Moments in Time: Sonny Bono
The History Channel
On Nov. 6, 1869, Rutgers beat Princeton, then known as the College of New Jersey, 6-4 in the first college football game. Played with a soccer ball before roughly 100 fans in New Brunswick, New Jersey, it more resembled rugby than today's version of football.
On Nov. 7, 2016, American lawyer and public official Janet Reno, who was the first female attorney general of the United States from 1993-2001, died at age 78 from complications related to Parkinson's disease.
On Nov. 8, 1994, Salvatore “Sonny” Bono was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Best known as the pop-singer husband of Cher, after their divorce he left the music world behind to launch several successful restaurants, until frustration with bureaucratic hurdles around one of his construction projects in Palm Springs, California, sparked his foray into politics.
On Nov. 9, 1971, John List murdered his family in their Westfield, New Jersey, home before disappearing. Though police quickly identified the Sunday School teacher and Boy Scout troop leader as the most likely suspect in the case, it would take another 18 years for them to locate him and bring him to justice.
On Nov. 10, 1808, the Osage tribe agreed to abandon their lands in Missouri and Arkansas in exchange for a reservation in Oklahoma. The decision eventually made them the richest surviving Native American nation in North America after they amassed enormous wealth in the 20th century from oil and gas deposits.
On Nov. 11, 1942, Congress approved lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37, though initially Black citizens were passed over because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. As World War II progressed, however, they were included and finally allowed to serve in combat.
On Nov. 12, 1799, American astronomer Andrew Ellicott observed the Leonids meteor shower from a ship off the Florida Keys. In the first recorded instance of such an event in North America, he wrote that the "whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets, and I was in constant expectation of some of them falling on the vessel. They continued until put out by the light of the sun after day break."
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