Historical happenings

11/5/1605 ~ 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.

11/5/1872 ~ Susan B. Anthony is arrested for trying to vote.

11/5/1935 ~ Parker Brothers company launches “Monopoly,” a game of real estate and capitalism.

Historical happenings

11/4/1922 ~ The U.S. Postmaster General orders all homes to get mailboxes or relinquish delivery of mail.

11/4/1924 ~ Nellie Tayloe Ross and Miriam Ferguson are elected the first and second women governors (Wyoming and Texas).

11/4/1979 ~ At the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran, 90 people, including 63 Americans, are taken hostage by militant student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. The students demand the return of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who is undergoing medical treatment in New York City.

Historical happenings

11/3/1883 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court declares American Indians to be “dependent aliens.”

11/3/1921 ~ Milk drivers on strike dump thousands of gallons of milk onto New York City’s streets.

11/3/1967 ~ The Battle of Dak To begins in Vietnam’s Central Highlands; actually a series of engagements, the battle would continue through Nov. 22.

Historical happenings

11/2/1880 ~ James A. Garfield is elected the 20th president of the United States.

11/2/1920 ~ The first radio broadcast in the United States is made from Pittsburgh.

11/2/1947 ~ Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose flies for the first and last time.

Historical happenings

11/1/1950 ~ Two members of a Puerto Rican nationalist movement attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman.

11/1/1968 ~ The Motion Picture Association of America officially introduces its rating system to indicate age-appropriateness of film content.

11/1/1982 ~ Honda opens a plant in Marysville, Ohio, becoming the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the US.

Historical happenings

10/31/1941 ~ After 14 years of work, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial is completed.

10/31/1984 ~ Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard.

10/31/2002 ~ Former Enron Corp. CEO Andrew Fastow is convicted on 78 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction of justice and wire fraud; the Enron collapse cost investors millions and led to new oversight legislation.

Historical happenings

10/30/1922 ~ Mussolini sends his black shirts into Rome. The Fascist takeover is almost without bloodshed. The next day, Mussolini is made prime minister. He centralizes all power in himself as leader of the Fascist party and attempts to create an Italian empire, ultimately in alliance with Hitler‘s Germany.

10/30/1938 ~ H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds is broadcast over the radio by Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre. Many panic believing it is an actual newscast about a Martian invasion.

10/30/1965 ~ US Marines repel multiple-wave attacks by the Viet Cong within a few miles of Da Nang where the Marines are based; a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old boy who had been selling the Americans drinks the previous day.

Historical happenings

10/29/1945 ~ The first ball-point pen is sold by Gimbell’s department store in New York for a price of $12.

10/29/1964 ~ Thieves steal a jewel collection–including the world’s largest sapphire, the 565-carat “Star of India,” and the 100-carat DeLong ruby–from the Museum of Natural History in New York. The thieves are caught and most of the jewels recovered.

10/29/1998 ~ The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record up to that time, Hurricane Mitch, makes landfall in Honduras (in 2005 Hurricane Wilma surpassed it); nearly 11,000 people die and approximately the same number go missing.

Historical happenings

10/28/1768 ~ Germans and Acadians join French Creoles in their armed revolt against the Spanish governor of New Orleans.

10/28/1886 ~ The Statue of Liberty, originally named Liberty Enlightening the World, is dedicated at Liberty Island, N. Y., formerly Bedloe’s Island, by President Grover Cleveland

10/28/1919 ~ Over President Woodrow Wilson‘s veto, Congress passes the National Prohibition Act, or Volstead Act, named after its promoter, Congressman Andrew J. Volstead. It provides enforcement guidelines for the Prohibition Amendment.

Historical happenings

10/27/1873 ~ Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered to be the inventor of barbed wire.

10/27/1962 ~ An American U-2 reconnaissance plane is shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Cuba, killing the pilot, Maj. Rudolf Anderson, the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

10/27/1997 ~ Stock markets crash around the world over fears of a global economic meltdown.