Men who made History…Today

Men who made History1493        Nov 3, Christopher Columbus discovered the Caribbee Isles (Dominica) during his second expedition. He and his crew of 1,500 built the town of La Isabela on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. It was abandoned within 5 years due in part to poor relations with the Taino Indians. This area was part of the chiefdom of Higuey. 1791            Nov 3, Gen. St. Clair moved his force of approximately 1,400 men to some high ground on the upper Wabash River. St. Clair was looking for the forces of Michikinikwa (Chief Little Turtle 1752-1812), who had recently defeated Gen. Josiah Harmar’s (1753-1813) army. St. Clair deployed only minimal sentry positions.1796        Nov 3, John Adams was elected president.1868        Nov 3, Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected 18th president. He won the election over Democrat Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), two-time governor of NY (1853-54 and 1863-64), by 27,000 votes. Seymour ran fairly close to Ulysses Grant in the popular vote, but was defeated decisively in the electoral vote by a count of 214 to 80. Grant used the 1867 typewriter phrase “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party” for his campaign. 1896        Nov 3, Republican William McKinley was elected 25th president. He defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. McKinley and Garret Hobart supported the gold standard while The Democrats supported the free coinage of silver. Marcus Hanna, an Ohio industrialist, led the fund-raising for McKinley and personally underwrote the cost of winning this 1st modern presidential campaign. In 1929 Thomas Beer authored a biography of Hanna. 1908        Nov 3, Republican William Howard Taft was elected the 27th president, outpolling William Jennings Bryan.1943        Nov 3, William Reid (died 2001 at 79), RAF bomber pilot, flew his badly damaged Lancaster bomber on a bombing mission to a ball-bearing factory in Dusseldorf, Germany, and managed to return the crippled plane to England. 1959        Nov 3, Pres. Eisenhower laid the cornerstone for the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Va. 1961        Nov 3, President John F. Kennedy established the US Agency for International Development (USAID).1969        Nov 3, Pres. Nixon elaborated his Nixon Doctrine in a televised speech. He stated that the US henceforth expected its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. At the end of the speech, Nixon asked for the support of the “great silent majority” of Americans. This was the start of the “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War. The Doctrine argued for the pursuit of peace through a partnership with American allies1970        Nov 3, Rev. Robert Drinan (1920-2007), a Jesuit priest, was elected US congressman from Massachusetts. He later became the 1st member of Congress to call for the impeachment of Pres. Nixon due to the administration’s undeclared war in Cambodia. 1979        Nov 3, John McGinest, a drug dealer, was killed by a shotgun blast in Long Beach, Ca. Thomas Goldstein (30), a college student who lived nearby, was convicted of the murder following the testimony of Eddy Fink, a jailhouse informant coached by police. Goldstein was freed in 2004 after judges on an appeal panel concluded he was wrongly convicted. In 2010 Goldstein settled for a $7.95 million payment. 1983        Nov 3, Jesse Jackson announced his candidacy for the office of President of the United States. 1992        Nov 3, Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, was elected as the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President Bush, who won 38% of the popular vote. Clinton won Ohio by 2 percentage points. 1996        Nov 3, Paul Tatum, US businessman, was assassinated on the steps of a Moscow subway station in what his relatives suspect was a contract slaying by the Russian Mafia. He was in a long-running fight to gain control of the Radisson-Slavyanskaya hotel. 1997        Nov 3, In Thailand Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh announced that he would step down later in the week. Stock and currency markets rallied on the news. 1998        Nov 3, In Spain Prime Minister Jose Aznar authorized preliminary talks with the Basque ETA.2003        Nov 3, Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, already jailed on fraud and tax evasion charges, resigned as head of the Russian oil giant Yukos.2005        Nov 3, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, pleaded not guilty to a five-count felony indictment in the CIA leak case. 2005        Nov 3, Kevin Henry (39), of Albion, Ca., was murdered by Nathan McWilliams (22) and Trevor Conley (23) of Ukiah, Ca., near Lake Mendocino following use of crystal methamphetamine. In 2007 Conley and McWilliams were sentenced 15 years to life in prison.2006        Nov 3, US Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who had pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, resigned from Congress. 2006        Nov 3, French conductor Paul Mauriat (81), whose arrangement of “Love is Blue” topped US charts in the 1960s, died in Perpignan, France. 2007        Nov 3, Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf launched his 2nd coup and declared a state of emergency ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win and amid rising Islamic militant violence. Eight Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution.2008        Nov 3, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul (39), an aide to Osama bin Laden who refused to defend himself at his Guantanamo war crimes trial, was convicted of three terrorism-related charges and was sentenced to life in prison. In 2015 a US federal appeals court ruled that the conspiracy case against Bahlul was legally flawed because conspiracy is not a war crime.2009        Nov 3, In California Democrat John Garamendi (64) won the US House seat vacated by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who has taken an arms control job in the State Dept. 2009        Nov 3, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel’s military intelligence chief, said Hamas militants in Gaza have successfully test-fired an Iranian rocket able to reach Israel’s largest urban center. He said the rocket could fly 37 miles (60km), and strike metropolitan Tel Aviv. 2011        Nov 3, US Republicans in the Senate dealt President Barack Obama the third in a string of defeats on his stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines.