Author: Gordon Jones (Page 2 of 48)

On Nov. 6, 1632, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was killed in battle.

In 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party was elected President of the United States as he defeated John Breckinridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas.

In 1893, composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg, Russia, at age 53.

In 1906, Republican Charles Evans Hughes was elected governor of New York, defeating newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.

In 1928, in a first, the results of Republican Herbert Hoover’s presidential election victory over Democrat Alfred E. Smith were flashed onto an electric wraparound sign on the New York Times building.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower won re-election, defeating Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson.

In 1977, 39 people were killed when the Kelly Barnes Dam in Georgia burst, sending a wall of water through Toccoa Falls College.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan won re-election by a landslide over former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic challenger.

In 1990, about one-fifth of the Universal Studios backlot in southern California was destroyed in an arson fire.

In 2012, President Barack Obama was elected to a second term of office, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

In 2014, the march toward same-sex marriage across the U.S. hit a roadblock when a federal appeals court upheld laws against the practice in four states: Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. (A divided U.S. Supreme Court overturned the laws in June 2015.)

In 2015, President Barack Obama rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, declaring it would undercut U.S. efforts to clinch a global climate change deal at the center of his environmental legacy. (President Donald Trump would reverse the Obama decision, but President Joe Biden canceled the permit for the pipeline on the day he took office.)

In 2017, former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner reported to prison in Massachusetts to begin a 21-month sentence for sexting with a 15-year-old girl.

On Nov. 5, 1605, the “Gunpowder Plot” failed as Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament.

In 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony defied the law by attempting to cast a vote for President Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and Socialist Eugene V. Debs.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office as he defeated Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.

In 1964, NASA launched Mariner 3, which was supposed to fly by Mars, but the spacecraft failed to reach its destination.

In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Democratic Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and American Independent candidate George C. Wallace.

In 1974, Democrat Ella T. Grasso was elected governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to win a gubernatorial office without succeeding her husband.

In 1992, Malice Green, a Black motorist, died after he was struck in the head 14 times with a flashlight by a Detroit police officer, Larry Nevers, outside what police said was a crack house. (Nevers and his partner, Walter Budzyn, were found guilty of second-degree murder, but the convictions were overturned; they were later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)

In 1994, former President Ronald Reagan disclosed he had Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2006, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for crimes against humanity.

In 2007, Hollywood writers began a three-month strike, forcing late-night talk shows to immediately start airing reruns.

2009, a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas left 13 people dead; Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He has not yet been executed.

In 2011, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, accused of molesting eight boys, was arrested and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts. (Sandusky was later convicted and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for the sexual abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period.)

In 2017, a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire in a small South Texas church, killing more than two dozen people; the shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In 2018, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, re-imposed all sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

In 2021, a crush of fans during a performance by rapper Travis Scott at a Houston music festival left ten people dead as people were squeezed so tightly they couldn’t breathe.

In 2022, Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead at his home in Southern California at age 34.

On Nov. 4, 1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois.

In 1862, inventor Richard J. Gatling received a U.S. patent for his rapid-fire Gatling gun.

In 1922, the entrance to King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered in Egypt.

In 1942, during World War II, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery.

In 1955, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young died in Newcomerstown, Ohio, at age 88.

In 1956, Soviet troops moved in to crush the Hungarian Revolution.ADVERTISEMENT

In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan won the White House as he defeated President Jimmy Carter by a strong margin.

In 1979, the Iran hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, seizing its occupants; for some of them, it was the start of 444 days of captivity.

In 1985, to the shock and dismay of U.S. officials, Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko announced he was returning to the Soviet Union, charging he had been kidnapped by the CIA.

In 1991, Ronald Reagan opened his presidential library in Simi Valley, California; attending were President George H.W. Bush and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford and Richard Nixon — the first-ever gathering of five past and present U.S. chief executives.

In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli minutes after attending a festive peace rally.

In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama was elected the first Black president of the United States, defeating Republican John McCain. California voters approved Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, overturning a state Supreme Court decision that gave gay couples the right to wed just months earlier.

In 2014, riding a powerful wave of voter discontent, resurgent Republicans captured control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House.

On Nov. 1, 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was established.

In 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, one of Italian artist Michelangelo’s finest works, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

In 1765, the Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament, went into effect, prompting stiff resistance from American colonists.

In 1861, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln named Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan General-in-Chief of the Union armies, succeeding Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott.

In 1936, in a speech in Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between his country and Nazi Germany as an “axis” running between Rome and Berlin.

In 1949, an Eastern Airlines DC-4 collided in midair with a Lockheed P-38 fighter plane near Washington National Airport, killing all 55 people aboard the DC-4 and seriously injuring the pilot of the P-38.

In 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. (One of the pair was killed, along with a White House police officer.)

In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, code-named “Ivy Mike,” at Enewetak (en-ih-WEE’-tahk) Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In 1973, following the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski to be the new Watergate special prosecutor, succeeding Archibald Cox.

In 1989, East Germany reopened its border with Czechoslovakia, prompting tens of thousands of refugees to flee to the West.

In 1991, Clarence Thomas took his place as the newest justice on the Supreme Court.

In 1995, Bosnia peace talks opened in Dayton, Ohio, with the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia present.

In 2003, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean stirred controversy within his party by telling the Des Moines (duh-MOYN’) Register he wanted to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” (The former Vermont governor explained that he intended to encourage the return of Southern voters who had abandoned the Democrats for decades but were disaffected with the Republicans.)

In 2015, the Kansas City Royals won their first World Series crown since 1985, beating the New York Mets 7-2 in Game 5, which lasted 12 innings, ending after midnight.