Not since 1948, when a loaf of white bread cost 8 cents and the year's social event was the wedding of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, has there been a Democratic president and a Republican Congress.
Tuesday's election was "a revolution that happened without any bullets," says James Thurber, director of congressional studies at American University.
But whether the Democratic disaster is a small bump on the political landscape or the emergence of a new GOP majority won't be clear until 1996.
Either way, it was an election for reaching back in the political record books:
-- Not in 48 years have Republicans done so well - gaining 52 House seats, eight senators and 11 governorships.
-- Not one Republican incumbent lost a House, Senate or governor's race.
-- Not since 1968 has the GOP held governorships in seven of the eight largest states.
But Republican hopes have risen and fallen before:
In 1948, two years after a similar GOP landslide, President Truman campaigned against a "do-nothing Republican Congress," sweeping Democrats back in power.
And in 1954, two years after President Eisenhower's victory, Republicans lost the House to Democrats who have held it since - until Tuesday.
"The world turned upside down," says William Connelly Jr., political scientist at Washington and Lee University and co-author of Congress' Permanent Minority? "The longest streak of party dominance in American history has ended."
Connelly sees Tuesday as the "second wave" in a historic realignment that began with Reagan's landslide of 1980, paused for Clinton's 1992 win (which he blames on George Bush), and could hit with full force in 1996 - if Republicans win the White House and bigger majorities in Congress.
But Stanford University historian David Kennedy recalls the late 19th century:
Then, neither party controlled the White House or Congress for very long, producing a "chronic long-term paralysis of the federal government." The nation was going through wrenching economic changes, shifting from an agrarian to industrial society.
"Parallels," he says, "could be drawn to today . . . from the internationalization of the economy to the seeming permanence of poverty."
What happened Tuesday?
-- "Clinton articulated the question that drove the election of '94: `Do you want Reaganism or do you want Clintonism?' And the country chose," Connelly says.
Driven by the budget deficit and "intrusive government, voters are finally coming to a recognition that they can't have their cake and eat it too."
"They've started questioning pork-barrel projects and saw their congressman as part of the problem, not the solution."
-- Democratic analyst Vic Fingerhut, a former adviser to Hubert Humphrey, offers a different history:
Ever since the New Deal 60 years ago, Democrats have been seen "as the party of the ordinary people and Republicans as the party of the rich."
That was true, even while Republicans held the White House, he says.
"But now, most people think neither party protects their interests. And that's a tremendous gain for Republicans. . . . It neutralizes the Democratic advantage that goes all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt."
As Fingerhut sees it, Democrats campaigned this year on Republican issues - "saying they can cut taxes too and electrocute prisoners faster. And no one believed them."
He warns: "If Democrats don't heed what happened, Republicans could become the permanent majority they've talked about for decades."
-- Richard Wade, historian at the City College of New York, sees the election less as a party victory than "voters expressing their independence."
In his view, "Parties don't matter anymore. It could just as well swing back the other way in two years."
Voters, caught in a changing economy, "have a deep sense of insecurity about their jobs, even if they're successful. The largest industry now is temps. So politicians are temps too, and they're treated that way."
Less experience in new House The U.S. House begins 104th session in January with 3,323 years of combined experience, down sharply from the previous two sessions. Years in office at start of term(1):
