On This Day in History
Today is Wednesday, Nov. 6, the 311th day of 2024 with 55 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, in 1814; Charles Henry Dow, co-founder of Dow Jones and Co./first editor of The Wall Street Journal, in 1851; musician John Philip Sousa in 1854; James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball, in 1861; Baseball Hall of Fame member Walter Johnson in 1887; writer Harold Ross in 1892; actor June Squibb in 1929 (age 95); filmmaker Mike Nichols in 1931; actor Sally Field in 1946 (age 78); musician Glenn Frey (Eagles/Longbranch/Pennywhistle) in 1948; TV journalist/former California first lady Maria Shriver in 1955 (age 69); actor Lori Singer in 1957 (age 67); actor Lance Kerwin in 1960; musician Paul Brindley (Sundays) in 1963 (age 61); musician/actor Corey Glover (Living Colour) in 1964 (age 60); actor Kelly Rutherford in 1968 (age 56); writer Colson Whitehead in 1969 (age 55); actor Ethan Hawke in 1970 (age 54); celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson in 1970 (age 54); actor Thandiwe Newton in 1972 (age 52); actor Rebecca Romijn in 1972 (age 52); Pat Tillman, pro football player turned soldier, in 1976; actor Taryn Manning in 1978 (age 46); former NBA player Lamar Odom in 1979 (age 45); actor/musician Patina Miller in 1984 (age 40); actor Katie Leclerc in 1986 (age 38); actor Emma Stone in 1988 (age 36); actor Pierson Fode in 1991 (33); actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin in 1997 (age 27).
On this date in history:
In 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.
In 1869, in the first formal intercollegiate football game, Rutgers beat Princeton, 6-4.
In 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected 31st president of the United States, defeating Democrat Al Smith.
In 1956, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected by a wide margin.
In 1965, a formal agreement between the United States and Cuba allows Cubans who wanted to leave the island nation for America to do so. More than 250,000 Cubans had taken advantage of this opportunity by 1971.
In 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term, winning 49 states .
In 1985, members of the 19th of April Movement took over the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia. The leftist guerrillas would kill more than 100 people (11 of whom where Supreme Court Justices) by the time the siege ended.
In 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree banning the Communist Party, nationalizing its property and condemning its activities.
In 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney to win a second term . Federal finance reports showed campaign expenditures broke the $2 billion mark, making the election the most expensive in U.S. history.
In 2013, Avigdor Lieberman, who had resigned as Israel's foreign minister because of an investigation of alleged corruption, was acquitted and said: "This chapter is behind me. I am now focusing on the challenges ahead." Lieberman became foreign minister again five days later.
In 2019, the U.S. midterm elections saw a number of milestones and first - Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., were the first Muslim women elected to the House; Sharice Davids, D-Kan., and Debra Haaland, D-N.M., were the first Native American women elected to the House; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was the youngest person elected to the House in nearly three decades; and Jared Polis became the country's first openly gay male governor in Colorado. Democrats also took back control of the House, while Republicans held onto the Senate.
In 2021, a fire in a hospital in Ahmednagar, India, killed 10 people in its COVID-19 intensive care unit.
A thought for the day: "The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'all men' exclude a vast number of citizens." - American author Colson Whitehead
