TODAY In History

Today is Sunday, Nov. 1, the 306th day of 2020. There are 60 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

• On Nov. 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. (One of the pair was killed, along with a White House police officer.)

ON THIS DATE:

• In 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was established.

• In 1512, Michelangelo’s justcompleted paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel were publicly unveiled by the artist’s patron, Pope Julius II.

• In 1765, the Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament, went into effect, prompting stiff resistance from American colonists.

• In 1861, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln named Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan General-in-Chief of the Union armies, succeeding Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott.

• In 1870, the United States Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations.

• In 1936, in a speech in Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between his country and Nazi Germany as an “axis” running between Rome and Berlin.

• In 1945, Ebony, a magazine geared toward Black readers, was first published.

• In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Ivy Mike,” at Enewetak (en-ih-WEE’-tahk) Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

• In 1973, following the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski to be the new Watergate special prosecutor, succeeding Archibald Cox.

• In 1989, East Germany reopened its border with Czechoslovakia, prompting tens of thousands of refugees to flee to the West.

• In 1991, Clarence Thomas took his place as the newest justice on the Supreme Court.