This Week in History

November 2

1889: North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states.

1898: The first incidence of cheerleading occurred at the University of Minnesota, when Johnny Campbell (age unknown) led the crowd in cheering on the football team.
2012: 46th Country Music Association Award: Blake Shelton & Miranda Lambert wins.

2014: Breeders’ Cup Horse Racing, Santa Anita Racetrack; Day 2 winners: Take Charge Brandi, Dayatthespa, Judy The Beauty, Bobby’s Kitten, Texas Red, Main Sequence, Work All Week, Karakontie, Bayern.

November 3

1900: The first national automobile show was held in New York.

1911: Chevrolet officially entered the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.

1914: New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob (1891-1970) received the first patent for a modern bra, which she called the “backless brassiere.”

1954: The first Godzilla movie was released in Japan.

1964: Residents of Washington D.C. were able to vote in a presidential election for the first time.

1969: President Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) coined the term “silent majority” in a national speech seeking widespread public support for the war in Vietnam.
1991: New York City Marathon: Salvador Garcia of Mexico men’s champion in 2:09:28; Liz McColgan of Scotland wins women’s title, 2:27.0
1992: Carol Moseley-Braun elected first African-American woman in US Senate, representing Illinois.

November 4

1783: Symphony No. 36 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was performed for the first time in Linz, Austria.

1833: Mary Todd (1818-1882) married Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) in Springfield, Ill.

1839: The last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain occurred at Newport, Wales.

1847: Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870), a British physician, discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform.

1861: The University of Washington enrolled students for the first time in Seattle at the Territorial University.

1960: Dr. Jane Goodall (born 1934) observed chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals, at the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania.

November 5

1499: The first French dictionary and the first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon, was published in Tréguier, Brittany, France. This Breton-French-Latin dictionary was written in 1464 by Jehan Lagadeuc (age unknown).

1831: Nat Turner (born 1800), leader of a slave rebellion that resulted in 60 white deaths, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia. (He was hanged six days later.)

1838: The Federal Republic of Central America began to disintegrate when Nicaragua separated from the Federation.

1895: George B. Selden (1846-1922) was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile, 16 years after filing the original patent application. The patent was for an engine powered by gasoline vapor in a four-wheeled vehicle.

1912: Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was elected president of the United States, with Thomas Riley Marshall (1854-1925) as vice president.

1940: President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) was re-elected to a third term in office. (He remains the only president to serve more than two terms.)

November 6

1528: Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1488-1558) became the first known European to set foot in Texas.

1789: Pope Pius VI (1717-1799) appointed Father John Carroll (1735-1815) as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

1865: CSS Shenandoah became the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on a cruise, during which it sank or captured 37 unarmed merchant vessels.
1962: The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning South Africa’s racist apartheid policies and called for all UN member nations to cease military and economic relations with the country.

November 7

1492: The oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, the Ensisheim meteorite, slammed into a wheat field around 12 noon near the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.

1910: The first air freight shipment occurred when the Wright Brothers flew a load of goods from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio, for department store owner Max Moorehouse (age unknown).

1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) was elected for a record fourth term as president of the United States of America.

November 8

1519: Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) entered the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlán, and Aztec ruler Montezuma (1466-1520) welcomed him with a great celebration. (Big mistake.)

1630: An immense flock of passenger pigeons darkened the skies over Boston.

1793: The Louvre opened in Paris.
1837: Mary Lyon (1797-1849) founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Mass. (It later became Mount Holyoke College.)

1864: Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was elected to a second term.

1889: Montana was admitted to the United States as the 41st state.

1895: German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923) became the 1965: The United Kingdom formally abolished the death penalty.
1972: HBO (Home Box Office) began broadcasting for the first time, with the 1971 movie Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman (1925-2008) and Henry Fonda (1905-1982).
1994: For the first time in 40 years, the Republican Party gained control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

ON THIS DAY… NOVEMBER 2 – NOVEMBER 8

November 2 – NATIONAL
DEVILED EGG DAY
Celebrate today with your
favorite recipe.

November 3 – JELLYFISH DAY
Let’s see a show of tentacles for all those who love jellyfish!

November 4 – NATIONAL CANDY DAY
We hope your sweet tooth is ready, because today is
National Candy Day.

November 5 – NATIONAL BISON DAY
Bison are especially revered by
Native people – central to their
survival as both food and spiritual inspiration.

November 6 – DAYLIGHT
SAVING DAY

This means not only will you get an extra hour of sleep, but it will also become darker earlier in the afternoon. 

November 7 – RECREATION DAY
This day is celebrated in northern Tasmania, Australia. 

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