FDR wins unprecedented fourth term

On November 7, 1861, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, but are forced to flee when additional Confederate troops arrive. Although Grant claimed victory, the Union gained no ground and left the Confederates in firm control of that section of the Mississippi River. This engagement […]

While World War I rages in Europe, the first issue of a new magazine, The New Republic, is published in the United States. The New Republic’s editorial board was presided over by the journalist Herbert Croly, author of the influential 1909 book The Promise of American Life. Impressed by Croly’s arguments for greater economic planning, […]

On November 7, 1932, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in the matter of Powell v. Alabama. The case arose out of the infamous Scottsboro case. Nine young Black men were arrested and accused of raping two white women on train in Alabama. The boys were fortunate to barely have escaped a lynch mob […]

On November 7, 1943, Roberta Joan Anderson—later known to the world as Joni Mitchell—is born in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada. Performing solo with her acoustic guitar and long, straight, blond hair, Mitchell may have looked every bit the folk artist. But the groundbreaking singer-songwriter can better be described by Duke Ellington’s famous superlative: “beyond category.” […]

On November 7, 1966, British rock sensations The Beatles walk into London’s Indica Gallery, where avant-garde Japanese artist Yoko Ono is preparing for the opening of her solo exhibit. Singer and guitarist John Lennon and Ono meet when he asks her about Ono’s intriguing art piece— a ladder topped by a magnifying glass that revealed […]

On November 7, 1980, the actor Steve McQueen, one of Hollywood’s leading men of the 1960s and 1970s and the star of such action thrillers as Bullitt and The Great Escape, dies at the age of 50 in Mexico, where he was undergoing an experimental treatment for cancer. In 1979, McQueen had been diagnosed with […]

On November 7, 1991, basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson stuns the world by announcing his sudden retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers, after testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, many Americans viewed AIDS as solely a gay white man’s disease. Johnson, who is Black and identifies as heterosexual, was […]

On November 7, 2000, Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to represent New York in the U.S. Senate, becoming the first First Lady to win elected office. Clinton’s résumé was unique among First Ladies and among senators. After meeting her husband, Bill, at Yale Law School, she spent her early career as an advocate for children’s […]