Today in History: November 7, first woman elected to Congress

On Nov. 7, 1916, Jeannette Rankin of Montana won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman elected to either chamber of Congress.

Also on this date:

In 1917, Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

In 1940, Washington state’s original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie,” collapsed into Puget Sound during a windstorm just four months after opening to traffic.

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder won the governor’s race in Virginia, becoming the first elected Black governor in U.S. history; David N. Dinkins was elected New York City’s first Black mayor.

In 1991, basketball star Magic Johnson announced that he had tested positive for HIV and was retiring.

In 1996, NASA launched the Mars Global Surveyor from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the agency's first mission to the red planet in about two decades. The orbiter became the longest-operating spacecraft sent to Mars before NASA lost contact with it in November 2006.

In 2011, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, of involuntary manslaughter for supplying a powerful anesthetic implicated in the pop star's 2009 death. (Murray was sentenced to four years in prison. He served two years and was released in October 2013.)

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden clinched victory over President Donald Trump as a win in Pennsylvania pushed Biden over the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes. Trump refused to concede.

Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Kaat is 87. Former Singer Johnny Rivers is 83. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 82. Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus is 73. Actor Christopher Knight (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 68. DJ-producer David Guetta is 58. Actor Yunjin Kim is 52. Rock singer Lorde is 29.