Today in History November 6
Today in History
1429 Henry VI is crowned King of England.
1812 The first winter snow falls on the French Army as Napoleon Bonaparte retreats form Moscow.
1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States.
1861 Jefferson Davis is elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy.
1863 A Union force surrounds and scatters defending Confederates at the Battle of Droop Mountain, in West Virginia.
1891 Comanche, the only 7th Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer's "Last Stand" at the Little Bighorn, dies at Fort Riley, Kansas.
1911 Maine becomes a dry state.
1917 The Bolshevik "October Revolution" (October 25 on the old Russian calendar), led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seizes power in Petrograd.
1923 As European inflation soars, one loaf of bread in Berlin is reported to be worth about 140 billion German marks.
1945 The first landing of a jet on a carrier takes place on USS Wake Island when an FR-1 Fireball touches down.
1973 Coleman Young becomes the first African-American mayor of Detroit, Michigan.
1986 The Iran arms-for-hostages deal is revealed, damaging the Reagan administration.
Born on November 6
1814 Adolphe Sax, instrument maker and inventor of the saxophone.
1851 Charles Henry Dow, American financial journalist who (with Edward D. Jones) inaugurated the Dow-Jones averages.
1854 John Philip Sousa, "The March Master," American bandmaster and composer. Among his 140 marches are "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Semper Fidelis."
1861 James Naismith, Canadian physical education instructor who, in 1891, invented the game of basketball.
1887 Walter Johnson, baseball pitcher, "The Big Train."
1892 Harold Ross, New Yorker editor.
1921 James Jones, American novelist (From Here to Eternity).
1931 Mike Nichols, film and stage director (The Graduate).