There have been two times in American history when news organizations incorrectly and prematurely called the winner of the presidential elections. Most recently this occurred in 2000, when national television news networks broadcast the results of the voting in Florida, the state whose votes would determine the presidency, first for Al Gore, and then for George W. Bush. The more famous case happened in an election sixty years earlier, when the Chicago Tribune, constrained by a labor strike, was forced to make a call on the election before all the results were in.

On this day, November 2, in 1948, nearing the cutoff time for printing, the Chicago Tribune executive decided to run a story calling the election for Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman. The polls had not yet all closed, but their linotype machines were manned by inexperienced workers, replacing the linotype regulars, and making the story would take several hours longer than usual.

Conventional wisdom seemingly favored Dewey, as did Tribune veteran political analyst Arthur Sears Henning, predictor of the past four elections. Early returns seemed to back them up, and Truman went to bed early that evening trailing in the polls. But he woke up a winner, and on his victory lap the following day was presented with the famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” copy of the Tribune. Truman posed with the paper for the now iconic photo, remarking “This one is for the books.”