TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 5
1492 Christopher Columbus 1st learns about growing and harvesting maize (corn) from Cuba’s indigenous population
1556 The Emperor Akbar defeats the Hindus at Panipat and secures control of the Mogul Empire.
1605 Guy Fawkes is betrayed and arrested in an attempt to blow up the British Parliament in the “Gunpowder Plot.” Ever since, England has celebrated Guy Fawkes Day.
1653 The Iroquois League signs a peace treaty with the French, vowing not to wage war with other tribes under French protection.
1768 William Johnson, the northern Indian Commissioner, signs a treaty with the Iroquois Indians to acquire much of the land between the Tennessee and Ohio rivers for future settlement.
1781 John Hanson elected 1st “President of the US in Congress assembled”
1814 Having decided to abandon the Niagara frontier, the American army blows up Fort Erie.
1840 Afghanistan surrenders to the British army.
1862 President Abraham Lincoln relieves General George McClellan of command of the Union armies and names Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1872 Susan B. Anthony is arrested for trying to vote.
1895 George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
1912 Woodrow Wilson is elected 28th president of the United States.
1917 General John Pershing leads U.S. troops into the first American action against German forces.
1935 Parker Brothers company launches “Monopoly,” a game of real estate and capitalism.
1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt is re-elected for third term.
1943 Vatican City was bombed by a fascist Italian aircraft breaching the neutrality of Vatican during the second World War
1968 Richard Nixon is elected 37th president of the United States.
1968 Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first elected African American woman to serve in the House of Representatives.
1979 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declares US “The Great Satan”
1995 Andre Dallaire’s attempt to assassinate Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is foiled when the minister’s wife locks the door.
2006 Former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, along with Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, is sentenced to death for the massacre of 148 Shi’a Muslims in 1982.
2009 The deadliest mass shooting at a US military installation occurs at Fort Hood, Texas, when US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 29.
2011 Former Penn State defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, is arrested on charges of 40 counts of sexual abuse over a 15-year period.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
