Today in HistoryToday is Wednesday, Nov. 8, the 312th day of 2006. There are 53 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1889, Montana became the 41st state.

In 1933, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration, designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

In 1966, Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts became the first black to be elected to the US Senate by popular vote.

In 1986, former Soviet official Vyacheslav M. Molotov, whose name became attached to the incendiary bottle bomb known as a “Molotov Cocktail,” died at age 96.

In 2001, US jets struck Taliban targets across northern Afghanistan and fierce fighting was reported around the Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.” — Carson McCullers, American author (1917-1967).