November 7
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1872
The Mary Celeste sets sail
On this day in 1872, a cargo ship named the Mary Celeste set sail from New York City. On board was 37-year-old Capt. Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife, their two-year-old daughter, and a crew of seven. Their destination: Italy, with 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol. The Mary Celeste would be found floating in the Atlantic, abandoned, a month later. No trace of the crew has ever been found. What happened?
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© DeAgostini/Getty Images; Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Featured Event
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
On this day in 2000, the U.S. presidential election ended in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, only to be settled on December 12 by the U.S. Supreme Court after a bitter legal dispute.
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Okänd/Tekniska Museet (DIG17379)
Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the one whom fame has not corrupted.
Polish-born French physicist Marie Curie, famous for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity and winner of both the Nobel Prize for Physics and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, was born in Warsaw this day in 1867.
Famous Birthdays
More on November 7
© Wally McNamee—Corbis Historical/Getty Images
2016
American lawyer and public official Janet Reno, who was the first female attorney general (1993–2001) of the United States, died at age 78. [Take our quiz about the United States.]
© Istvan Bajzat—picture alliance/Getty Images
2016
Canadian musician Leonard Cohen—a hugely influential singer and songwriter, known for spare songs that carried an existential bite—died at age 82. [Can you name the songwriters in our quiz?]
U.S. Department of State
2000
American politician Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first first lady to win elective office. [Test your knowledge of famous firsts for women.]
NASA/JPL/Illustration by Corby Waste
1996
NASA launched Mars Global Surveyor, a robotic spacecraft designed to carry out a long-term study of the planet; contact with the spacecraft was lost in 2006. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about space exploration.]
© Jerry Coli/Dreamstime.com
1991
American professional basketball player Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV-positive and was immediately retiring from the sport; he later played part of the 1995–96 season. [Test your knowledge of basketball.]
Douglas Wilder
1989
American politician Douglas Wilder was elected governor of Virginia, becoming the first African American to win a U.S. gubernatorial election. [Take our quiz about U.S. history and politics.]
© Warner Brothers/Seven Arts
1980
American movie star Steve McQueen, known for his portrayal of macho loners in such films as The Great Escape (1963) and Bullitt (1968), died at age 50. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about A-list actors.]
AP/Shutterstock.com
1967
American lawyer and politician Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American to lead a major U.S. city.
U.S. Department of Defense
1962
After losing the governor’s election in California, American politician Richard Nixon gave what he called his “last press conference,” telling reporters that “you won’t have Nixon to kick around any more”; he was elected president six years later. [Take our quiz about U.S. presidents.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1916
Jeannette Rankin won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman elected to Congress.
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Negative no. LC-USZ62-108028)
1913
French author Albert Camus, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for such classic works as The Stranger (1942), was born. [Take our quiz about Nobel laureates in literature.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1874
Harper’s Weekly featured a Thomas Nast cartoon about the possibility of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant seeking a third term, and the Republican vote was represented by an elephant; the animal, which appeared in several other Republican-related cartoons by Nast, eventually became the party’s official logo. [Test your knowledge of Republicans and Democrats.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-pga-01891)
1811
In the Battle of Tippecanoe, a seasoned U.S. expeditionary force under Major General William Henry Harrison defeated Shawnee Indians led by Tecumseh’s brother Laulewasikau (Tenskwatawa), known as the Prophet. [Test your knowledge of the history of warfare.]