Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Nov. 3. Congress ordered the Continental Army demobilized, and Gen. George Washington bid his troops farewell, on this date in 1783. Their job was done -- American independence from England had been established. Washington went on to become the first war hero to become president. Subsequent cases of that phenomenon would include Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Advertisement Opening statements were made in a federal courtroom in Denver on this date in 1997 in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Terry Nichols. He was accused of collaborating with his army buddy Timothy McVeigh in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the federal building that killed 168 people. While McVeigh was sentenced to death, Nichols would be convicted and sentenced to life for his role in the worst instance of terrorism on U.S. soil. It was on this date in 1964 that Lyndon B. Johnson was elected president with a margin larger than in any previous presidential election. He defeated Republican Barry Goldwater. Advertisement And it was on this date in 1948 that the Chicago Tribune printed the premature headline, "Dewey defeats Truman." The picture of a triumphant Truman holding up the newspaper is a classic. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
