Howard Hughes in Cockpit of Spruce Goose

1947

Howard Hughes’s “Spruce Goose” flies

Born on This Day

Richard Serra

Richard Serra

1938 - 2024

American artist who made his mark with his striking abstract steel sculptures on a monumental scale.

Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster

1913 - 1994

American actor who played tough-but-sensitive heroes in '50s classics like "From Here to Eternity" and "Sweet Smell of Success."

Portrait Of KD Lang

k.d. lang

1961 -

Canadian singer-songwriter best known for her androgynous "cowpunk" look and pure vocals on country-pop songs like "Crying."

Richard Serra

Getty Images

Burt Lancaster

Getty Images

k.d. lang

Getty Images

1898

NOV

2

University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell jumps a fence and runs onto the football field to fire up fans with a cheer, sparking organized cheerleading in the US Women stepped in when mostly male "yell leaders" went off to World War II.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on November 2nd

1795

James Polk is born

On November 2, 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 before entering politics. Polk’s father, […]

2:32m read read

1865

Warren G. Harding is born

On November 2, 1865, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the future 29th American president, is born in Corsica, Ohio. In 1891, Harding married 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 editor of the Marion Star newspaper, entered politics. In […]

2:26m read read

1917

Balfour Declaration letter written

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 from its concerns regarding […]

1:04m read read

1948

Truman defeats Dewey

In one of the greatest upsets 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 before all the […]

1:32m read read

1960

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” obscenity trial ends

On November 2, 1960, a landmark obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, ends in the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had been sued for obscenity in publishing an unexpurgated version of Lawrence’s novel, which deals with the affair between the wife of a wealthy, paralyzed landowner and his estate’s gamekeeper. The […]

1:18m read read

1963

Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated in South Vietnam

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 the nation. The United States subsequently […]

1983

MLK federal holiday declared

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 in theology and in […]

1986

Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City Marathon

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 and she won the NYC marathon […]

2:40m read read

Marathon winner Grete Waitz, NY City Marathon 1986.

1989

A nurse’s aide gets life imprisonment for murder

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 moved to Michigan in […]

1:36m read read

2000

First residential crew arrives aboard the International Space Station

On November 2, 2000, the first residential crew arrives aboard the International Space Station. The arrival of Expedition 1 marked the beginning of a new era of international cooperation in space and of the longest continuous human habitation in low Earth orbit, which continues to this day. The space agencies of the United States, Russia, […]

1:52m read read

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