TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 3
644 Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is killed by a Persian slave in Medina
1493 Christopher Columbus arrives at the Caribbee Isles (Dominica) during his second expedition.
1507 Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini (“Mona Lisa”).
1534 English parliament accepts Act of Supremacy: Henry VIII becomes Head of Church of England
1631 The Reverend John Eliot arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the first Protestant minister to dedicate himself to the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity.
1794 Thomas Paine is released from a Parisian jail with help from the American ambassador James Monroe. He was arrested for having offended the Robespierre faction.
1796 John Adams was elected the 2nd U.S. President.
1839 The first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.
1868 Ulysses S. Grant elected the 18th president of the United States.
1868 John Willis Menard elected to U.S. House of Representatives He became the first African-American to be elected to the house.
1883 The U.S. Supreme Court declares American Indians to be “dependent aliens.”
1896 William McKinley is elected 25th president of the United States.
1911 Chevrolet Motor Car Company was founded by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant.
1913 The first American citizens receive information over the new national income tax. A married man living with his wife, who is in receipt of an income of $5,000 pays $10 a year and if his income is $10,000 he pays $60 per year.
1921 Milk drivers on strike dump thousands of gallons of milk onto New York City’s streets.
1933 During the first quarter of this current fiscal year the government reached a deficit of $661,120,850. This figure was six times more than the one from the previous year around this time.
1943 Nazi’s carry out “Operation Harvest Festival” to kill all Jews remaining in the Lublin District of Poland. The operation “Erntefest” began at dawn when German Nazi SS troops rounded up large numbers of Jews and took them out into nearby trenches and shot and murdered them, it is estimated that in two days 42,000 men, women and children were murdered.
1952 Clarence Birdseye marketed the first frozen peas.
1954 Godzilla released. The Japanese science fiction starring a mutated monster of the same name became an instant hit.
1957 A dog was launched into orbit today as the first animal in space on board Sputnik 2, a Russian spacecraft, and became the first living animal to enter the Earth’s orbit.
1964 For the first time residents of Washington, D.C., are allowed to vote in a presidential election.
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson is elected the 36th president of the United States.
1969 US President Richard Nixon, speaking on TV and radio, asks the “silent majority” of the American people to support his policies and the continuing war effort in Vietnam.
1969 PBS is founded on it’s foundation it takes over its predecessor, National Educational Television (NET). Public Broadcasting Service is made up of 354 member TV stations who collectively own PBS.
1979 Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis kill 5 and wound 7 members of the Communist Workers Party during a “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro, NC; the incident becomes known as the Greensboro Massacre.
1986 The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports the US has secretly been selling weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of 7 American hostages being held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
1992 Arkansas Governor Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton is elected 42nd president of the United States.
1992 Carol Moseley-Braun became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1995 U.S. President Clinton dedicated a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
1998 Minnesota elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a former pro wrestler, as its governor.
2014 In New York City, One World Trade Center opened for business.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
