Richard Nixon elected president
Winning one of the closest elections in U.S. history, Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey
November 6, 1963
Laura Welch, the 17-year-old future first lady Laura Bush (wife of U.S. President George W. Bush), runs a stop sign striking a car and killing its sole occupant, 17-year-old Michael Douglass. Douglass was her close friend and classmate. Bush and her 17-year-old passenger were treated for minor injuries. She was not charged in the incident. In her book Spoken from the Heart, she says that the crash caused her to lose her faith “for many, many years.”
November 7, 1973
U.S. President Richard Nixon declares a national energy crisis in response to the Arab Oil Embargo. The previous month, OAPEC (Arab members of OPEC plus Egypt and Syria) declared an oil embargo on the U.S., Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, and the U.K. for supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo targeted the U.S. for resupplying the Israeli military during the war. By the time the embargo was lifted in March, the price of oil had risen nearly 400%, from US$3 per barrel to nearly $12.