Today in History, November 6th
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, setting secession in motion. Plus the first college football game and Sousa's birth.
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November 6 is best known for 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th U.S. president, a result that set Southern secession in motion. The date also gave us the first college football game in 1869 and the birth of basketball’s inventor, James Naismith, in 1861.
The big story: Abraham Lincoln Is Elected President (1860)
The 1860 race was a four-way fight in a country splitting over slavery. Democrats had broken in two, with Stephen Douglas carrying the Northern wing and John C. Breckinridge the Southern one, while John Bell ran for the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer and politician, was the Republican nominee. On November 6, 1860, he won with only about 40 percent of the popular vote, but his 180 electoral votes were a clear majority. He became the first Republican president. The map told the story: outside Virginia, where he got about 1 percent, Lincoln won no votes at all in the states that would form the Confederacy. South Carolina left the Union on December 20. By the time Lincoln took the oath on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded and named Jefferson Davis their president. A month later came Fort Sumter and the Civil War.
More events on November 6
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1528 | Shipwrecked Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca ran aground on an island off Texas, probably Galveston, becoming the first European known to set foot in the future state. |
| 1861 | Jefferson Davis, running unopposed, was elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America. |
| 1869 | Rutgers beat Princeton 6–4 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in what is considered the first college football game. They played with a round ball and 25 men a side. |
| 1888 | Benjamin Harrison was elected president with 233 electoral votes, even though incumbent Grover Cleveland won more popular votes. |
| 1917 | British and Canadian troops took the Belgian village of Passchendaele, effectively ending the Third Battle of Ypres, one of the costliest battles of World War I. |
| 1962 | The UN General Assembly condemned South Africa’s apartheid policies and urged members to cut economic and military ties with the country. |
| 1977 | The earthen Toccoa Falls Dam in north Georgia gave way in the early morning hours, sending a flood through a college campus below and killing 39 people. |
| 1984 | Ronald Reagan won a second term in a landslide over Walter Mondale, carrying 49 states and 525 electoral votes. |
| 2012 | Barack Obama was reelected over Mitt Romney, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate. |
Born on November 6
- 1854: John Philip Sousa, “The March King,” composer of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
- 1861: James Naismith, Canadian-American physical educator who invented basketball in 1891.
- 1887: Walter Johnson, “The Big Train,” Washington Senators pitcher with one of the best fastballs ever thrown.
- 1931: Mike Nichols, Berlin-born director of The Graduate and one of the few people to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
Keep reading
Sources
- United States presidential election of 1860, Britannica
- Abraham Lincoln elected president, History.com
- This Day in History: November 6 (and its linked event articles), History.com
- On This Day: November 6, Britannica
- United States presidential election of 1888, Britannica
- Barack Obama elected as America’s first Black president, History.com
- John Philip Sousa, Britannica
- James Naismith, Britannica
- Walter Johnson, Britannica
- Mike Nichols, Britannica
