Today in History: Nov. 7

Today is Thursday, Nov. 7, the 312th day of 2024. There are 54 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 7, 1916, Jeannette Rankin of Montana won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman elected to either chamber of Congress.

Also on this date:

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 1972, President Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder won the governor’s race in Virginia, becoming the first elected Black governor in U.S. history; David N. Dinkins was elected New York City’s first Black mayor.

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

In 2011, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, of involuntary manslaughter for supplying a powerful anesthetic implicated in the entertainer’s 2009 death. (Murray was sentenced to four years in prison. He served two years and was released in October 2013.)

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden clinched victory over President Donald Trump as a win in Pennsylvania pushed Biden over the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes. Trump refused to concede.

Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Kaat is 86. Former Singer Johnny Rivers is 82. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 81. Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus is 72. Actor Christopher Knight (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 67. DJ-producer David Guetta is 57. Actor Yunjin Kim is 51. Rock singer Lorde is 28.