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In 1874, in the year that Elizabeth "Etta" Morris was born, on November 4th, the Democratic Party regained control of the US House of Representatives - the first time since 1860. The Democrats now held 183 seats - up 94 - and the Republicans held 106 - down 93.
In 1891, James Naismith, at the Springfield Massachusetts YMCA, invented the game of basketball. Originally using two peach baskets and a soccer ball, he created the game to keep his students active during the long, harsh New England winters.
In 1911, the first Indianapolis 500 was run in May. Ray Harroun was the winner - he was an engineer and had retired from racing but he came back for this race. After the race, he retired for good. The purse was $27,550 - the largest offered up to that time - and Harroun received $10,000 for first place. His average time was 74.602 mph.
In 1928, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, age 31, became the first woman to fly solo across North America and back in August. In June, she had been part of a 3 man crew that flew the Atlantic Ocean but since she had no instrument training, she couldn't fly the plane - she kept the flight log. The North American flight became one of her many "firsts" as a female pilot.
In 1964, in June, three young civil rights workers - Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi - were kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi. Working with "Freedom Summer", they were registering African-Americans to vote in the Southern states. Their bodies were found two months later. Although it was discovered that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office and the Philadelphia, Mississippi Police Department were involved, only 7 men were convicted and served less than six years.
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