A Focus on History: October 31 through November 6

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October 31

The priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment, called indulgences, for the forgiveness of sins. – 1517.

After 14 years of labor by 400 stone masons, the Mt. Rushmore sculpture is completed in Keystone, S. D.. Between October 4, 1927, and October 31, 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpt the colossal 60-foot carvings of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to represent the first 150 years of American history. – 1941.

November 1

New York City, N.Y., subway operators go on strike and an inexperienced replacement motorman crashes a five-car train and kills approximately 93 and injures 255. – 1918.

Two persons attempt to assassinate U.S. president Harry S Truman at his residence, the Blair House, in Washington, D.C.. Truman escaped unscathed. – 1950.

The United States detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. This new weapon was approximately 1,000 times more powerful than conventional nuclear devices. – 1952.

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.

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.

A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days earlier in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on this day. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. – 1956.

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.

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