Also on this day
Lead Story
1994
On this day in 1994, George Foreman, age 45, becomes boxing’s oldest heavyweight champion when he defeats 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas. More than 12,000 spectators at the MGM Grand Hotel watched Foreman dethrone Moorer, who went into the fight with...
American Revolution
1775
On this day in 1775, Continental Army commander in chief General George Washington condemns his troops’ planned celebration of the British anti-Catholic holiday, Guy Fawkes Night, as he was simultaneously struggling to win French-Canadian Catholics to the Patriot cause.
In his general orders for the day, Washington criticized “that ridiculous and...
Automotive
1895
On November 5, 1895, Rochester attorney George Selden wins U.S. Patent No. 549,160 for an “improved road engine” powered by a “liquid-hydrocarbon engine of the compression type.” With that, as far as the government was concerned, George Selden had invented the car–though he had never built a single one.
Selden’s design...
Civil War
1862
On this day in 1862,a tortured relationship ends when President Abraham Lincoln removes General George B. McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan ably built the army in the early stages of the war but was a sluggish and paranoid field commander who seemed unable to muster...
Cold War
1968
Winning one of the closest elections in U.S. history, Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Because of the strong showing of third-party candidate George Wallace, neither Nixon nor Humphrey received more than 50 percent of the popular vote; Nixon beat Humphrey by less than 500,000 votes....
Crime
2009
On this day in 2009, 13 people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central Texas. The deadly assault, carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army...
Disaster
1991
On this day in 1991, Tropical Storm Thelma causes severe and massive floods in the Philippines, killing nearly 3,000 people. It is the second major disaster of the year for the island nation, as it comes on the heels of the violent June 12 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
The storm dubbed...
General Interest
1556
Fifty miles north of Delhi, a Mughal army defeats the forces of Hemu, a Hindu general who was trying to usurp the Mughal throne from 14-year-old Akbar, the recently proclaimed emperor. The Mughals, whose culture blended Perso-Islamic and regional Indian elements, established an empire in the north of India in...
1605
Early in the morning, King James I of England learns that a plot to explode the Parliament building has been foiled, hours before he was scheduled to sit with the rest of the British government in a general parliamentary session.At about midnight on the night of November 4-5, Sir Thomas...
1912
Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th president of the United States, with Thomas R. Marshall as vice president. In a landslide Democratic victory, Wilson won 435 electoral votes against the eight won by Republican incumbent William Howard Taft and the 88 won by Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. The...
1930
Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters.” Lewis, born in Sauk Center, Minnesota, was the first American to win the distinguished award. Lewis established his literary...
1990
Meir Kahane, an American-born rabbi and founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead in New York City. Egyptian El Sayyid Nosair was later charged with the murder but acquitted in a state trial. The federal government later decided that the killing was part of a larger terrorist conspiracy...
Hollywood
2007
On this day in 2007, members of the Writers Guild of America, East, and Writers Guild of America, West—labor organizations representing television, film and radio writers—go on strike in Los Angeles and New York after negotiations break down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a trade...
Literary
1893
On this day, columns by the 20-year-old Willa Cather begin appearing in the Nebraska State Journal.
Cather was the first of seven children born to an old Virginia family dating back to colonial times. Her maternal grandfather served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates. Her grandmother was a strong,...
Music
1938
The American composer Samuel Barber (born in 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania) was only 27 years old when he wrote the piece of music that would come to define his entire career. He would live to be 70, and he would win two Pulitzer Prizes for works composed during his...
Old West
1862
On this day in Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of raping and murdering Anglo settlers and are sentenced to hang. A month later, President Abraham Lincoln commuted all but 39 of the death sentences. One of the Indians was granted a last-minute reprieve, but...
Presidential
1977
On this day in 1977, 31-year-old future President George W. Bush marries 33-year-old Laura Welch at the First United Methodist Church in her hometown of Midland, Texas.
Bush was the son of George H.W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. Both father and son worked in the oil business...
Vietnam War
1968
Eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president.
Two years after losing to Kennedy, Nixon ran for governor of California and lost in a bitter campaign against Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown. Most political observers believed...
1970
U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam reports the lowest weekly death toll in five years. Twenty-four Americans died in combat during the last week of October, the fifth consecutive week that the U.S. death toll was under 50. Although the numbers of American dead were down, 431 were wounded during the...
World War I
1914
On November 5, 1914, the men of Indian Expeditionary Force B (IEF B) evacuate the seaside town of Tanga in German East Africa after failing in their amphibious invasion of the region on behalf of the British navy in World War I.
As soon as the war broke out on the...
World War II
1940
On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of the United States.
Roosevelt was elected to a third term with the promise of maintaining American neutrality as far as foreign wars were concerned: “Let no man or woman thoughtlessly or falsely talk...