On This Day: Magic Johnson Reveals That He Has HIV

On Nov. 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln beat three other candidates in a presidential election divided along geographical lines. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated four months later, seven Southern states had seceded from the union.

On Nov. 6, 1977, after a week of heavy rain, the Barnes Lake Dam in Toccoa Falls ruptured and unleashed a flood of water that killed 38 people and left a small college town destroyed.

On Nov. 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellar of the House of Lords guarding barrels of gunpowder, exposing a plot to kill the king.

On Nov. 5, 1872, 48 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony and a group of women in Rochester, N.Y., cast votes in the presidential election.

On Nov. 3, 1986, a Lebanese weekly first published the story of controversial arms sales from the United States to Iran, which was later linked to funding of the Nicaraguan Contras.

On Nov. 2, 1947, aviator Howard Hughes successfully tested the H-4 Hercules flying boat, better known as the “Spruce Goose,” the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

On Nov. 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, tried to assassinate President Truman in hopes of bringing their country closer to independence.

On Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed a list of grievances against the Catholic Church onto the door of a chapel in Wittenberg, Germany; his “Ninety-five Theses” became the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation.

On Oct. 30, 1938, many Americans believed Orson Welles’ radio broadcast adaptation of H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” was reporting an actual alien invasion.

On Oct. 29, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange closed down 12 percent for the second straight day, signaling the end of the bull market of the 1920s and the beginning of the Great Depression.

On Oct. 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift to the United States from the people of France, was officially unveiled to the public by President Grover Cleveland.

On Oct. 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which established the laws under which Prohibition would be enforced.

On Oct. 27, 312, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had a vision assuring him of victory in the name of the Christian God. As emperor, Constantine served as a patron for the church, contributing to its rapid growth in the fourth century.

On Oct. 27, 1973, a 1.4 kg chondrite-type meteorite crashed through a garage roof in Canon City, Colo.

On Oct. 26, 1881, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, with Doc Holliday, engaged the McLaury and Clanton brothers in a bloody gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.

On Oct. 25, 1854, British Lt. Gen. Lord Cardigan led a disastrous cavalry charge made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

On Oct. 24, 1861, after 112 days of construction, Western Union completed the first transcontinental telegraph, rendering the 18-month-old Pony Express obsolete.

On Oct. 22, 1844, the followers of American preacher William Miller expected the Second Coming of Christ. The day later became known as the Great Disappointment.