Flashback

Today is Saturday, Nov. 5, the 309th day of 2005. There are 56 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history: The “Gunpowder Plot” failed as Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament.

Ten years ago: An endless procession of Israelis filed past the simple wooden coffin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who’d been assassinated the night before.

Five years ago: Abdelkhader El Mouaziz won the New York City Marathon, finishing in 2:10:09 and becoming the first Moroccan champion. Ludmila Petrova became the first Russian champion, winning the women’s division in 2:25:45. Jimmie Davis, Louisiana’s “singing governor,” died in Baton Rouge; he was believed to be 101.

One year ago: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill confirming his country’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In a surprise reversal, the Chilean army for the first time assumed institutional responsibility for widespread human rights violations during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

On this date:

In 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote for President Grant. (She never paid the fine.)

In 1895, George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

In 1912, Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.

In 1940, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office as he defeated Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.

In 1944, British official Lord Moyne was assassinated in Cairo, Egypt, by the Zionist Stern gang.

In 1946, Republicans captured control of both the Senate and the House in midterm elections.

In 1968, Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.

In 1985, Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon Church, died at age 90; he was succeeded by Ezra Taft Benson.

In 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Brooklyn-born Israeli extremist, was shot to death at a New York hotel. (Egyptian native El Sayyed Nosair was convicted of the slaying in federal court.)

In 1996, voters returned President Clinton to the White House for a second term but kept Congress in Republican control.