Nov. 5 history: FDR #3

Nov. 5 in history

In 1862, a tortured relationship ends when President Abraham Lincoln removes General George B. McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan ably built the army in the early stages of the war but was a sluggish and paranoid field commander who seemed unable to muster the courage to aggressively engage Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

In 1862, in Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of raping and murdering Anglo settlers and are sentenced to hang. A month later, President Abraham Lincoln commuted all but 39 of the death sentences. One of the Native Americans was granted a last-minute reprieve, but the other 38 were hanged simultaneously on Dec. 26 in a mass execution witnessed by a large crowd of Minnesotans.

In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th president of the United States, with Thomas R. Marshall as vice president. In a landslide Democrat victory, Wilson won 435 electoral votes against the eight by GOP incumbent William Howard Taft and the 88 won by third-party Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. The presidential election was the only one in American history in which two former presidents were defeated by another candidate.

In 1940, FDR was re-elected president for a third term - an unprecedented act that would be barred by the 22nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution a decade later. [“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years ..."] The third-term election campaign against GOP contender Wendell Wilkie ended with an overwhelming victory for FDR. He also won a fourth term but died in office. VP Harry Truman finished the remainder of FDR's fourth term.

In 1941, the Combined Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In just over a month's time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Malaya (now known as Malaysia), the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.

In 1984, George Foreman becomes the oldest heavy weight boxing champion. At age 45, he becomes the champ again when he defeats 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas. 

In 2009, 13 people are killed and 30+ are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central Texas. The deadly assault, carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military installation.

(History.com 11/05/23)