Oct. 31
1864: President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation making Nevada the 36th state.
1961: The body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.
Nov. 1
1938: In a two-horse match race, Seabiscuit defeated the favored Triple Crown winner War Admiral by four lengths in what was dubbed the “Race of the Century” at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore.
1765: The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament, went into effect, prompting stiff resistance from American colonists.
1950: Two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman.
Nov. 2
1783: Gen. George Washington issued his Farewell Address to the Army.
1947: Howard Hughes piloted his Hughes H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the “Spruce Goose,” a massive wooden seaplane with a wingspan longer than a football field. It remained airborne for 26 seconds.
1959: Charles Van Doren testified to a Congressional committee that he had conspired with television producers to cheat on the television quiz show “Twenty-One.”
Nov. 3
1839: The first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.
1911: The Chevrolet Motor Car Co. was founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant.
1979: Five Communist Workers Party members were killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro.
1986: The Iran-Contra affair came to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.
1992: Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States.
Nov. 4
1879: Humorist Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Oklahoma.
1922: The entrance to King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered in Egypt.
1995: Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, was assassinated.
1979: The Iran hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran.
1980: Republican Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States.
1985: Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko announced he was returning to the Soviet Union, charging he had been kidnapped by the CIA.
2008: Democrat Barack Obama was elected the first black president of the United States.
Nov. 5
1605: The “Gunpowder Plot” failed as Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament.
1872: Suffragist Susan B. Anthony defied the law by attempting to cast a vote for President Ulysses S. Grant.
1912: Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected president.
1940: President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office.
1964: NASA launched Mariner 3, which was supposed to fly by Mars, but the spacecraft failed to reach its destination.
1968: Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency.
2006: Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for crimes against humanity.
Nov. 6
1860: Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party was elected president of the United States.
1861: James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was born.
1984: President Ronald Reagan won reelection in a landslide.