This Day in History: Nov. 1

On this day, Nov. 1 ...

1952: The United States detonates the first hydrogen bomb, code-named “Ivy Mike,” at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Also on this day:

• 1604: William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello” is first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.
• 1765: The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament, takes effect, prompting stiff resistance from American colonists.
• 1945: Ebony magazine is first published.
• 1950: Two Puerto Rican nationalists try to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. (One of the pair is killed, along with a White House police officer.)

• 1968: The Motion Picture Association of America unveils its new voluntary film rating system: G for general, M for mature (which would later change to GP, then PG), R for restricted and X (which would later change to NC-17) for adults only.
• 1973: Following President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” of Oct. 20, Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork appoints Leon Jaworski to be the new Watergate special prosecutor, succeeding Archibald Cox. Bork had fired Cox, under orders from Nixon, after Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus both resigned, refusing to follow Nixon’s order.
• 1989: East Germany reopens its border with Czechoslovakia, prompting tens of thousands of refugees to flee to the West.
• 1991: Clarence Thomas takes his place as the newest associate justice on the Supreme Court after contentious U.S. Senate confirmation hearings.
• 2001: The New York Yankees defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-2 in Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, in the first Series game ever played in November. MLB’s championship round had been delayed because of the terror attacks of Sept. 11. (Arizona went on to win the Series in Game 7 in Phoenix three nights later.)
• 2003: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean stirs controversy within his party by telling the Des Moines Register he wanted to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” (The former Vermont governor would explain that he intended to encourage the return of Southern voters who had abandoned the Democrats for decades but were disaffected with the Republicans.)
• 2014: The United Nations’ expert panel on climate science, meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, finishes a report on global warming that the agency says offers “conclusive evidence” that humans are altering Earth’s climate system.
• 2018: Edmund Zagorski becomes the first man executed in Tennessee’s electric chair since 2007; his last words are “Let’s rock,” before he is executed for shooting two men and slitting their throats during a drug deal. (The rock band The Black Keys later uses Zagorski’s last words as the title of an album.)
• 2018: Thousands of Google employees around the world briefly walk off the job to protest what they say is the company’s mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives.

• 2019: Former Texas Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke drops out of 2020 presidential race.