Also on this day
Lead Story
1947
The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.
Howard Hughes was...
American Revolution
1777
On this day in 1777, the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was...
Automotive
1902
Engineer Andrew Riker delivers the first four-cylinder, gas-powered Locomobile—a $4,000, 12-horsepower Model C—to a buyer in New York City on this day in 1902. The Locomobile Company had been known for building heavy, powerful steam cars, but by the turn of the century it was clear that the future of...
Civil War
1861
On this day in 1861, controversial Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command in the Western Department and replaced by David Hunter.Fremont was one of the most prominent Union generals at the start of the war. Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, he joined the military...
Cold War
1963
Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in...
Crime
1989
Gwendolyn Graham is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for killing five elderly female residents of the Alpine Manor Nursing Home near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both Graham and her criminal and romantic partner, Catherine Wood, had been employed as nurses’ aides at the home.
A Texas native, Graham...
Disaster
1982
On this day in 1982, a truck explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing an estimated 3,000 people, mostly Soviet soldiers traveling to Kabul.
The Soviet Union’s military foray into Afghanistan was disastrous by nearly every measure, but perhaps the worst single incident was the Salang Tunnel explosion in 1982....
General Interest
1917
British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submits a declaration of intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The British government hoped that the formal declaration would help garner Jewish support for the Allied effort in World War I. The Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine,...
1948
In the greatest upset in presidential election history, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats his Republican challenger, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, by just over two million popular votes. In the days preceding the vote, political analysts and polls were so behind Dewey that on election night, long...
1983
President Ronald Reagan signs a bill in the White House Rose Garden designating a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., to be observed on the third Monday of January.Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree...
Literary
1960
On this day in 1960, a landmark obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, ends in the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had...
Music
1985
Almost from its beginnings, television showed a remarkable ability to influence the pop charts, and not only by giving exposure to popular musical artists on programs like American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show. Many television programs also launched legitimate pop hits in the form of their theme songs—songs like...
Old West
1912
On this day, the XIT Ranch of Texas, once among the largest ranches in the world, sells its last head of cattle.
Despite the popular image of the cattle rancher as an independent and self-reliant pioneer, big-city capitalists and stockholders owned many of the most important 19th century ranches. The Chicago...
Presidential
1795
On this day in 1795, James Knox Polk is born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
Polk grew up on his father’s plantation in Tennessee and attended the University of North Carolina, from which he graduated with honors in 1818. Like many presidents before and after him, he worked as a lawyer...
1865
On this day in 1865, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the future 29th American president, is born in Corsica, Ohio.
In 1891, Harding married a spunky divorcee named Florence Mabel Kling De Wolfe. Florence was influential throughout Harding’s political career and it was at her urging that Harding, who was working as an...
Sports
1986
On November 2, 1986, Norwegian distance runner Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City marathon. She finished the 26-mile, 385-yard course in 2:28.6, more than a mile ahead of the second- and third-place women in the race. Waitz had won her first marathon in New York in 1978—setting a...
Vietnam War
1963
President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu are murdered during a coup by dissident generals of the South Vietnamese army.
In the early afternoon hours of November 1, the dissidents seized key military installations and communications systems in Saigon, secured the surrender of Nhu’s Special Forces, and demanded...
1967
President Johnson holds a secret meeting with some of the nation’s most prestigious leaders, who were collectively called “the Wise Men.” This group included former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, General of the Army Omar Bradley, Ambassador-at-Large Averell Harriman, and former Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge.
Johnson asked...
World War I
1917
On November 2, 1917, Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour writes an important letter to Britain’s most illustrious Jewish citizen, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, expressing the British government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The letter would eventually become known as the Balfour Declaration.
Britain’s support for the Zionist movement came...
World War II
1942
On this day in 1942, General Montgomery breaks through Rommel’s defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing a retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa.
In July 1942, having already taken Tobruk, Gen. Erwin Rommel and his mixed German-Italian forces attempted to push...