By The Associated Press

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 6, the 311th day of 2024. There are 55 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Nov. 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide over former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic challenger who won just one state, his native Minnesota.

On this date:

In 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party was elected President of the United States as he defeated John Breckinridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas.

In 1861, James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was born in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.

In 1928, in a first, the results of Republican Herbert Hoover’s presidential election victory over Democrat Alfred E. Smith were flashed onto an electric wraparound sign on the New York Times building.

In 1947, “Meet the Press” made its debut on NBC; the first guest was James A. Farley, former postmaster general and former Democratic National Committee Chair; the host was the show’s co-creator, Martha Rountree.

In 1977, 39 people were killed when the Kelly Barnes Dam in Georgia burst, sending a wall of water through Toccoa Falls College.

In 1990, about one-fifth of the Universal Studios backlot in southern California was destroyed in an arson fire.

In 2001, billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg won New York City’s mayoral race, defeating Democrat Mark Green.

In 2012, President Barack Obama easily won reelection, vanquishing Republican former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney 332 electoral votes to 206.

In 2014, the march toward same-sex marriage across the U.S. hit a roadblock when a federal appeals court upheld laws against the practice in four states: Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. (A divided U.S. Supreme Court overturned the laws in June 2015.)

In 2015, President Barack Obama rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, declaring it would undercut U.S. efforts to clinch a global climate change deal at the center of his environmental legacy.

In 2016, FBI Director James Comey abruptly announced that Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges related to newly discovered emails from her tenure at the State Department.

In 2018, Democrats seized the House majority in the midterm elections, but Republicans gained ground in the Senate and preserved key governorships.

In 2019, Democrats announced that they would launch public impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump.

the following week.

In 2020, the federal agency that oversees U.S. election security pushed back at unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud from President Donald Trump and others, saying that local election offices had detection measures that “make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots.”

In 2022, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar and Eminem were among those inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Los Angeles.Today’s Birthdays: Actor Sally Field is 78. Jazz musician Arturo Sandoval is 75. Author Michael Cunningham is 72. Journalist-author Maria Shriver is 69. Author Colson Whitehead is 55. Actor Ethan Hawke is 54. Actor Thandiwe (tan-DEE’-way) Newton is 52. Model-actor Rebecca Romijn (roh-MAYN’) is 52. Actor Taryn Manning is 46. Actor Emma Stone is 36. Comedian-actor Bowen Yang is 34. Olympic swimming gold medalist Bobby Finke is 25.