TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: NOVEMBER 3
644 Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is killed in Medina by Lu’lu, an enslaved Persian captive
1394 Jews are expelled from France by Charles VI
1507 Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini (“Mona Lisa”).
1529 The first Parliament for five years opens in England and the Commons put forward bills against abuses amongst the clergy and in the church courts.
1534 English parliament passes the Act of Supremacy making Henry VIII and all subsequent monarchs the Head of the 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.
1839 The first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.
1883 A poorly trained Egyptian army, led by British General William Hicks, marches toward El Obeid in the Sudan—straight into a Mahdist ambush and massacre.
1883 The U.S. Supreme Court declares American Indians to be “dependent aliens.”
1885 Tacoma vigilantes drive out Chinese, burn their homes & businesses
1888 Jack the Ripper kills last victim
1921 Milk drivers on strike dump thousands of gallons of milk onto New York City’s streets to protest the drink’s varying prices on the market.
1957 Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard, a mostly-Siberian husky, the 1st animal in space
1964 For the first time, residents of Washington, D.C., are allowed to vote in the U.S. presidential election.
1969 U.S. 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.
1970 US President Richard Nixon promises gradual troop removal of Vietnam
1979 Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis kill five and wound seven members of the Communist Workers Party during a “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro, NC; the incident becomes known as the Greensboro Massacre.
1979 63 Americans taken hostage at US Embassy (Teheran, Iran)
1986 The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports the U.S. has secretly been selling weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of seven American hostages being held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon, in what later became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
1997 U.S. imposes economic sanctions against Sudan in response to human rights abuses and support of Islamic extremist groups.
1998 Minnesota elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a former pro wrestler, as its governor.
2004 Hamid Karzai was declared the winner in Afghanistan’s first presidential election.
2014 In New York City, One World Trade Center opened for business.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
