TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Nov. 3, the 307th day of 2019. There are 58 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 3, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson soundly defeated Republican Barry Goldwater to win a White House term in his own right. On this date: In 1839, the first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.
In 1911, the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. was founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant. (The company was acquired by General Motors in 1918.)
In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide election victory over Republican challenger Alfred “Alf” Landon.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, the second manmade satellite, into orbit; on board was a dog named Laika (LY’-kah), who was sacrificed in the experiment.
In 1970, Salvador Allende (ah-YEN’-day) was inaugurated as president of Chile.
In 1979, five Communist Workers Party members were killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In 1986, the Iran-Contra affair came to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.
In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush. In Illinois, Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
In 1994, Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, Michael and Alex, nine days after claiming the children had been abducted by a black carjacker.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton dedicated a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
In 1997, the Supreme Court let stand California’s groundbreaking Proposition 209, which banned race and gender preference in hiring and school admissions.
In 2017, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that left some of his comrades severely wounded, was spared a prison sentence by a military judge in North Carolina; President Donald Trump blasted the decision as a “complete and total disgrace.”