THIS DAY: Some important parts of history are noted for Nov. 7 through the years, including the elephant becoming the mascot of the Grand Old Party.

On this day in 1874, the Republican party of the U.S. was first symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly.

From History.com: “Titled ‘The Third-Term Panic,’ Nast’s drawing mocked the New York Herald, which had been critical of President Ulysses Grant’s rumored bid for a third term, and portrayed various interest groups as animals, including an elephant labeled ‘the Republican vote,’ which was shown standing at the edge of a pit. Nast employed the elephant to represent Republicans in additional cartoons during the 1870s, and by 1880 other cartoonists were using the creature to symbolize the party.”

Interestingly, Nast popularized the donkey symbol for the Democratic party, too.

“The origins of the Democratic donkey can be traced to the 1828 presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. During that race, opponents of Jackson called him a jackass. However, rather than rejecting the label, Jackson, a hero of the War of 1812 who later served in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, was amused by it and included an image of the animal in his campaign posters. Jackson went on to defeat incumbent John Quincy Adams and serve as America’s first Democratic president. In the 1870s, influential political cartoonist Thomas Nast helped popularize the donkey as a symbol for the entire Democratic Party.”

Nast is also famous for creating another well-known image: Santa Claus.