At 10:58 p.m. a bomb exploded on the second floor of the United States Capitol, in an alcove just adjacent to the Senate Chamber. Although the Senate had enjoyed a busy day of operation, it had adjourned at 7:00 p.m. A reception being held in a nearby room had dispersed around 9:30 p.m., and fortunately, senators, staff, and guests had left the Capitol about an hour before the bomb exploded. Although the bomb rocked the building and caused extensive damage to several works of art, no one was injured. Seven suspects were indicted in 1988. Two years later, three women were convicted for this act of terrorism.
North Dakota Republican William Langer died. He was one of the 20th century's most colorful United States senators. In 1959, he was described as "tempestuous," "swashbuckling," and "thoroughly unpredictable in his actions and attitudes." He won election to the Senate in 1940, and despite a year-long investigation into his financial misconduct as governor of North Dakota by the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which recommended that Langer be denied his seat, his seating was upheld and he went on to win three more Senate terms. A strict isolationist, Langer was one of only two senators to vote against the United Nations charter in 1945.
On November 10, 1999, an all-female team of senators and staff, from the presiding officer to the party floor assistant, opened the Senate’s floor proceedings for the first time in the history of the institution. To recognize the growing contributions and importance of women, Majority Leader Trent Lott and Republican Party Secretary Elizabeth Letchworth organized this historic event in 1999. “Since the end of World War II, there has been a steady increase in the number of women serving this institution,” Lott explained. “This is a historic day and a long time in coming—too long. I am proud it happened under my watch.”
Hattie Caraway was appointed to the Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Thaddeus Caraway. The second woman to serve in the Senate, Caraway became the first woman elected to the Senate in January of 1932, easily winning a special election to fill out the remainder of her husband's term. With the help of controversial Louisiana senator Huey P. Long, Caraway won a landslide victory in her 1932 bid for a full term. Reelected in 1938, she served until 1945, breaking many gender barriers in the Senate, including becoming the first woman to chair a Senate committee in 1933 and the first woman to preside over the Senate in 1943.
