1605 – Guy Fawkes and fellow conspirators attempted to blow up the English Parliament and failed. They were captured, tried and beheaded.
1872 – Suffragist Susan B. Anthony, in defiance of the law, votes for the first time. She is later fined $100.
1930 – The first commercial television broadcast was aired.
1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office, beating Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.
1968 – Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.
1974 – Ella Grasso of Connecticut became the first woman governor in the United States without succeeding her husband.
1979 – Iranian students seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran taking 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage sparking a crisis that would last 444 days and bring down the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
