Constitution Day, 26 November (backgrounder) ↗

The flag of the Mongolian People’s Republic in its first years, from 1924.

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Drawn by Joins2003 · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1924

Mongolia becomes a people’s republic

Outer Mongolia had broken away from China in 1911 under its religious leader, the Bogd Khan, and a revolution backed by Soviet Russia brought a communist-led government to power in 1921. When the Bogd Khan died in 1924, the monarchy was not renewed.

A Great Khural, or national assembly, met in November and on 26 November 1924 adopted Mongolia’s first constitution, proclaiming the Mongolian People’s Republic, the world’s second communist state after the Soviet Union. The capital was renamed Ulaanbaatar, ‘Red Hero’.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Mongolia, independence and revolution ↗

The French army crossing the Berezina, in a watercolour probably by a witness or veteran of the campaign.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1812

Napoleon’s retreating army begins to cross the Berezina

Retreating from Moscow in the Russian winter, Napoleon’s Grande Armée reached the Berezina river, in what is now Belarus, to find the bridge at Borisov destroyed and Russian armies closing in. A thaw had left the river unfrozen and full of ice.

Through the night of 25-26 November 1812 General Éblé’s engineers, working chest-deep in freezing water, built two bridges upstream at Studianka, and Oudinot’s corps crossed on the 26th. Most of the army followed over the next two days before the bridges were burned, leaving thousands of stragglers behind. ‘Bérézina’ became a French word for disaster.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Fondation Napoléon: The Battle of the Berezina, Napoleon’s great escape ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

Image credit

"F. Jullien Genève", maybe Frank-Henri Jullien (1882–1938) · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1857

Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss linguist whose lectures laid the foundations of modern linguistics and structuralism.

Image credit

Garry Olsh · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1894

Norbert Wiener

American mathematician who founded cybernetics, the study of control and communication in machines and living things.

Image credit

Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1898

Karl Ziegler

German chemist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for catalysts used to make plastics.

Image credit

Gorupdebesanez · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1909

Eugène Ionesco

Romanian-born French playwright of the Theatre of the Absurd, author of The Bald Soprano and Rhinoceros.

Image credit

Roger Higgins, World Telegram staff photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1922

Charles Schulz

American cartoonist who created the Peanuts strip, with Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Image credit

Secretaría de Cultura · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1931

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

Argentine human rights campaigner who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.

Image credit

HBO · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1939

Tina Turner

American-born singer known as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, whose hits included ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It’.

◉

IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

A Diamant A rocket, the French launcher that carried Astérix into orbit.

Image credit

San Diego Air & Space Museum · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1965

France launches its first satellite, Astérix

On 26 November 1965 a Diamant rocket lifted off from Hammaguir in the Algerian desert and placed a 42-kilogram satellite, A-1, nicknamed Astérix, into orbit. France became the third country, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to launch a satellite on its own rocket.

The satellite’s aerials were damaged at separation and it never sent back data, but the launch proved the rocket, and France went on to lead Europe’s Ariane programme.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: CNES (French space agency): 60 years ago, the dawn of space France with Diamant and Astérix ↗

The Atlas V rocket carrying Curiosity lifts off from Cape Canaveral, 26 November 2011.

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Photo credit: NASA/George Roberts · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

2011

The Curiosity rover sets off for Mars

An Atlas V rocket launched NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 10.02 a.m. local time on 26 November 2011. Inside was Curiosity, a car-sized rover carrying ten science instruments.

After a journey of some 350 million miles it landed in Gale Crater in August 2012, and found that Mars once had lakes of water with the chemical ingredients that life would need.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: NASA launches most capable and robust rover to Mars ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the trailer for Casablanca, 1942.

Image credit

Trailer screenshot · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1942

Casablanca has its premiere

Warner Bros. brought forward the opening of Casablanca to take advantage of the Allied landings at the Moroccan port earlier in the month, and the film was first shown in New York on 26 November 1942. Directed by Michael Curtiz, it starred Humphrey Bogart as the café owner Rick and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa, the woman he had lost.

It went on general release early in 1943, won the Academy Award for best picture, and became one of the most quoted films ever made.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: AFI Catalog (American Film Institute): Casablanca (1942) ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED