This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

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November 8


1989:
Douglas Wilder elected governor.
On this day in 1989, Virginian Douglas Wilder became the first African American to win a U.S. gubernatorial election, and, after he left office when his term expired in 1994, he was elected mayor of Richmond in 2004.

1978:
American illustrator Norman Rockwell, best known for his covers of The Saturday Evening Post, died.

1960:
John F. Kennedy was narrowly elected president of the United States.

1956:
Comet Arend-Roland was discovered.

1932:
During the Great Depression, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt easily defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover to win the presidency of the United States.
1900: Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

1837:
One of the first institutions of higher education for women in the United States, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) opened in Massachusetts.

1656:
English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley, the first to calculate the orbit of Halley's Comet, was born in Greenwich, Kent, England.

1520:
The Danish king Christian II began mass executions of Swedish nobles in what became known as the Stockholm Bloodbath.

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November 7


2000:
Disputed U.S. presidential election.
On this day in 2000, the U.S. presidential election ended in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, only to be settled on December 12 by the U.S. Supreme Court after a bitter legal dispute.

1962:
Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt died in New York City at age 78.

1944:
Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Thomas E. Dewey and was elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president of the United States.

1940:
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge connecting the Olympic Peninsula with Tacoma, Washington, broke up in a wind of about 42 miles (67 km) per hour.

1837:
Abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his press building.

1811:
In the Battle of Tippecanoe, a seasoned U.S. expeditionary force under Major General William Henry Harrison defeated Shawnee Indians led by Tecumseh's brother Laulewasikau (Tenskwatawa), known as the Prophet.

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November 6


1860:
Abraham Lincoln elected president of the United States.
On this day in 1860, Americans elected as their president Abraham Lincoln, whose victory led to the secession of Southern states and the long and bloody Civil War that lasted until 1865 and ended slavery in the U.S.

1984:
U.S. President Ronald Reagan won reelection in a landslide victory over Democratic candidate Walter F. Mondale.

1917:
The second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 began (October 25, Old Style) as the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

1888:
Benjamin Harrison was elected U.S. president by an electoral majority despite losing the popular vote by more than 90,000 to his opponent, Grover Cleveland.

1887:
Professional baseball player Walter Johnson, who had perhaps the greatest fastball in the history of the game, was born in Humboldt, Kansas.

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November 5


1605:
Gunpowder Plot.
Celebrated with fireworks as Guy Fawkes Day, this English holiday marks the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, when Roman Catholics led by Robert Catesby tried to blow up Parliament, the king, and his family this day in 1605.

1998:
The journal Nature published a report that DNA testing had confirmed (still disputed by some) that Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings, as had long been alleged.

1940:
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term as president of the United States.

1930:
Social critic Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American to receive the honour.

1914:
France and Britain declared war on Turkey, widening the conflict of World War I.
1838: Honduras declared its absolute independence, seceding from the United Provinces of Central America.

1556:
Mughal power was restored in India following Bayram Khān's victory at the second Battle of Panipat.

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November 4


1995:
Yitzhak Rabin assassinated.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, corecipient with Shimon Peres and Yāsir ‘Arafāt of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994, was assassinated this day in 1995 by a Jewish extremist while attending a peace rally.

1980:
Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th president of the United States.

1979:
The hostage crisis in Iran began as the U.S. embassy in Tehrān was seized by Iranian militants in a move sanctioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

1922:
British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.

1791:
In what became known as St. Clair's Defeat, U.S. General Arthur St. Clair was beaten by the British-supported Northwest Indian Confederation.

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November 3


1998:
Another section of Great Wall of China discovered.
Announced on this day in 1998 was the discovery in the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia of a previously unknown 15.5-mile (25-km) segment of the Great Wall of China, which runs in toto about 4,500 miles (7,300 km).

1978:
Dominica achieved full independence, with Patrick Roland John as its first prime minister.

1957:
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, which carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit the Earth.

1916:
Playwright Eugene O'Neill made his New York City debut with the one-act play Bound East for Cardiff.

1903:
Influenced by Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla and U.S. interests, a revolutionary junta proclaimed Panamanian independence from Colombia.

1793:
Stephen Austin, founder of the principal settlements of English-speaking
people in Texas in the 1820s, when that territory was still part of Mexico, was born.

1295:
Mahmūd Ghāzān, the most prominent of the Il-Khans (a Mongol dynasty) to rule Iran, was formally enthroned.

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November 2


1976:
Jimmy Carter elected 39th U.S. president.
Jimmy Carter, former Democratic governor of Georgia and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, was elected 39th president of the United States this day in 1976, narrowly defeating Republican Gerald R. Ford.

2002:
In Norwegian-brokered peace negotiations held in Thailand, the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam agreed to set up a panel to discuss ways to share power.

1983:
U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill designating the third Monday in January a national holiday in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1963:
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a coup.

1950:
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw died at age 94.

1949:
The Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia signed the Hague Agreement, an attempt to end conflict over Indonesia's proclaimed independence.

1930:
Tafari Makonnen was crowned emperor of Ethiopia, taking the name Haile Selassie.

1917:
The British issued the Balfour Declaration, a statement of support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

1889:
North Dakota was admitted to the union as the 39th U.S. state and South Dakota as the 40th.

1755:
Marie-Antoinette, the queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774–93), was born.

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November 1


1952:
First thermonuclear bomb tested by the United States.
On this day in 1952 on an atoll of the Marshall Islands, Edward Teller and other American scientists tested the first thermonuclear bomb, its power resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1994:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched its Wind spacecraft on a mission that would include a “halo orbit” between the Sun and Earth to explore the space environment there.

1981:
Antigua and Barbuda achieved independence from the United Kingdom, with Vere Bird serving as the first prime minister.

1950:
Puerto Rican nationalists, members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

1922:
The Grand National Assembly, at the behest of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), voted to abolish the sultanate of Turkey.

1765:
The Stamp Act went into effect, marking the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation of all colonial commercial and legal papers.

1755:
Lisbon was heavily damaged by an earthquake that demolished more than 9,000 buildings and killed as many as 30,000 people.

996:
Holy Roman Emperor Otto III granted the Bavarian bishopric of Freising 30 “royal hides,” or about 8 square km (2,000 acres), of land in a deed that contained the first recorded use of the name Ostarr頲hi, from which the name Austria is derived.

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October 31


1517:
Luther's Ninety-five Theses posted.
According to tradition, Martin Luther this day in 1517 posted on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, his Ninety-five Theses, a manifesto that turned a protest about an indulgence scandal into the Protestant Reformation.


Today:
Although Halloween, celebrated this day, is now observed largely as a secular holiday, it is, as the eve of All Saints' Day, also a religious holiday among some Christians.

1968:
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an end to American bombing in North Vietnam.

1926:
Harry Houdini, the magician and escape artist, died of peritonitis stemming from a stomach injury.

1887:
Soldier and statesman Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949 and subsequently head of the Chinese Nationalist government-in-exile on Taiwan, was born.

1864:
Nevada became the 36th state of the United States.

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October 30


1485:
Henry Tudor crowned king of England.
Henry Tudor, who was crowned Henry VII on this day in 1485, founded the Tudor dynasty, ended the Wars of the Roses, used his children's marriages to build alliances, and signed treaties that increased England's power.

1974:
Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle,” regaining the world heavyweight boxing title.

1938:
Orson Welles's radio dramatization of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds caused a national panic as thousands of listeners feared a genuine invasion from Mars.

1905:
Emperor Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, bringing the end of unlimited autocracy in Russia and ushering in an era of constitutional monarchy.

1895:
German bacteriologist and pathologist Gerhard Domagk, recipient of the 1939 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery (announced in 1932) of the antibacterial effects of Prontosil, was born.

1340:
An allied force of Castilian and Portuguese Christians defeated the Muslim Marīnids of North Africa at the Battle of Río Salado.

130:
The Roman emperor Hadrian officially founded the city of Antino鰌olis in ancient Egypt.

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October 29


1929:
Collapse of U.S. stock market prices.
Just five days after nearly 13 million shares of U.S. stock were sold in one day in 1929, an additional 16 million shares were sold this day, called “Black Tuesday,” further fueling the crisis known as the Great Depression.

1995:
Terry Southern, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter for Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider, died in New York City.

1956:
Israel's army attacked Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula in a fight for control of the Suez Canal area.

1950:
King Gustav V of Sweden, a strong proponent of Swedish neutrality during World War II, died in Stockholm.

1901:
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz was executed for the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley.

1897:
Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich under Adolf Hitler, was born.

1709:
The community of Cistercian nuns at Port-Royal des Champs, an abbey in France, was dispersed and exiled to other convents because of their involvement with Jansenism.

1618:
British adventurer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for treason.

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October 28


1886:
Statue of Liberty dedicated.
The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States on the occasion of America's 100th anniversary in 1876, was officially dedicated this day in 1886 by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

1971:
Great Britain launched Prospero, the first of four X-3 satellites.

1965:
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, designed by Finnish-born American architect Eero Saarinen to commemorate St. Louis's historic role as “Gateway to the West,” was completed.

1962:
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev capitulated to U.S. demands to halt delivery of nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba, bringing an end to the Cuban missile crisis.

1919:
The U.S. Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto and passed the Volstead Act, providing enforcement guidelines for Prohibition.

1918:
Tomáš Masaryk, Edvard Beneš, and other leaders issued a proclamation announcing the formation of an independent Czechoslovakian state.

1914:
American physician and medical researcher Jonas Edward Salk, who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for polio, was born.

1790:
Spain, yielding to British demands, signed the convention that resolved the Nootka Sound controversy.

1636:
Harvard University, the oldest institute of higher learning in the United States, was founded by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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October 27


1978:
Anwar el-Sādāt and Menachem Begin awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
On this day in 1978, Anwar el-Sādāt of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for negotiations that resulted first in the Camp David Accords, then in a peace treaty between their countries.

2000:
At a concert near Tel Aviv, the music of German composer Richard Wagner, which many associate with the Nazi regime, was played for the first time in public in Israel.
1979: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, an island nation lying within the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, achieved its independence.

1968:
Physicist Lise Meitner, whose research (along with that of Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann) led to the discovery of nuclear fission, died in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.

1961:
The first Saturn rocket was successfully launched, and years later the Saturn V was the launch vehicle used in the Apollo moon-landing flights.

1795:
Pinckney's Treaty, an agreement between the United States and Spain, was signed, giving the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River.

1492:
Christopher Columbus sailed to Cuba and claimed the island for Spain.

939:
Athelstan, the first king to rule over all of England, died.

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October 26


1979:
Park Chung Hee assassinated.
On this day in 1979, South Korean President Park Chung Hee was assassinated by his lifelong friend Kim Jae Kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, who was sentenced to death for his actions.

1958:
America's first jet airliner, the Boeing 707, entered service for Pan American World Airways.

1955:
A constitutional law of perpetual neutrality in Austria was promulgated.

1918:
Prussian General Erich Ludendorff was forced to resign by Emperor William II on Prince Maximilian's advice, in an effort to establish an armistice agreement.

1916:
Fran鏾is Mitterrand, who served two terms (1981–95) as president of France and was the country's first socialist to hold the office, was born.

1905:
The St. Petersburg soviet (workers' council) was formed during the Russian Revolution of 1905.

1813:
British and U.S. troops clashed in the Battle of Ch鈚eauguay during the War of 1812.

1795:
The National Convention, the assembly that governed France during a pivotal period of the Revolution, was dispersed.

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October 25


1529:
Cardinal Wolsey dismissed by Henry VIII.
Henry VIII of England dismissed Thomas Cardinal Wolsey on this day in 1529 for his failure to legitimize Henry's affair with Anne Boleyn and one day later designated Sir Thomas More as lord chancellor in his place.

1983:
The U.S. military, under President Ronald Reagan, invaded the tiny island country of Grenada.

1950:
China entered the Korean War on the side of North Korea against the United States and South Korea.

1936:
Germany and Italy established the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1415:
The English, led by Henry V, scored a decisive victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt in the Hundred Years' War.

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October 24


1945:
United Nations established.
The charter for the United Nations—the world's premier international organization, established at the end of World War II to maintain world peace and friendly relations among nations—entered into force this day in 1945.

1970:
Salvador Allende's election as the first Marxist president of Chile was confirmed.

1940:
The 40-hour workweek went into effect under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

1929:
A record 12,894,650 shares of stock were traded, causing the first day of real panic in the Crash of 1929, known as “Black Thursday.”
1922: Benito Mussolini summoned a “March on Rome” and subsequently became dictator of Italy.

1917:
More than 600,000 Italians surrendered or retreated at the Battle of Caporetto during World War I.

1861:
The first transcontinental telegram was sent via the telegraph in the United States, effectively bringing to an end the Pony Express.

1648:
The Peace of Westphalia ended the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch and the German phase of the Thirty Years' War.

1632:
Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who became the first to observe bacteria and protozoans, was born.

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October 23


1983:
U.S. Marines attacked in Beirut.
On this day in 1983, a terrorist bent on suicide drove a truckload of high explosives through a series of barricades and into the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters at the Beirut airport in Lebanon, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.

1956:
The Hungarian Revolution began with a massive demonstration in Budapest.

1956:
The International Atomic Energy Agency was created with the purpose of increasing the contribution of atomic energy to world peace.

1944:
During World War II, U.S. forces under the leadership of Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., commenced a decisive air and sea battle against the Japanese on the central Philippine island of Leyte.

1942:
The British, led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, launched a successful infantry attack against the Germans at El-Alamein, Egypt, during World War II.

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October 22


1962:
Cuban missile crisis.
On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy alerted Americans to the Cuban missile crisis, declaring a naval blockade to prevent further missile shipments to the island country 90 miles (145 km) off the coast of the U.S.

2001:
Two postal workers in Washington, D.C., died of pulmonary anthrax, two others were hospitalized with the disease, and a fifth, who worked at a different facility from the previous four, was diagnosed with pulmonary anthrax on October 25. It was believed that the victims contracted the disease from letters laced with the poisonous substance, an unexplained act of terrorism.

1934:
Infamous criminal Charles (“Pretty Boy”) Floyd was fatally shot in a field near East Liverpool, Ohio, by FBI agents.

1836:
Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

1797:
André-Jacques Garnerin, an inspector in the French army who encouraged the use of balloons for military purposes, made a balloon ascent in order to give his first exhibition of parachuting, when he jumped from a height of about 3,200 feet (1,000 metres).

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October 21


1520:
Magellan's discovery of gateway to circumnavigating the globe.
On this day in 1520, explorer Ferdinand Magellan and three Spanish ships entered the strait later named for him, sailing between the mainland tip of South America and the island of Tierra del Fuego toward the Pacific Ocean.

1960:
John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon debated for the fourth and final time before the 1960 U.S. presidential election.

1959:
The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.

1907:
Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow opened in New York City.

1805:
A fleet of 33 ships (18 French and 15 Spanish) under Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve fought and was defeated by a British fleet of 27 ships under Admiral Horatio Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar (combat was waged west of Cape Trafalgar, Spain).

1797:
One of the first frigates built for the U.S. Navy, the Constitution (byname Old Ironsides), was launched in Boston.

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October 20


1973: Opening of Sydney Opera House.

Australia's Sydney Opera House—designed by Danish architect J鴕n Utzon, whose dynamic, imaginative, but problematic plan won an international competition in 1957—was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on this day in 1973.

2002:
Blue Stream, the deepest underwater pipeline in the world, opened in Turkey and was put in use for the transport of natural gas.

1973:
During the ongoing Watergate investigation, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, prompting the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus in what has been called the “Saturday Night Massacre” of Justice Department officials.

1968:
Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

1964:
Former U.S. president Herbert Hoover died in New York City.

1921: France and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey signed the Treaty of Ankara.

1822:
The Congress of Verona, the last of the meetings held by the European powers in accordance with the terms of the Quadruple Alliance, opened in Verona, Italy.

1803:
The U.S. Senate, after due consideration and considerable oratory, ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1740:
Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI died, setting off the War of the Austrian Succession.

1600:
The Battle of Sekigahara established the hegemony of the Tokugawa family in Japan.