On Nov. 2, 1783, General George Washington issued his Farewell Address to the Army near Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1889, North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states with the signing of proclamations by President Benjamin Harrison.

In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued a declaration expressing support for a “national home” for the Jews in Palestine.

In 1920, white mobs rampaged through the Florida citrus town of Ocoee, setting fire to Black-owned homes and businesses, after a Black man, Mose Norman, showed up at the polls to vote on Election Day; some historians estimate as many as 60 people were killed.

In 1947, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden flying boat, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (derisively dubbed the “Spruce Goose” by detractors), on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California.

In 1963, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem (noh ding ZEE’-em) was assassinated in a military coup.

In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became the first candidate from the Deep South since the Civil War to be elected president as he defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford.

In 1994, a jury in Pensacola, Florida, convicted Paul Hill of murder for the shotgun slayings of an abortion provider and his escort; Hill was executed in September 2003.

In 2000, American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko (gihd-ZEENG’-koh) and Sergei Krikalev (SUR’-gay KREE’-kuh-lev), became the first residents of the international space station.

In 2003, in Iraq, insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying dozens of U.S. soldiers, killing 16. In Durham, New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.

In 2004, President George W. Bush was elected to a second term as Republicans strengthened their grip on Congress. Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was slain in Amsterdam after receiving death threats over his movie “Submission,” which criticized the treatment of women under Islam.

In 2007, British college student Meredith Kercher, 21, was found slain in her bedroom in Perugia, Italy; her roommate, American Amanda Knox and Knox’s Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito (rah-fy-EHL’-ay soh-LEH’-chee-toh), were convicted of killing Kercher, but both were later exonerated. (Rudy Guede (GAY’-day), a petty criminal who was convicted separately in the case, is serving a 16-year sentence.)

In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, picking up 63 seats in midterm elections, while Democrats retained a majority in the Senate; Republican governors outnumbered Democrats after gaining six states. Californians rejected a ballot measure that would have made their state the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use.