November 2
The Hughes Flying Boat, known as the Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever built, is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle. – 1947.
In the greatest upset in presidential election history, Democratic incumbent Harry S Truman defeats his Republican challenger, governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, by two million popular votes. Long before all the votes were counted, The Chicago Tribune published an early edition with the banner headline “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.” – 1948.
A Russian Army fuel truck explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan and kills an estimated 3,000 persons, mostly Soviet soldiers traveling to Kabul. – 1982
U.S. president Ronald Reagan signs a bill designating a federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., to be observed on the third Monday of January. – 1983.
November 3
The Soviet Union launches the first animal into space, a dog name Laika, aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft. – 1957.
The Lebanese magazine Ash Shiraa reports that the United States has been secretly selling arms to Iran in an effort to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. The revelation, confirmed by U.S. intelligence sources November 6, came as a shock to officials outside president Ronald Reagan’s inner circle and violated the U.S. arms embargo against Iran and president Reagan’s vow never to negotiate with terrorists. -1986.
November 4
British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discover a step leading to the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. – 1922.
U.S. senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeats U.S. senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first half-African American elected to the White House. – 2008.
November 5
More than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of raping and murdering Anglo settlers and are sentenced to hang. All but 38 were granted a reprieve, and the 38 were hanged simultaneously December 26 in a bizarre mass execution witnessed by a large crowd of approving Minnesotans. – 1862.
November 6
Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd, now St. Petersburg. Within two days the Bolsheviks formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Bolshevik Russia, later renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was the world’s first Marxist state. – 1917.
November 7
U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term in office. FDR remains the only president to have served more than two terms. – 1944.
November 8
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt announces plans for the Civil Works Administration to create four million additional jobs for the Great Depression-era unemployed. The workers ultimately laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or made substantial improvements to 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, nearly 1,000 airports, and 250,000 outhouses still badly needed in rural America. – 1933.