November 2nd in History

Michael Dobson | November 2

On This Day in History

  • North and South Dakota become the 39th and 40th US states (1889)
  • Britain issues the Balfour Declaration in support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (1917)
  • KDKA Pittsburgh, the first commercial radio station, goes on the air (1920)
  • The first former professional American football player (Adam Wyant) is elected to the US Congress (1920)
  • The Rastafari messiah, Haile Selassie I (ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ) ascends to the Ethiopian throne (1930)
  • The first “high definition” (200+ line) regular television network, BBC1, goes on the air (196)
  • The Spruce Goose flies for the first and only time (1947)
  • Twenty One gameshow contestant Charles Van Doren admits in a Congressional that he was given questions and answers in advance (1959)
  • Penguin Books is acquitted of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover case (1960)
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Day becomes a US holiday (1983)

Birthdays

  • Daniel Boone, explorer (1734)
  • Marie Antoinette, French queen (1755)
  • Joseph Radetzky, field marshal (1766)
  • James K. Polk, 11th US President (1795)
  • George Boole, developer of Boolean logic (1815)
  • Warren G. Harding, 29th US President (1865)
  • Travis Jackson, baseball player (1903)
  • Burt Lancaster, actor (1913)
  • Ray Walston, actor (1914)
  • Ann Rutherford, actress (1917)
  • Steve Ditko, comics artist (1927)
  • Pat Buchanan, conservative journalist (1938)
  • Jim Bakken, football player (1940)
  • Stefanie Powers, actress (1942)
  • Keith Emerson, keyboard player (1944)
  • k. d. lang, singer-songwriter (1961)

Deaths

  • Jenny Lind, soprano (1887)
  • George Bernard Shaw, playwright (1950)
  • James Thurber, author and cartoonist (1961)
  • Ngô Đình Diệm, assassinated South Vietnamese president (1963)
  • Mississippi John Hurt, blues musician (1966)
  • Wally Wood, comic book artist (1981)
  • Paul Frees, voice actor (1986)
  • Irwin Allen, director and producer (1991)
  • Hal Roach, director and producer (1992)
  • Charles Sheffield, science fiction writer (2002)
  • Theo van Gogh, filmmaker (2004)
  • Madelyn Dunham, grandmother of Barack Obama (2008)

Holidays

  • All Souls Day (Roman Catholicism and the Anglican Church)
  • Dia de Finados (Brazil and Portugal)
  • Coronation of Haile Selassie Day (Rastafari movement)
  • Second day of El Día de los Muertos (Mexico)
  • Indian Arrival Day (Mauritius)
  • International Games Day (Worldwide)
  • Karatsu Kunchi (Karatsu, Saga)
  • National Cookie Monster Day (US)
  • National Deviled Egg Day (US)
  • Statehood Day (North and South Dakota)

November 2 is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years), with 59 days remaining until year’s end.