November 4 in History: Obama becomes America’s first Black president, 500,000 rally in Berlin, first female governors, more

1845:  Elections are held, for the first time, on a uniform day: the first Tuesday in November after the first Monday, under a law passed in January. Prior to this law, states were allowed to hold elections throughout a 34-day period around December, enabling some states to influence others.

Above, the Alexanderplatz Rally that drew 500,000 East Berliners, and Barack Obama, Tim Scott, Barney Frank, Miriam Ferguson and Nellie Tayloe Ross.

1879:  The first patent for what would become the refrigerator is filed by Thomas Elkins, a Black pharmacist, dentist and surgeon. Elkins, an abolitionist who worked with the Underground Railroad to help escaped slaves, also invented an early form of the toilet, fought in the Civil War, and toured Liberia.

1922: Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s (King Tut) tomb is discovered by a team led by British archaeologist Howard Carter. More than 5,000 fragile objects over 3,000 years old are uncovered in the near-intact tomb. It’s the most complete royal burial found in Egypt, and inspires the Egyptian government to train Egyptologists at home instead of relying on European archaeologists.

1924: Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam Ferguson of Texas become America’s first female governors.  Ross, a teacher and prohibition supporter whose husband had also been governor, would later become the first female director of the U.S. Mint. Ferguson, a Ku Klux Klan opponent who pardoned thousands of people convicted of prohibition-related convictions and whose husband also had been governor, would be elected as governor again in 1933.

1960: Anthropologist Jane Goodall becomes the first person to watch a chimpanzee create a tool. Her boss, Louis Leakey, said in response, “”Now we must redefine man, redefine tools, or accept chimpanzees as humans.” She will later find chimpanzees hugging, developing bonds, and waging war, helping to change people’s perceptions of other animals.

1979: The Iran Hostage Crisis occurs when 500 Iranian students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini hold about 90 Americans hostage for 444 days. In addition to bolstering Islamic power in the Mideast, the crisis was pivotal to Jimmy Carter’s defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.

1980: Barney Frank is elected a U.S. Representative from Delaware. Frank is the first member of Congress to come out as gay publicly seven years later. He marries partner James Ready in 2012 shortly before his retirement and will help found the Stonewall (AKA LGBT) Democrats caucus in 1998.

1988: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the first-ever comprehensive federal health bill to tackle AIDS, the Health Omnibus Programs Extension (HOPE) Act. The bill also created the Office of AIDS Research.

1989: An estimated 500,000 East Berliners protest in the streets in the Rally at Alexanderplatz, a pivotal precursor to the fall five days later of the Berlin Wall that had separated East and West Germany since 1961.

2008: “America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do,” Barack Obama , a former civil rights attorney and an Illinois senator, says in his victory speech after being elected the first Black president of the US. Also in 2008, California voters pass Proposition 8, which denies the right for gay people to marry, six months after the  California Supreme Court legalizes marriage equality. The US Supreme Court will overturn Proposition 8 in 2010, and a state constitutional amendment repeals it in 2024.

2014: Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina. becomes the first Black lawmaker to serve in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, when he wins re-election to a post to which former Gov. Nikki Haley appointed him. He will become teh long-serving Black senator in history.

2020: In the wee hours, Donald Trump prematurely claims victory over Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 presidential election, triggering bipartisan criticism. Three days later, Biden is declared to be the winner with 306 electoral votes over Trump’s 232.