History Today

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 2nd. Tomorrow is Election Day, the last day to vote in this year’s presidential election. And with many pundits predicting a close race, we look back to one of the most surprising upsets in presidential history. On this day in 1948, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeated his Republican challenger, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, by just over two million popular votes. The result shocked Americans.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 1st. George Washington was our first president, but he wasn’t our first president to live in the White House. That was president number two, John Adams, who moved into the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on this day in 1800. Although Adams was initially enthusiastic about their new digs, he and first lady Abigail soon found it to be cold and damp during the winter.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 31st. Today is Halloween, but what happened way back on this day in 1926 was neither trick nor treat. That’s when Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, died in a Detroit hospital. Twelve days earlier, Houdini had been telling a group of students in Montreal about the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 30th. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen’s timeless and beloved tale of the three Dashwood sisters coming of age, was published anonymously on this day in 1811. Although a small circle of people were aware of Austen’s identity, the British public knew only that the popular novel had been written by “a lady.

Thanks, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 29th. Thanks to Covid-19, it’s been a wild ride for the stock market this year, but that’s nothing compared to what happened on this day in 1929.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 28th. Liberty Island, home to the iconic Statue of Liberty, is currently open to the public, though the interior of the statue itself remains closed due to the pandemic. The statue has been one of the country’s most visited tourist attractions since soon after its dedication on this day in 1886. The 151-foot statue was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the American people.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 27th. With the iconic New York City subway system facing a financial crisis due to the pandemic, we look back to this day in 1904, when it first began running. Although Boston can lay claim to America’s oldest subway system, the New York subway soon became the country’s largest. Today, the system includes more than 665 mainline track miles, enough to stretch from New York to Chicago if laid end to end.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 26th. It was the major engineering achievement of its day: On this day in 1825, the Erie Canal opened for business. The 425-mile-long canal, which connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via New York’s Hudson River had an immediate impact, with thousands of settlers pouring into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 25th. One of history’s greatest and most influential artists, Pablo Picasso, was born on this day in 1881. Picasso’s career began at age 13 and spanned more than 80 years, during which time he became a major force in modern art. Picasso’s fragmented, distorted representations of the human form broke with traditional European art.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on October 24th. If you’ve ever visited the massive 175-foot Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls, then you know surviving a trip over them would be no easy feat. But that’s just what Annie Edson Taylor did back on this day in 1901.