Wednesday History: November 4

Today, Nov. 4, in history -- King Tut's tomb was found, hostages taken and senator elected president, according to history.com.

British archaeologist Howard Carter arrived in Egypt in 1891. After World War I near the Valley of the Kings, he and his team, including Lord Carnarvon, searched for King Tutankhamen tomb and found its entrance in 1922 on this date. They entered "King Tut's Tomb" on Nov. 26.

It was a four-room tomb with thousands of items that included three coffins. One solid gold coffin they found mummified King Tut after 3,000 years. The treasures are in the Cairo Museum.

Shah, Iran's Provincial leader, entered the U.S. for medical treatment, angering followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of fundamentalist revolutionaries. Students invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding 90 hostages and threatening to kill them if rescues were attempted.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter then put an embargo on Iranian oil and this elevated the energy crisis already in place. Americans started to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Khomeini began controlling the country. He released some hostages, leaving 52. Carter attempted a rescue in 1980. However, no hostages were rescued and eight U.S. military personnel were killed.

Carter lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan. On his inauguration in January, the U.S. freed frozen Iranian assets with a promise of financial aid as part of negotiations. On that same day after 444 days, hostages were flown to West Germany on an Algerian airliner and met by Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, graduated from Harvard and elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, 1998 and in 2000. In 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for president. In 2008, nearly 70 million people voted for 47-year-old Obama and about 60 million people voted for his opponent, 72-year-old Arizona Sen. John McCain. Obama had 365 electoral votes with 53 percent of the popular votes to McCain's 173 electoral votes and 45 percent of the popular votes.

Barack Obama became the 44th U.S. president, and is the nation's first black president. Also, he was only the second to be a sitting senator elected to the White House after John Kennedy in 1960.

He was inaugurated in January 2009. President Barack Obama was elected to a second term in 2012.