This Day In History

On November 7, 1921, President Warren G. Harding ordered 2,200 Marines to guard the mail in the wake of a series of daring mail robberies.

On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America. By then, Southern states had seceded, formed the Confederacy, and the Civil War was underway.

On November 5, 1911, Leonard Franklin Slye was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. The boy who learned to yodel from old recordings would grow up to become Roy Rogers, the “King of the Cowboys,” and one of Hollywood’s best-known singing stars.

On November 4, 1955, baseball legend Cy Young died in Newcomerstown, Ohio. He left behind records that still define a pitcher’s workload and a career that spanned baseball’s early major-league era.

On October 26, 1881, the Earp brothers took on the Clanton-McLaury Gang at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. The shootout became one of the most famous events in the Old West.

On October 23, 1941, Dumbo premiered in New York, bringing a flying circus elephant to the screen. The film began as an unpublished story by Syracuse writer Helen Aberson and became a compact production that gave Disney a welcome profit after two costly releases.

On October 9, 1940, John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England, as the city endured the German air raids of World War II. Within a little more than two decades, he would help form the Beatles and become one of the best-known songwriters and performers of the rock era.

Clarence Coles Phillips was born on October 3, 1880, in Springfield, Ohio. Considered one of the leaders of the Golden Age of Illustration, he’s most well-known for his “fadeaway” girls, as pictured on his 2001 stamp.

On November 8, 1900, future novelist Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Decades later, she would capture the world’s imagination with her sweeping Civil War epic Gone With the Wind.

On November 8, 1861, the Trent Affair began an international incident that nearly sparked a war between the US and Great Britain during the Civil War.

On November 8, 1837, Mary Lyons opened Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. One of the oldest female colleges in America, it inspired countless universities around the world to follow its model.

On November 8, 1889, Montana was admitted to the Union. The population exploded in the years leading up to after statehood due to the discovery of rich gold, silver, and copper deposits.