Fun Friday

Time for trivia! Here are some interesting historical happenings on the first 7 days of November. There are, of course, many, many others.

November 1: (1995) The first all-race local government elections took place in South Africa, marking the end of the apartheid system.

November 2: (1947) The first and only flight of Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" flying boat occurred in Long Beach Harbor, California. It flew about a mile at an altitude of 70 feet. Costing $25 million, the 200-ton plywood eight-engine Hercules was the world's largest airplane, designed, built and flown by Hughes. It later became a tourist attraction alongside the Queen Mary ship at Long Beach and has since been moved to Oregon.

November 3: (1957) Soviet Russia launched the world's first inhabited space capsule, Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika.

November 4: (1922) King Tut's tomb was discovered at Luxor, Egypt, by British archaeologist Howard Carter after several years of searching. The child-King Tutankhamen became pharaoh at age nine and died around 1352 B.C. at age 19. The tomb was found mostly intact, containing numerous priceless items now exhibited in Egypt's National Museum in Cairo.

November 5: Remembered as Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, for the anniversary of the failed "Gunpowder Plot" to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I in 1605.

November 6: (1860) - Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th U.S. President and the first Republican. He received 180 of 303 possible electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote.

November 7: (1885) Canada's first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.