TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Nov. 5. Today’s highlight:
On Nov. 5, 2017, a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire in a small South Texas church, killing more than two dozen people; the shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, was later found dead in a vehicle after he was shot and chased by two men who heard the gunfire. (An autopsy revealed that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.)
On this date:
In 1605, the “Gunpowder Plot” failed as Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament.
In 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony defied the law by attempting to cast a vote for President Ulysses S. Grant.
In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and Socialist Eugene V. Debs.
In1 935, Parker Brothers began marketing the board game “Monopoly.”
In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Democratic Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and American Independent candidate George C. Wallace.
In 1992, Malice Green, a Black motorist, died after he was struck in the head 14 times with a flashlight by a Detroit police officer, Larry Nevers, outside a suspected crack house. (Nevers and his partner, Walter Budzyn, were found guilty of second-degree murder, but the convictions were overturned; they were later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)
In 1994, former President Ronald Reagan disclosed he had Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2003, President George W. Bush signed a bill outlawing the procedure known by its critics as “partial-birth abortion”; less than an hour later, a federal judge in Nebraska issued a temporary restraining order against the ban. (In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.)
In 2006, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for crimes against humanity.
In 2009, a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas left 13 people dead; Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. (No execution date has been set.)
Ten years ago: Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, accused of molesting eight boys, was arrested and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts. (Sandusky was later convicted and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for the sexual abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period.)
One year ago: With Democrat Joe Biden inching closer to victory, President Donald Trump lashed out in a statement from the White House briefing room, insisting that Democrats were trying to “steal the election” with “illegal votes”; there had in fact been no evidence that votes cast illegally were being counted, and no evidence of widespread fraud. ABC, CBS and NBC all cut away from Trump’s remarks, with network anchors saying they needed to correct falsehoods being disseminated by the president.