TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly.

In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1917, Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

In 1940, Washington state’s original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie,” collapsed into Puget Sound during a windstorm just four months after opening to traffic.

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1962, Richard M. Nixon, having lost California’s gubernatorial race, held what he called his “last press conference,” telling reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

In 1967, Carl Stokes was elected the first black mayor of a major city, Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1973, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive’s power to wage war without congressional approval.

In 1991, basketball star Magic Johnson announced that he had tested positive for HIV, and was retiring.