Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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18891776 Club

Harrison signs two statehood proclamations; the Dakotas enter the Union together

The papers are shuffled first, so neither state can claim to have come in ahead of the other.

On November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison signed the proclamations admitting North Dakota and South Dakota to the Union as the 39th and 40th states. Dakota Territory had existed since 1861, and years of friction between its northern and southern halves had made division a settled question. Rather than favor either half, Harrison had Secretary of State James G. Blaine shuffle the papers so he could not tell which he was signing first. The order of admission went unrecorded, and the states are numbered alphabetically…

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More from November 2
1988

A Cornell graduate student's program slips onto the Internet from a computer at MIT

Robert Tappan Morris, 23, launches it at about 8:30 p.m. from another campus so it won't trace back to Cornell; the network holds roughly 60,000 machines.
2000

Shepherd, Krikalev and Gidzenko dock at the space station and float inside

Their Soyuz reaches the aft port of the Zvezda module at 09:21 UTC; ninety minutes later the hatch opens on a station that has never had a resident crew.
1983

Reagan signs the King holiday bill, fifteen years after the first one was introduced

Congress passed it by wide margins, but the President had once dismissed the push behind it as "an image, not reality."
19431776 Club
Marines landed at Cape Torokina only yesterday, and Marines landed at Cape Torokina only yesterday, and Navy ships fought the night's action offshore.
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More from Gilded Age & Progressive Era
1916

In Washington, the U.S. and Britain sign a treaty to save the birds crossing their shared border

Great Britain signs for Canada, binding two nations to one set of hunting rules for birds that recognize neither.
1902

Ford's abandoned factory gets a new name: Cadillac

An engineer hired to appraise the wreckage for scrap talks the investors into building cars instead.
1898

New Bern druggist drops "Brad's Drink" for a new name: Pepsi-Cola

Bradham lands on a name built from pepsin and kola, five years after his soda fountain first served it.
1886

The ground rolls like an awful roar; Charleston is shaking apart

At 9:50 p.m. the earth under a city with no history of quakes tears itself open along an ancient, forgotten fault.
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