08 November History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 392    -    Theodosius of Rome passes legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire.
  • 1226    -    Louis IX succeeds Louis VIII as king of France.
  • 1576    -    The 17 provinces of the Netherlands form a federation to maintain peace.
  • 1620    -    The King of Bohemia is defeated at the Battle of Prague.
  • 1685    -    Fredrick William of Brandenburg issues the Edict of Potsdam, offering Huguenots refuge.
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  • 1793    -    The Louvre opens in Paris. But wasn't it already a Palace and it merely opens to the people?
  • 1861    -    Charles Wilkes seizes Confederate commissioners John Slidell and James M. Mason from the British ship Trent.
  • 1864    -    President Abraham Lincoln is re-elected in the first wartime election in the United States.
  • 1887    -    Doc Holliday, who fought on the side of the Earp brothers during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 6 years earlier, dies of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
  • 1889    -    Montana becomes the 41st state of the Union.
  • 1900    -    Theodore Dresier's first novel Sister Carrie is published by Doubleday, but is recalled from stores shortly due to public sentiment.
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  • 1904    -    President Theodore Roosevelt is elected president of the United States. He had been vice president until the shooting death of President William McKinley.
  • 1910    -    The Democrats prevail in congressional elections for the first time since 1894.
  • 1923    -    Adolf Hitler attempts a coup in Munich, the "Beer Hall Putsch," and proclaims himself chancellor and Ludendorff dictator. .
  • 1932    -    Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected 32nd president of the United States.
  • 1938    -    Crystla Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania, becomes the first African-American woman to be elected to a state legislature.
  • 1942    -    The United States and Great Britain invade Axis-occupied North Africa.
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  • 1960    -    John F. Kennedy is elected 35th president, defeating Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the closest election, by popular vote, since 1880.
  • 1966    -    Republican Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African American elected to the Senate in 85 years.
  • 1983    -    Wilson B. Goode is elected as the first black mayor of the city of Philadelphia.
  • 1988    -    George H. Bush is elected the 41st president of the United States.

  • 08 November Birthdays

  • 1656    -    Edmond Halley, mathematician and astronomer who predicted the return of the comet that bears his name.
  • 1847    -    Bram Stoker, author (Dracula).
  • 1878    -    Marshall Walter Taylor, "Major Taylor," the world's fastest bicycle racer for a 12-year period.
  • 1879    -    Leon Trosky, Russian Communist leader.
  • 1884    -    Hermann Rorshach, Swiss psychiatrist, inventor of the inkblot test.
  • 1900    -    Albert Friedrich Frey-Wyssling, Swiss botanist and molecular biology pioneer.
  • 1900    -    Margaret Mitchell, American writer who found success in her first and only novel, Gone With the Wind.
  • 1909    -    Katherine Hepburn, American actress who won four Oscars. Her movies included Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story and The African Queen.
  • 1916    -    Peter Ulrich Weiss, German novelist and dramatist (Marat/Sade, The Investigation).
  • 1922    -    Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon, performed the first human heart transplant operation.