Today In History -November 7th

Something happened today in History and you need to know.... 

November 7, 1659 - The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed, ending the Franco-Spanish war of 1648-59.

November 7, 1811 - General William H. Harrison led 1,000 Americans in battle, defeating the Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek near Lafayette, Indiana.

November 7, 1837 - A pro-slavery mob attacked and killed American abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy at his printing works in Alton, Illinois.

November 7, 1885 - Canada's first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.

November 7, 1917 - Russian Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky in Petrograd. The Council of People's Commissars was then established as the new government of Russia, with Nikolai Lenin as chairman, Leon Trotsky as foreign commissar and Josef Stalin as commissar of nationalities. This event was celebrated each year in the former USSR with parades, massive military displays and public appearances by top Soviet leaders.

November 7, 1944 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term, defeating Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt died less than a year later on April 12, 1945.

November 7, 1962 - Richard Nixon told news reporters in Los Angeles "...just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Nixon's statement came the day after he lost the election for California governor to incumbent Edmund G. Brown. In 1968, Nixon re-entered politics and won the presidency, defeating Hubert H. Humphrey. Re-elected in 1972, he resigned in 1974 during impeachment proceedings resulting from the Watergate scandal.

November 7, 1989 - The East German government resigned after pro-democracy protests.

November 7, 1989 - L. Douglas Wilder became the first African American governor in U.S. history, elected governor of Virginia.

November 7, 1990 - Mary Robinson became Ireland's first female president.


Birthday - Polish chemist Marie Curie (1867-1934) was born in Warsaw, Poland. In 1903, she and her husband received the Nobel Prize for physics for their discovery of the element Radium.



Birthday - Christian evangelist Billy Graham was born near Charlotte, North Carolina, November 7, 1918. After his conversion at a revival meeting at age 16, he embarked on a career of preaching and has become known worldwide.

culled -historyplace.com