November 6: On this date in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment, making slavery illegal, and sponsored by Missouri Senator John Brooks Henderson (who was never elected to office again) was ratified.

November 5: Elliott Cook Carter, Jr., a composer who was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, died on this date in 2012.

November 3: Actress Laura Keene, who was on stage at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on the evening of April 14, 1865, and recognized fellow actor John Wilkes Booth as he ran past her after shooting President Abraham Lincoln, died on this date in 1873.

November 3: Civil War veteran Richard Auchmuty died on this date in 1893 and was soon reunited in his grave at Green-Wood with his leg that was buried earlier that year.

November 2: On this date in 1887, Abram Hewitt and Henry George both got more votes than Theodore Roosevelt in the New York City mayoral election.

November 1: Anna Leah Fox Underhill, who promoted her two younger sisters as leading lights of Spiritualism, died on this date in 1890.

October 31: Josephine Louise Newcomb, who funded Newcomb College at Tulane University in memory of her daughter, was born on this date in 1816.

October 30: Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, astronomer turned Union general, whose nickname was “Old Stars,” died on this date, early in the Civil War, in 1862.