1528 – Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot in Texas
1572 – Supernova is observed in constellation known as Cassiopeia
1860 – Abraham Lincoln (Rep-R-Ill) elected 16th American President
1861 – Jefferson Davis elected to 6 year term as Confederate president
1865 – American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on its cruise that sank or captured 37 vessels.
1913 – Mohandas K Gandhi arrested for leading Indian miners march in South Africa
1917 – New York allows women to vote
1923 – USSR adopts experimental calendar, with 5-day “weeks”
1928 – Colonel Jacob Schick patents first electric razor
1936 – RCA displays TV for press
1941 – USA lends Soviet Union $1 million
1962 – Saudi Arabia proclaims abolition of slavery
1966 – Lunar Orbiter 2 launched
1967 – US launches Surveyor 6; makes soft landing on Moon on November 9
1978 – Shah of Iran places Iran under military rule
1979 – Ayatolla Khomeini takes over in Iran
1984 – President Reagan landslide (won 49 states) re-election over Mondale
1991 – Russian president Boris Yeltsin outlaws Communist Party
1995 – Israel buries Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a fellow Jew who opposed peace with Palestinians
2012 – US territory Puerto Rico votes to become a US State
Births
1494 – Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman sultan (d. 1566)
1753 – Jean-Baptiste Bréval, French cellist and composer (d. 1823)
1854 – John Philip Sousa, American commander, composer, and conductor (d. 1932)
Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as “The March King”, or the “American March King” due to his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford also being known by the former nickname. Among his best-known marches are “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (National March of the United States of America), “The Liberty Bell” (used as the theme for Monty Python’s Flying Circus)
1892 – Harold Ross, American journalist and publisher, co-founded The New Yorker (d. 1951) ‘Yes, The New Yorker.’
1893 – Edsel Ford, businessman (d. 1943)
1930 – Derrick Bell, American scholar, autho (d. 2011)
1946 – Sally Field, American actress
Deaths
1101 – Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, duke of Bavaria.
1612 – Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (b. 1594)
1790 – James Bowdoin, American banker and politician, second Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1726)
1893 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer and critic (b. 1840)
Holidays and observances
Obama Day (Kenya)