1916
Jeannette Rankin of Montana won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman elected to either chamber of Congress.
1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey.
1972
President Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.
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.
1991
Basketball star Magic Johnson announced that he had tested positive for HIV and was retiring.
2011
A jury in Los Angeles convicted Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, of involuntary manslaughter for supplying a powerful anesthetic implicated in the entertainer’s 2009 death. (Murray was sentenced to four years in prison. He served two years and was released in October 2013.)
Birthdays
Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Kaat is 86. Former Singer Johnny Rivers is 82. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 81. Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus is 72. Actor Christopher Knight (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 67.