Check out This Day in History for Nov. 5, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1862: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln commutes the death sentences of more than 260 Dakota men who had been sentenced to death for attacking American encampments after the U.S. government failed to provide promised payments to the tribe.
1872: Susan B Anthony attempts to vote, insisting the 14th Amendment guarantees women the right. She’ll be arrested two weeks later for the attempt and will refuse during the trail to pay the $100 fine, equal to $2,700 today. “My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored,” she says in court.
Above, ground-breaking legislators Shirley Chisholm (upper left), Elaine Noble (upper right) and Sarah McBride (lower right). Plus, medical marijuana under California’s Proposition 215, and the Writers’ Guild Strike of 2007.
1889 Louisa Woosley is the first woman minister of record for the Presbyterian denomination in America, after giving 912 sermons in four years.
1935: The board game Monopoly is released by Parker Brothers. Originally created by activist Lizzie Maggie as The Landlord’s Game in 1903 to teach the dangers of companies becoming monopolies, despite initial negativity the game goes on to become one of the best-selling board games in history
1937: Adolf Hitler informs his military leaders in a secret meeting of his intention to go to war. The Hossbach Memorandum, notes taken by an attendee at the secret meeting, disproves Holocaust deniers who say Hitler was reacting to others’ aggression.
1941: Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto issues 700 copies of a 150-page “secret order” of plans to bomb Pearl Harbor in December. The bombing would be the greatest loss of American life on American soil, with almost 2,403 victims, until 9-11 in 2001 claims almost 3,000 lives.
1956: America has its first-ever Black host of a nationally-televised show, when The Nat King Cole Show premieres. The show lasts only a year, with Cole saying, “[The advertising industry] is afraid of the dark.”
1968: Brooklyn native and former nursery school teacher Shirley Chisholm becomes the first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first African American woman to run for President.
1974: Elaine Noble of Massachusetts becomes the first out LGBT person elected to the House of Representatives after a campaign she calls “very ugly.”“There was a lot of shooting through my windows, destroying my car, breaking windows at my campaign headquarters, serious harassment of people visiting my house and campaign office.” She serves two terms, and later opens an LGBT rehab.
1983: The first-ever guidelines for health workers interacting with people with HIV are released. The guildelines are significant because so many health workers and others in the early days of the AIDS epidemic had refused to care for people with AIDS, for fear of contracting the HIV virus.
1994: Former president Ronald Reagan publicly shares his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. He is one of the first public figures to talk about Alzheimer’s openly.
1996: California becomes the first state to legalize medical marijuana, when voters pass Proposition 215. Today, 40 states allow medical cannabis, though the substance remains illegal at the federal government.
2006: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death for killing 148 Shia Muslims after a failed assassination attempt on him. HeHE’ll be executed just over a month later.
2007: The Writers Guild of America begins a 100 day strike against film and television producers. The 12,000 screenwriters on strike asked for better pay from DVD sales. The strike brings results to the Guild but stalls or ends dozens of shows and costs the industry $1.5-2.1 billion by the time it ends in February 2008.
2024: Sarah McBride becomes the first openly transgender federal representative. “Tonight is a testament to Delawareans that here in our state of neighbors, we judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities,” she says after the victory. McBride had also made history as the country’s first-ever openly transgender state senator in 2020.
Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons
