By an act of Congress in 1845, the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November was designated Election Day for future presidential elections. The first such election took place on November 7, 1848. Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor won out over Democrat Lewis Cass and Free-Soil candidate (and former president) Martin Van Buren. Taylor’s running mate was Millard Fillmore, who became the nation’s 13th president on July 10, 1850, upon Taylor’s untimely death. Learn more about Election Day.
Daily Calendar for Wednesday, November 5, 2025
November’s full Moon was called the Beaver Moon because it was the time to set traps, before the waters froze over. This Moon was also called the Full Frost Moon. Learn more about the Full Moon for November!
Born
- Washington Allston (painter) –
- Ida Minerva Tarbell (journalist) –
- James Ward Packard (manufacturer) –
- Will Durant (historian) –
- Roy Rogers (actor) –
- Vivien Leigh (actress) –
- Art Garfunkel (musician) –
- Sam Shepard (actor & playwright) –
- Bryan Adams (musician) –
- Tatum O'Neal (actress) –
- Famke Janssen (actress) –
- Corin Nemec (actor) –
- Johnny Damon (baseball player) –
Died
- George M. Cohan (songwriter) –
- Guy Lombardo (big band leader) –
- Al Capp (cartoonist, created Li’l Abner) –
- Vladimir Horowitz (pianist) –
- Fred MacMurray (actor) –
- Bobby Hatfield (singer, half the singing duo known as the Righteous Brothers) –
Events
- Susan B. Anthony cast her ballot, earning a fine –
- Tripoli annexed by Italy –
- The board game Monopoly was released by the Parker Brothers –
- Edwin Armstrong first demonstrated FM radio transmission –
- Dominion Observatory time signal first broadcast by CBC Radio –
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office by defeating Republican challenger Wendell Willkie –
- A Global Positioning System (GPS) was patented –
- Bronze Fred Rogers memorial statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was dedicated –
- A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Lincoln County, Oklahoma. It was the state’s strongest earthquake since 1952. –
- Voyager-2 probe crossed the heliopause and left our solar system to enter interstellar space –
Weather
- An Election Day storm brought 10 to 12 inches of snow to Connecticut and 78 mph winds to Block Island, Rhode Island –
- Thunderstorms brought dime-size hail to Las Vegas, Nevada –
- 2 inches of snow fell in Salisbury, Missouri –
- First snow of the season fell in Dublin, New Hampshire –
