At dusk on November 9, 1965, one of the biggest power failures
in history occurred as all of New York state, portions of seven
nearby states, and parts of eastern Canada are plunged into
darkness.

The Great Northeast Blackout began at the height of rush hour,
delaying millions of commuters, trapping 800,000 people in
New York’s subways, and stranding thousands more in office
buildings, elevators, and trains.

Ten thousand National Guardsmen and 5,000 off-duty policemen
were called into service.

The blackout was caused by the tripping of a transmission line
near Ontario, Canada, at 5:16 p.m., which caused several other
heavily loaded lines also to fail.

On November 8, 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stood in
Dearborn, Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is
destroyed in a massive fire. Some 1.5 million people
visited the Rotunda each year, making it the fifth most
popular tourist attraction in the U.S. (behind Niagara Falls,
Smokey Mountain National Park, the Smithsonian, and the
Lincoln Memorial).

Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century
of Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to
Dearborn when the fair ended.

Christmas exhibit at Ford Rotunda, December 1955.

On this day – Nov. 8 1960 – John F. Kennedy defeats Richard
Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the
twentieth century to become the 35th president of the United
States.

Kennedy, 43, became the youngest man ever to be elected
elected president of the United States, narrowly beating
Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the
first Catholic to become president.

 
David N. Dinkins (1927 – 2020)             Douglas D. Wilder   
                        

On November 7, 1989, in New York, former Manhattan borough
president David Dinkins, a Democrat, was elected New York
City’s first African American mayor, while in Virginia,
Lieutenant Governor Douglas Wilder, also a Democrat,
becomes the first elected African American state governor
in American history.