TODAY IN HISTORY

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Today is Tuesday, Nov. 2, the 306th day of 2021. There are 59 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Nov. 2, 2000, American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, became the first residents of the international space station.

On this date:

In 1783, General George Washington issued his Farewell Address to the Army near Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued a declaration expressing support for a “national home” for the Jews in Palestine.

In 1920, white mobs rampaged through the Florida citrus town of Ocoee, setting fire to Black-owned homes and businesses, after a Black man, Mose Norman, showed up at the polls to vote on Election Day; some historians estimate as many as 60 people were killed.

In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became the first candidate from the Deep South since the Civil War to be elected president as he defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford.

In 2003, in Iraq, insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying dozens of U.S. soldiers, killing 16. In Durham, New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.

In 2004, President George W. Bush was elected to a second term as Republicans strengthened their grip on Congress. Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was slain in Amsterdam after receiving death threats over his movie “Submission,” which criticized the treatment of women under Islam.

In 2007, British college student Meredith Kercher, 21, was found slain in her bedroom in Perugia, Italy; her roommate, American Amanda Knox and Knox’s Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of killing Kercher, but both were later exonerated. (Rudy Guede, a petty criminal who was convicted separately in the case, is serving a 16-year sentence.)

Today’s Birthdays: Political commentator Patrick Buchanan is 83. Actor Stefanie Powers is 79. Country-rock singer-songwriter J.D. Souther is 76. Singer-songwriter k.d. lang is 60. Actor David Schwimmer is 55. Rapper Nelly is 47.

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