THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― NOVEMBER 3

November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 58 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Sunday or Monday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Wednesday or Friday (56).

NATIONAL SANDWICH DAY  

1716 – The Pacification Treaty of Warsaw: Russia's Czar Peter the Great guarantees Saxon monarch August I's Polish kingdom.

1838 – The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper, is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. Published every Saturday and Wednesday, The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was launched as a semi-weekly edition by Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a Maharashtrian Reformist. It contained news from Britain and the world, as well as the Indian Subcontinent. The daily editions of the paper were started from 1850.

1868 – First black Congressman elected (John W Menard, Louisiana) but racist outcry against his election prevented him from being seated.

1883 – Authorities almost catch the California bandit and infamous stagecoach robber called Black Bart; he manages to make a quick getaway, but drops an incriminating clue that eventually sends him to prison. Black Bart was born Charles E. Boles, probably in the state of New York around 1830. As a young man, he abandoned his family for the gold fields of California, but he failed to strike it rich as a miner and turned to a life of crime.

1903 – With the support of the U.S. government, Panama issues a declaration of independence from Colombia. The revolution was engineered by a Panamanian faction backed by the Panama Canal Company, a French-U.S. corporation that hoped to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with a waterway across the Isthmus of Panama.

In 1903, the Hay-Herrán Treaty was signed with Colombia, granting the United States use of the Isthmus of Panama in exchange for financial compensation. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, but the Colombian Senate, fearing a loss of sovereignty, refused. In response, President Theodore Roosevelt gave tacit approval to a rebellion by Panamanian nationalists, which began on November 3, 1903. To aid the rebels, the U.S.-administered railroad in Panama removed its trains from the northern terminus of Colón, thus stranding Colombian troops sent to crush the insurrection. Other Colombian forces were discouraged from marching on Panama by the arrival of the U.S. warship Nashville.

On November 6, the United States recognized the Republic of Panama, and on November 18 the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed with Panama, granting the United States exclusive and permanent possession of the Panama Canal Zone. In exchange, Panama received $10 million and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later. The treaty was negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and the owner of the Panama Canal Company. Almost immediately, the treaty was condemned by many Panamanians as an infringement on their country's new national sovereignty.

On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. After decades of protest and negotiations, the Panama Canal passed to Panamanian control in December 1999.

1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T. Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit withWilliam C. Durant and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile) and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell (son-in-law of Durant) and in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin CEO of General Motors in Canada.

1931 – The first commercially produced synthetic rubber, neoprene, is manufactured by DuPont under the direction of E.K. Bolton.

1941 – On this day in 1941, the Combined Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.

1957 – The USSR launches Sputnik 2 with a dog (Laika), the first animal in orbit.

 

1964 – The United States presidential election of 1964 was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Democratic candidate and incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had come to office less than a year earlier following the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Johnson, who had successfully associated himself with Kennedy's popularity, won 61.1% of the popular vote, against Republican Barry M. Gldwater, the highest won by a candidate since James Monroe's re-election in 1820. It was the sixth-most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes; in terms of popular vote, it is first. No candidate for president since has equaled or surpassed Johnson's percentage of the popular vote, and only Richard Nixon in 1972 has won by a greater popular vote margin.

1984 – The body of assassinated Indian PM Indira Gandhi cremated. Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was the third Prime Minister of India and a central figure of the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi, who served from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, is the second-longest-serving Prime Minister of India and the only woman to hold the office. Indira Gandhi was the only child of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. She served as the Chief of Staff of her father's highly centralized administration between 1947 and 1964 and came to wield considerable unofficial influence in government. Elected Congress President in 1959, she was offered the premiership in succession to her father. Gandhi refused and instead chose to become a cabinet minister in the government. She finally consented to become Prime Minister in succession to Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966.

1997 – The United States of America imposes economic sanctions against Sudan in response to its human rights abuses of its own citizens and its material and political assistance to Islamic extremist groups across the Middle East and Eastern Africa.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1793 – Stephen F. Austin, American businessman and politician, soldier in Texas' independence from Mexico (d. 1836)

1794 – William Cullen Bryant, American poet and journalist (d. 1878)

1903 – Walker Evans, American photographer and journalist (d. 1975)

1942 – Martin Cruz Smith, American author and screenwriter

From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.