Soviet scientist and well-known human rights activist Andrei Sakharov begins a two-week visit to the United States.

After more than three months of bloody combat, the Third Battle of Ypres effectively comes to an end on November 6, 1917, with a hard-won victory by British troops at the Belgian village of Passchendaele.

Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’état against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government.

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers beats Princeton, 6-4, in the first college football game.

On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency.

Catherine the Great, who died on this day, dragged Russia into the modern era while leading a life filled with political drama, sexual intrigue – and murder.

The Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca runs aground on a low sandy island off the coast of Texas.