Happy Friday, readers! In an effort to keep you entertained on seemingly endless Friday afternoons, we will begin a new weekly feature at the close of each work week entitled "This Week in History." These blog entries will highlight notable historical events, births, and deaths and provide links to similarly-themed UNP books. Diversion and intellectual stimulation in one neat, weekly package. What more could you ask for?

This Week in History…

November 4, 1879: Will Rogers, the cowboy comedian known as "Oklahoma’s favorite son" was born in Oologah, Oklahoma.
Have a hankering for cowboy humor? Check out The Humor of the American Cowboy, Second Edition by Stan Hoig.

November 5, 1973: New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon was born.
If you’re a baseball enthusiast, you’ll enjoy A Game of Brawl: The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and the Battle for the 1897 Pennant by Bill Felber.

November 6, 1861: The inventor of the game of basketball, James Naismith, was born in Ramsay township in Canada.
Want to know how politics, race, and culture have effected the once simple game of basketball? Read Jeffrey Lane’s Under the Boards: The Cultural Revolution in Basketball to find out.

November 7,1913: French novelist Albert Camus was born.
Hungry for French fiction? Pick up William Butcher’s translation of Jules Verne’s Lighthouse at the End of the World, Marjorie Attignol Salvodon’s and Jehanne-Marie Gavarini’s translation of Nina Bouraoui’s Tomboy, and Tamsin Black’s translation of Pascale Kramer’s The Living.

November 8, 1889: Montana became our 41st state.
Travel back in time to just over two decades after Montana was granted statehood by reading Montana 1911: A Professor and his Wife among the Blackfeet, edited and translated by Mary Eggermont-Molenaar.

November 9, 1938: Nazis raided Jewish businesses and homes in Germany and Austria during Kristallnacht, or the "night of broken glass."
Hearing the remarkable story of a Torah from her father’s German village being rescued by Christians on Kristallnacht inspired author Mimi Schwartz to begin a twelve-year quest to investigate how everyday people dealt with the horrors of evil suffered by their neighbors during the Nazi era. Read about her search for answers in her book, Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father’s German Village (forthcoming in March 2008).