What Happened Today in History on November 7

Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Egypt, is captured by Julius Caesar after the Siege of Alexandria.

King Stephen of England dies, and Henry II becomes King, marking the end of the Anarchy.

Tecumseh's War culminates in the Battle of Tippecanoe, where U.S. forces led by William Henry Harrison defeat Native American forces.

The presidential election in the United States is decided by the House of Representatives, with John Quincy Adams becoming president.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the site of his anti-slavery newspaper the St. Louis Observer. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition. More

Rutherford B. Hayes is elected President of the United States in one of the most disputed elections in U.S. history.

Canada's transcontinental railway is completed as Donald Smith, later known as Lord Strathcona, drives the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway, at Craigellachie, BC. More

Jeannette Rankin becomes the first woman in the history of the nation to win a seat in the U.S. Congress. when she is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the State of Montana. More

The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia begins with the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), leading to the establishment of Soviet power. More

The U.S. Supreme Court hands down a landmark decision on the Powell v, Alabama case, (aka The Scottsboro Boys trial), reversing the convictions of the nine young African American men who had been convicted and sentenced to death for raping two white women in 1931 and ordering new trials. Expand +

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State collapses on November 7, 1940. The bridge had been opened to traffic only four months earlier on July 1, 1940. The bridge's main span collapsed in 40-mile-per-hour winds as the deck oscillated in an alternating twisting motion that gradually increased in amplitude until the deck tore apart. More Expand +

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term by defeating Thomas Dewey by more than three and a half million votes and a 333 Electoral College vote margin. FDR would die on April 12, 1945, at the age of 63 from complications of high blood pressure. More

Richard Nixon is re-elected President of the United States after defeating Senator George McGovern, Democrat from South Dakota.  Expand +

The United States presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore leads to a disputed result, eventually resolved by the Supreme Court in favor of Bush.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a Joint Statement on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Holodomor – a deliberate famine inflicted in 1932-’33 by the Soviet regime that resulted in the starvation of millions of Ukrainians- Expand +