Today in History

Published 10:22 pm Friday, November 6, 2009

Today is Saturday, Nov. 7, the 311th day of 2009. There are 54 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On Nov. 7, 1917, Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

ON THIS DATE

In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly.

In 1893, the state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote.

In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.

In 1940, in Washington state, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie,” collapsed during a windstorm.

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1962, Richard Nixon, having lost California’s gubernatorial race, held what he called his “last press conference,” saying, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

In 1973, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive’s power to wage war without congressional approval.

In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder won the governor’s race in Virginia, becoming the first elected black governor in U.S. history; David N. Dinkins was elected New York City’s first black mayor.

Associated Press