This Day in History

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November 2

Today is observed as International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

Today is also Statehood Day for North and South Dakota, in the United States.

There are 5 days until the 2016 Presidential election.

There are 59 days remaining in 2016.

There are 52 days until Christmas.

Events

1889 – North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.

1898 – Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.

1899 – The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.

1917 – The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".

1930 – Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1936 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is established.

1936 – The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.

1947 – In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose or H-4 The Hercules; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

1959 – Quiz show scandals: Twenty One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

1959 – The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.

1960 – Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.

1964 – King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.

1965 – Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.

1967 – Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given 'more optimistic' reports on the progress of the war.

1983 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

1984 - The Rev Marvin Gay Sr. was sentenced to a suspended six-year sentence and probation for the manslaughter of his son, Marvin Gaye. He later died at a nursing home in 1998.

1984 – Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

1988 – The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.

1990 – British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.

2002 - Armed police arrested an international gang who were planning to kidnap former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and her two young children. The gang had planned to ransom Posh for £5m.

Births

1734 – Daniel Boone; 1755 – Marie Antoinette; 1795 – James K. Polk (11th POTUS); 1865 – Warren G. Harding (29th POTUS); 1913 – Burt Lancaster; 1914 – Ray Walston(My Favorite Martian; 1919 – Warren Stevens; 1927 – Steve Ditko (co-creator Spider Man); 1929 – Amar Bose (founded the Bose Corporation); 1936 – Jack Starrett; 1938 – Pat Buchanan; 1942 – Stefanie Powers; 1944 – Keith Emerson♪ ♫; 1945 – J. D. Souther♪ ♫; 1952 – Maxine Nightingale♪ ♫; 1961 – k.d. lang♪ ♫; 1963 – Bobby Dall(Poison); 1966 – David Schwimmer; 1967 – Scott Walker; 1974 – Nelly♪ ♫

Deaths

1887 – Jenny Lind♪ ♫; 1961 – James Thurber (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty); 1966 – Mississippi John Hurt♪ ♫; 1970 – Pierre Veyron(namesake of the Bugatti Veyron); 1991 – Irwin Allen; 1992 – Hal Roach; 2007 – The Fabulous Moolah; 2015 – Tommy Overstreet♪ ♫