Nov. 3
1868 – John Willis Menard of Louisiana becomes the first black man ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, though a challenge of the electoral results by his defeated foe prevents him from taking office.
1896 – J.H. Hunter, an African-American inventor, patents the portable weighing scale.
1992 – Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois becomes the first African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate.
Nov. 4
1844 – Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier, is born in Independence, Missouri.
1879 – Inventor Thomas Elkins patents an improved refrigerator design.
1954 – Hulan Jack is elected borough president of Manhattan in New York City, becoming the highest ranking African-American municipal official at the time.
1969 – Entertainment and business mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is born in Harlem, New York.
2008 – Barack Obama defeats John McCain to become the first black president of the United States.
Nov. 5
1968 – Shirley Chisholm becomes the first Black woman elected to Congress, representing the 12th District in New York City.
1974 – George Brown and Mervyn Dymally are elected lieutenant governors of Colorado and California, respectively, becoming the first two blacks in the nation to hold the position.
2010 – Famed opera singer Shirley Verrett dies in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of heart failure at 79.
Nov. 6
1880 – George Poage, the first African-American to win a medal in the Olympic Games, is born in Hannibal, Missouri.
1973 – Coleman A. Young is elected as Detroit’s first black mayor.
Nov. 7
1837 – Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist and newspaper editor, is killed by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, out to destroy his press and abolitionist materials.
1967 – Carl Stokes is elected as mayor of Cleveland, becoming the the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city.
1989 – David Dinkins is elected as New York City’s first black mayor.
1989 – L. Douglas Wilder is elected as governor of Virginia, becoming the nation’s first elected black governor.
Nov. 8
1938 – Crystal Bird Fauset is elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, becoming the nation’s first black woman to serve as a state legislator.
Nov. 9
1731 – Benjamin Banneker, inventor, mathematician and one of the planners of what is now Washington, D.C., is born in Baltimore County, Maryland.
1868 – The first classes begin at the Howard University College of Medicine.
1922 – Dorothy Dandridge, famed actress, singer and dancer, is born in Cleveland.
