TODAY IN HISTORY - NOVEMBER 8TH

1836 – Milton Bradley, American businessman, founded the Milton Bradley Company (d. 1911) is born.

1847 – Bram Stoker, Anglo-Irish author and critic, created Count Dracula (d. 1912) is born.

1887 – Doc Holliday, American dentist and poker player (b. 1851) dies.

1889 – Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.

1892 – The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.

1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.

1933 – Great Depression: New Deal: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

1950 – Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, while piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight in history.

1960 – John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century to become the 35th president of the United States.

1966 – Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.

1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.

1970 – Tom Anderson, American businessman, co-founded Myspace is born.

1972 – HBO launches its programming, with the broadcast of the 1971 movie Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

1973 – The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay US$2.9 million.

1978 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1894) dies.

1994 – Republican Revolution: On the night of the 1994 United States midterm elections, Republicans make historic electoral gains by securing massive majorities in both houses of congress (54 seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate, additionally). Thus bringing a close to four decades of Democratic domination.