Today in History

Today’s highlight:

On Nov. 7, 1972, President Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

On this date:

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln replaced replace Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac with Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside.

In 1912, black boxing champion Jack Johnson was indicted in Chicago for allegedly violating the Mann Act with a white woman, Belle Schreiber. (Johnson was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison; he fled the U.S., later returning to serve his term. The Mann Act was also known as the White Slave Traffic Act, but was used in all types of cases.)

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

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

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

In 1966, John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at the Indica Gallery in London.

In 1967, Carl Stokes was elected the first black mayor of a major city — Cleveland, Ohio.

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 1991, basketball star Magic Johnson announced that he had tested positive for HIV, and was retiring. (Despite his HIV status, Johnson has been able to sustain himself with medication.)

In 2001, the Bush administration targeted Osama bin Laden’s multi-million-dollar financial networks, closing businesses in four states, detaining U.S. suspects and urging allies to help choke off money supplies in 40 nations.

In 2005, President George W. Bush, in Panama, defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful, saying, “We do not torture.”

In 2013, shares of Twitter went on sale to the public for the first time; by the closing bell, the social network was valued at $31 billion.

Ten years ago: The Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed, 220-215, landmark health care legislation to expand coverage to tens of millions lacking it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry. David Haye won the WBA heavyweight title with a majority decision over Nikolai Valuev in Nuremberg, Germany.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama authorized a broad expansion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq that called for boosting the total number of American troops there to about 3,100.

One year ago: A gunman killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., before apparently taking his own life as officers closed in; the victims included a man who had survived the mass shooting at a country music concert in Las Vegas. After more than a year of blistering attacks from President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out of that post. The White House suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and Trump had a heated confrontation during a news conference. (A federal judge later ordered the administration to immediately return Acosta’s press credentials; the White House dropped its effort to bar Acosta but warned he could have his credentials pulled again.) Eighty-five-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fractured three ribs in a fall in her office.

Today’s Birthdays: Former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn., is 89. Actor Barry Newman is 81. Actor Dakin Matthews is 79. Singer Johnny Rivers is 77. Former supermodel Jean Shrimpton is 77. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 76. Former CIA Director David Petraeus is 67. Jazz singer Rene Marie is 64. Actor Christopher Knight (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 62. Rock musician Tommy Thayer (KISS) is 59. Actress Julie Pinson is 52. Rock musician Greg Tribbett (Mudvayne) is 51. Actress Michelle Clunie is 50. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is 49. Actor Christopher Daniel Barnes is 47. Actors Jeremy and Jason London are 47. Actress Yunjin Kim is 46. Actor Adam DeVine is 36. Rock musician Zach Myers (Shinedown) is 36. Actor Lucas Neff is 34. Rapper Tinie Tempah is 31. Rock singer Lorde is 23.

Thought for Today: “All forms of totalitarianism try to avoid the strange, the problematic, the critical, the rational. To do so, they must deny the metropolitan spirit, equalize everything in city and country, and retain a center which is not the center of anything because everything else is swallowed up by it.” — Paul Tillich, American theologian (1886-1965).

The Associated Press