NewsInHistory Blog

On Nov. 7, 1916, Congress—and the entire nation—forever changed when Montana’s Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Women at that time did not have universal suffrage—the 19th Amendment, granting all American women the right to vote, was passed by Congress in 1919 but did not become law until it was ratified on Aug. 26, 1920. read more...

On Nov. 6, 1865, one of the more remarkable sagas of the Civil War came to an end when the Confederate warship Shenandoah pulled into Liverpool, England, and Captain James Waddell surrendered the ship—seven months after Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House had effectively ended the war. During that time the Shenandoah had continued to attack Yankee whalers in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, not realizing the war was over. In doing so, the Shenandoah fired the last shot of the Civil War. read more...

Whites throughout the South were traumatized in the summer of 1831 by a short-lived, bloody slave revolt led by Nat Turner, a man his fellow slaves called “The Prophet.” Beginning at 2:00 the morning of Aug. 21, 1831, Turner led as many as 70 followers on a 36-hour murderous rampage, invading homes to free slaves and kill all the white people they could find. By the time the local militia rallied and scattered Turner’s band, 55 whites—31 of them infants and children—in Southampton County, Virginia, were dead, most of them horribly butchered. read more...

The 19th Amendment, granting all American women the right to vote, was passed by Congress in 1919 but did not become law until it was ratified on Aug. 26, 1920. This important achievement—both in the nation’s political history and the women’s rights movement—was preceded by another milestone, when Jeannette Pickering Rankin, a suffragist and pacifist, earned the distinction of becoming the first female member of Congress when she was elected to represent Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7, 1916. read more...

On Nov. 2, 1889, the Dakota Territory was divided in two and both North and South Dakota were admitted into the Union as the 39th and 40th states, respectively. The event was highly anticipated by residents throughout the territory, and the citizens of the two new states celebrated wildly when statehood finally came—“jollification” was called for!

This article was published by the Aberdeen Daily News (Aberdeen, South Dakota) on Nov. 2, 1889: read more...

It was a peaceful, rather ordinary Wednesday afternoon in the nation’s capital on Nov. 1, 1950. While the White House was being renovated, President Harry Truman and his wife Bess were staying across the street in the Blair House. Around 2:15 the president was in an upstairs bedroom napping in his underwear, sound asleep—when suddenly the calm was shattered by a fierce exchange of gunshots. read more...

One of the most distinguished and remarkable military careers in United States history ended on Nov. 1, 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln accepted the resignation of the Union Army’s Commander in Chief Winfield Scott. The 75-year-old Scott had served in the U.S. Army for 53 years, but advancing age, old battlefield wounds, and various ailments had rendered him infirm. He could no longer hoist his 300-pound body onto a horse, could barely walk, and though his mind was still sharp his broken-down body could no longer handle the rigors of active command. read more...

Toward the end of the fourth year of the long and bitter American Civil War, Nevada became a state, gaining admission into the Union as the 36th state on Oct. 31, 1864. The two events are inextricably linked, as the motto on Nevada’s state flag, “Battle Born,” forever commemorates. read more...