Nov. 12, 2003: Concord’s Luke Bonner, a senior and basketball star at Trinity High School in Manchester, signs his national letter of intent to play for West Virginia.
Nov. 12, 2000: Concord High routs longtime nemesis Londonderry, 53-8, advancing to the state Division I football championship. The win ends a streak of lopsided defeats the Tide had recently suffered at the hands of Londonderry. Concord will go on to win the state title in equally convincing fashion, defeating Manchester Central, 38-0.
Nov. 12, 1941: After spending three days in the country with Winston Churchill, John G. Winant of Concord, U.S. ambassador to Britain, writes a five-page memo to Franklin D. Roosevelt outlining three scenarios Churchill has posed. The worst: Japan enters the war against Britain, but the United States stays out. Better: Neither country enters the war. Best: The United States enters the war, but Japan doesn’t. Less than a month later, Pearl Harbor will put a fourth scenario into effect.
Nov. 12, 1818: A newly discharged convict from the state prison enters the State House and steals the keys to most of the doors. He is quickly arrested.
Nov. 12, 1885: Ten women in their late teens and early 20s form the Flower Mission, whose purpose is to deliver flowers at Concord hospitals and homes for the aged.
Nov. 13, 2003: Gov. Craig Benson says that the Old Man of the Mountain will not be rebuilt, agreeing with the recommendation of the task force charged with creating a tribute to the Old Man. The final memorial plan includes roadside viewfinders, an expanded museum at the base of the mountain and walking trails along Profile Lake.
Nov. 14, 1906: Lane Dwinell is born. He will be New Hampshire’s governor (1955-59) after serving as both House speaker and Senate president.
Nov. 14, 1861: A fire at Main and School streets, the fourth major fire of the year in downtown Concord, destroys a harness factory, a shoe store, the gas-light company offices and homes.
Nov. 16, 2000: A federal judge in Concord upholds the right of an internet company to refuse to register profane website addresses as it sees fit. The company was sued by a woman who claimed her First Amendment rights had been violated.
Nov. 16, 1861: After several devastating fires in the city in preceding months, a committee under Concord Mayor Moses Humphrey releases a study recommending that a steam fire engine replace the hand pumper stationed on Warren Street near Main. The new engine, the “Gov. Hill,” will go into service in early 1862. It will work so well that the city will soon be shopping for another.
Nov. 16, 1896: A paltry turnout of 100 people comes to the 1,100-seat White’s Opera House on Park Street in Concord for the first motion picture, which is to be shown on Edison and Dow’s Rayoscope. The Rayoscope doesn’t work, and the crowd goes home disappointed.
Nov. 16, 1908: With a friend at the wheel, Mayor Charles Corning leaves Concord at 10:35 a.m. for a drive to Cambridge, Mass. “The highways are far from perfect, but we are covering mile after mile,” Corning writes in his diary. It takes them six hours to reach Harvard Square.
Nov. 17, 2001: The plan to build a senior center in Concord, one of two state capitals in the country without such a facility, receives a positive response from the planning board, the Monitor reports.
Nov. 17, 1965: Opening Day at Concord’s Everett Arena draws thousands of skaters. “They came streaming across the river bridge and down the hill from the Heights – the moppets and the middle-aged and here and there and old-timer. . . .This community, long known in sports circles as the “Cradle of American Hockey,” celebrated in a mood of holiday revelry,” the Monitor reports.
