Today in History: September 5

Today in History: November 11: On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I ended as the Allies and Germany signed an armistice aboard a railroad car in the Forest of Compiègne in northern France. In 1620, 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed the Mayflower Compact, calling for a “civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation.” In 1921, the remains of an unidentified American service member were interred in a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony presided over by President Warren G. Harding. In 1966, Gemini 12 blasted off on a four-day mission with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. aboard; it was the tenth and final crewed flight of NASA’s Gemini program.

Today in History: November 10: On Nov. 10, 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina, a mob of as many as 2,000 white supremacists killed dozens of African Americans, burned Black-owned businesses and forced the mayor, police chief and aldermen to resign at gunpoint, before installing their own mayor and city council in what became known as the “Wilmington Coup.” Other events of November 10. In 1775, the United States Marine Corps was established when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution to raise two battalions of Marines to support naval forces in the Revolutionary War. In 1954, the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Arlington, Virginia. In 1969, the children’s educational program “Sesame Street” made its debut on National Educational Television. In 1975, the Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank after being caught in a severe storm on Lake Superior; all 29 crew members were lost. In 2019, Bolivian President Evo Morales resigned after weeks of public protests in response to alleged election fraud in Bolivia’s general election the previous month.

Today in History: November 9: In 1989, Communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West for the first time in decades. In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt made the first trip abroad of any sitting president in order to observe construction of the Panama Canal. In 1938, Nazis looted and burned synagogues as well as thousands of Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom or deliberate persecution, that became known as “Kristallnacht.” In 1976, the U.N. General Assembly approved resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as “illegitimate.” In 2007, President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for a day and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass rally against his emergency rule.

Today in History: November 08: The new millenium got off to a rocky start in the United States, where there was no clear winner of the presidential election due to irregularities found in Florida ballots. On this date in the year 2000, a statewide recount began in Florida. Also on this date: In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln won reelection, as he defeated Democratic challenger, George B. McClellan. In 1889, Montana was admitted to the Union as the 41st state. In 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power in Germany with a failed coup in Munich that came to be known as the “Beer-Hall Putsch.” In 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch in World War II as U.S. and British forces landed in French North Africa. In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the U.S. presidential election over Vice President Richard M. Nixon. And, In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, slammed into the central Philippines, leaving more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattening villages and displacing more than 5 million.