November is when the north winds begin to blow and herald the coming of winter. This month is also a time of migration: gray whales swim south to the warm waters of Mexico; ducks, geese, cranes, and even monarch butterflies fly south to escape the ice and snow: and many people now fly south to Florida and Arizona to warm their weary bones.

On November 1, 1492, Italian Explorer Christopher Columbus, realizing he is not in Japan, decides that Cuba is the Chinese Mainland. 

On November 1, 1512, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling Goes on View. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one of Italian artist, Michelangelo Buonarroti’s finest works, is exhibited to the public for the first time on this day in 1512. Central is a complex system of decorations featuring numerous figures are nine panels devoted to biblical history. The most famous of these is the creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretching toward each other. After 15 years, as an architect in Florence, Michelangelo returned to Rome in 1534 where he worked and lived for the rest of his life.

On November 1, 1864, the U.S. Weather Bureau made its first observations.

On November 1, 1913, Notre Dame beat Army 35 to 13 at West Point; popularized the forward pass for the first time; and brought team captain Knute Rockne to fames.

On November 1, 1927, for the first time since the Model T was introduced in 1908, the Ford Motor Company begins production on a significantly redesigned automobile—the Model A.

On November 1, 1950, Charles Cooper of the Boston Celtics became the NBA’s first African-American player.

On November 1, 1952, The U.S. Detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The Soviet Union would explode its own H-bomb the following year.