November 8

1519 – Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration.

1605 – Robert Catesby, ringleader of the Gunpowder Plotters planning on blowing up Parliament in London, is killed in a gunfight with his pursuers  at Holbeche House in Staffordshire

1837 – Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts -later Mount Holyoke College – the first of a group of historically female colleges in the Northeastern United States.

1861 – During the American Civil War, The USS San Jacinto stops the British mail ship RMS Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US, with President Lincoln finally releasing the envoys.

1887 – John ‘Doc’ Holliday dies in bed, with his boots off, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, age 36.

1889 – Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.

1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.

1923 – In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government later called the ‘Beer Hall Putsch‘ due to the Nazi beginnings at the Bürgerliches brewery’s Bürgerbräukeller in Munich.

1932 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as the 32nd President of the United States, defeating incumbent President Herbert Hoover.

1933 – During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than four million unemployed during the winter of 1933-34

1950 – Over Korea, U.S. Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down 2 North Korean MiG-15s, the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight.

1957 – Pan Am Flight 7, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, disappears between San Francisco and Honolulu with the loss of all 44 passengers and crew aboard. Wreckage and bodies are discovered a week later.

1960 – John F. Kennedy is elected as the 35th President of the United States

1965 – American Airlines Flight 383, a Boeing 727, crashes in Constance, Kentucky on final approach to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, killing 54 of the 57 passengers and 4 of the 5 crew aboard.

1966 – President Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the American Football League.

1972 – American pay television network Home Box Office (HBO) launches.

1973 – The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper outlet along with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay $2.9 million.

1977 – Manolis Andronikos, a Greek archaeologist and professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discovers the tomb of Philip II of Macedon – the father of Alexander the Great – at Vergina.

1988 – Vice President George H. W. Bush is elected as the 41st President of the United States.

1994 – The midterm election demoncrap losses result in massive Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. The passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act which included an ‘assault weapon’ ban is seen as playing a significant part in this.

2002 –The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves resolution 1441 on Iraq, warning Saddam Hussein to disarm or face “serious consequences”.

2011 – Asteroid 2005 YU55 passes 0.85 lunar distances from Earth – about 201,700 miles – the closest known approach by an asteroid of its size since 2010 XC15 in 1976.

2016 – Donald Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States

2020 – Alex Trebek, noted longtime host of Jeopardy!, dies, age 80, of pancreatic cancer, at his home in Los Angeles