Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

November 8

1999
First Presidential Webcast: President Bill Clinton, live from Georgetown University, makes a two-hour internet broadcast entitled Townhall with President Clinton.

1970
Longest NFL field goal: Tom Dempsey kicks a 63-yarder for the New Orleans Saints to win (19-17) in the final seconds against the Detroit Lions.

1966
First person to win the Most Valuable Player award for both major baseball leagues: Frank Robinson wins the American League MVP. He had won it for the National League in 1961. (Source: Famous First Facts)

1966
First black U.S. senator: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke III is elected to the Senate.

1962
First black woman elected judge in the U.S.: Edith Spurlock Sampson is elected associate judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago.

1962
Cuban Missile Crisis: The U.S. announces that the Soviet missile bases in Cuba have been dismantled.

1950
First jet-to-jet aerial combat: A U.S. Air Force Lockheed F-80 destroys a Soviet MiG-15 over Korea, during the Korean War.

1939
World War II: A bomb explodes in Munich shortly after Hitler leaves from giving his yearly speech on the anniversary of his abortive 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Seven people are killed and 60 are injured in what many believe was a propaganda ploy by Hitler.

1938
First black woman state legislator: Crystal Byrd Fauset is elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

1933
Civil Works Administration: The program is established with $400 million appropriated to place about 4 million unemployed on a self-sustaining basis.

1910
First Socialist Congressman: Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin is elected to the House of Representatives.

1910
Bug Zapper: The first insect electrocution device is patented by William F. Frost of Spokane, Washington.

1895
X-rays: Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen makes his famous discovery. For this, he was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics (1901).

1889
Montana becomes the 41st state.

1837
First U.S. women's college: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, South Hadley, Massachusetts, opens with 80 students. (Source: An Almanac of the Christian Church)

1805
Lewis and Clark expedition: The famed explorers reach the Pacific Ocean, completing their search for a route to the West.

1731
First American circulating library: The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin, holds its first meeting.

1954
Rickie Lee Jones, American Grammy-winning singer. Music: Chuck E's In Love (1979). She was the Grammy's 1979 Best New Artist.

1954
Michael DeWayne Brown, American administrator. He resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and allegations that he had falsified his résumé.

1951
Mary Hart, American TV personality. TV: Entertainment Tonight (host).

1949
Bonnie Raitt, American singer. Music: Don't It Make You Wanna Dance (1980).

1935
Alain Delon, French actor. Film: Le Samourai (1967) and Borsalino (1970). He was one of France's biggest screen stars of the 1960s and '70s.

1931
Morley Safer, Canadian-born American journalist. TV: 60 Minutes (co-host).

1927
Patti Page (Clara Ann Fowler), American pop singer. Music: Doggie in the Window (1953, #1).

1922
Esther Rolle, American Emmy-winning actress. TV: Maude (Florida Evans) and Good Times (Florida Evans).

1922
Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon. He performed the first successful human heart transplant (1967).

1916
June Havoc (Ellen Evangeline Hovick), American actress. Film: My Sister Eileen (1942).

1914
Norman Lloyd, American actor. Film: Saboteur (1942, the man who fell from the Statue of Liberty in the climax). TV: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (co-producer), St. Elsewhere (terminally ill Dr. Auschlander).

1900     d. 1949
Margaret Mitchell, American Pulitzer-winning author. Writings: Gone With The Wind (1937, Pulitzer).

1866     d. 1941
Lord Herbert Austin, English automaker. He founded the Austin Motor Co. (1905), which became one of Britain's largest automakers.

1732     d. 1808
John Dickinson, American statesman, author, member of the Colonial Congress (1765). He wrote the Farmer's Letters (1767-68), expressing opposition to the Townshend Acts of 1767.

1656     d. 1742
Edmund Halley, English astronomer, mathematician. In 1682, he became the first to correctly predict the return date of a comet by predicting the 1758 return of the comet of 1682.

1990     b. 1904
Anya Seton (Ann Seton), American author of historical romances. Writings: Dragonwyck and Foxfire. Her father, Ernest Thompson Seton was a founding pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America.

1986     b. 1890
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (V.M. Skryabin), Soviet Communist leader, Soviet foreign minister (1939-49, 1953-56), and for whom the Molotov cocktail is named. He and Joseph Stalin found the party newspaper Pravda (1912).

1978     b. 1894
Norman Rockwell, American illustrator, known for his covers on the Saturday Evening Post.

1880     b. 1819
Edwin Laurentine Drake, American oil industry pioneer. He drilled the first productive U.S. oil well (1859, near Titusville, Pennsylvania).

1674     b. 1608
John Milton, English poet. Writings: Paradise Lost (1667) and Paradise Regained (1671).

1308     b. circa 1265
John Duns Scotus, Scottish philosopher, one of the most influential theologians of medieval Europe. His followers, called "dunces," were known for their closed mindedness.

1226     b. 1187
Louis VIII (Louis the Fat), King of France (1223-26).

618     b. ????
Saint Deusdedit, Italian religious leader, 68th Pope (615-618). He authorized the celebration of more than one mass by a church on Sunday. The term "Papal Bull" originated from his use of a leaden seal, known as a "Bulla."

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