November 2nd

1817: The Bank of Montreal, Canada's oldest chartered bank, opened in Montreal, Quebec.

1868: New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed nationally, the first country to do so.

1917: The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for Jewish settlement in Palestine.

1920: In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast was the results of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.

1936: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is established.

1959: "Twenty-One" game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

1959: After being struck in the face with a puck, Montreal goalkeeper Jacques Plante returns to play wearing a protective mask for the first time in professional hockey play.

1960: Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.

1963: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem is assassinated following a military coup.

1964: King Saud of Saudi Arabia was deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal.

1966: The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.

1967: US President Lyndon B. Johnson holds a secret meeting with a group of the nation's most prestigious leaders ("the Wise Men") and asks them to suggest ways to unite the American people behind the Vietnam war effort. They conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.

1976: In the U.S. presidential election Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford to become first candidate from deep south to win since the Civil War.

1983: Martin Luther King Day: At the White House Rose Garden, US President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

1984: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

1988: The Morris worm, the first internet distributed computer worms to gain significant mainstream media attention, was launched from MIT.

1991: Bartholomew I becomes the Patriarch of Constantinople, the "first among equals" in the Eastern Orthodox Communion.

2000: The first crew arrives at the International Space Station.

2001: Monsters, Inc. debuts with the best ticket sales ever for an animated film and the 6th best of all time.

November 3rd

1755: The colony of Massachusetts offers a bounty of 20 British pounds for the scalps of native american boys and girls under the age of 12.

1793: French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined.

1838: The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper was founded. It was then known as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.

1848: A greatly revised constitution, drafted by Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, severely limiting the powers of the Dutch monarchy, and strengthening the powers of the parliament and the ministers, was proclaimed (and still in effect today).

1868: Republican Ulysses S. Grant is elected to the first of his two presidential terms in a victory over Democrat Horatio Seymour.

1883: Self-described "Black Bart the Po-8" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.

1896: Republican William McKinley is elected president over Democrat William Jennings Bryan. 1903: With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia. US President Theodore Roosevelt wanted the United States to build the Panama Canal but this was blocked by Colombia.

1908: Republican William Howard Taft is elected over William Jennings Bryan, who was the Democratic candidate for the third and final time.

1911: A legend true is born as the first Chevrolet is manufacted to compete with Ford and its Model T.

1913: The USA introduces an income tax.

1918: As World War I draws to a close, Austria-Hungary enters an armistice with the Allies.

1918: Poland declares its independence from Russia.

1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to his second presidential term in a landslide victory over Alf Landon.

1942: The Battle of El Elamein ends with the German Afrika Corps under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel forced to retreat during the night.

1954: The first in the Godzilla series of films is released in Japan.

1955: The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.

1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik II carrying a dog named Laika. While every effort was made to get the dog successfully into space, there were no provisions for returning it to earth.

1964: Incumbent US President Lyndon B. Johnson defeats Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, Sr with over 60 percent of the popular vote.

1967: In the Vietnam War the Battle of Dak To begins. Around Dak To (located about 280 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border) heavy casualties are suffered on both sides (American forces narrowly won the battle on November 22).

1969: US President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies.

1970: Salvador Allende is inaugurated as president of Chile.

1971: The UNIX Programmer's Manual is published.

1973: NASA launches Mariner 10 towards Mercury. On March 29, 1974 it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet.

1975: Good Morning America premieres with co-anchors David Hartman and Nancy Dussaulton.

1978: Dominica gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1979: In Greensboro, North Carolina, five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot to death and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally.

1983: A Gasoline tanker explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing 2,000+ people.

1986: The Iran-Contra Affair explodes onto the world scene. The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

1988: Sri Lankan Tamil mercenaries tried to overthrow the Maldivian government. At President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's request, the Indian military suppressed the coup attempt within 24 hours.

1992: Democratic challenger Bill Clinton defeats incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot.

1995: At Arlington National Cemetery, US President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

1998: Former professional wrestler, Jesse Ventura is elected Governor of Minnesota.

2003: Panama celebrates its centennial.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

On this day in 1918, the British poet Wilfred Owen died, the victim of a German bullet, seven days before the end of the war. One more example of a poet who died long before he should have. Does anyone here have tears for him, as I do?



I would think that tears should be shed for all who die in war...not just the poets.

Ron

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

November 4th

1576: In the Eighty Years' War - Spain captures Antwerp, Belgium. After only three days the city was nearly destroyed.

1677: The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange.

1852: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour became the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become Italy.

1861: The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University.

1864: At The Battle of Johnsonville Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in war material.

1869: The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published.

1884: Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest to win the first of his non-consecutive presidential terms.

1889 - Menelek of Shoa obtains the allegiance of a large majority of the Ethiopian nobility, paving the way for him to be crowned emperor.

1918: World War I: Austria-Hungary surrenders to Italy.

1918: The German Revolution began when 40,000 sailors took over the port in Kiel.

1921: The Sturmabteilung or SA is officially formed by Adolf Hitler.

1922: In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1924: Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming elected as the first woman governor in the United States.

1928: Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot to death over a poker game.

1939: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.

1942: Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler to stand ground and fight to the last man, Reich Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat across the Sahara following the German defeat at Al Elamein.

1948: T.S. Eliot wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson to become the 34th president of the United States.

1956: Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded and nearly a quarter million leave the country.

1966: Two thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the Arno and Po rivers flood; 113 people die, 30,000 are rendered homeless, and countless rennaisance artworks and books are destroyed.

1970: Vietnamization - The United States turns control of the air base in the Mekong Delta over to South Vietnam.

1979: The Iran hostage crisis begins. Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the United States embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages, 63 of whom are American.

1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.

1986: News of the Iran-Contra scandal is first made public in the US.

1993: Jean Chrétien takes office as Prime Minister of Canada.

1993: A series of fires destroy over 1000 homes in southern California, causing between 500 million and $1 billion of damage. Half of the fires turn out to be arson.

1995: After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by an extreme right-wing Israeli assassin. He dies of his wounds later that night in a Tel Aviv Hospital.

2001: Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba destroying most of the island’s crops and thousands of homes.

2001: The Police Service of Northern Ireland is established.

2003: The largest ever solar flare, X28, is recorded.

November 5th

1556: Fifty miles north of Delhi, a Mogul Army defeats the Hindu forces of General Hemu to ensure Akbar the throne of India.

1605: The Gunpowder Plot: A plot led by Guy Fawkes to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building

1688: The Glorious Revolution begins when William of Orange lands at Brixham.

1838: The United States of Central America began to disintegrate when Honduras separates from the federation.

1862: In the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln removes George McClellan as commander of the Union Army.

1862: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of the rape and murder of white settlers, they are sentenced to hang.

1872: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time. She was later fined $100.

1895: George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

1911: After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica.

1912: Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft for the US presidency..

1913: The insane king Otto of Bavaria is deposed by his cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who assumed the title Ludwig III.

1914: The United Kingdom annexes Cyprus, and together with France declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

1916: The Kingdom of Poland is proclaimed by joined acts of the emperors of Germany and Austria.

1917: St. Tikhon of Moscow was elected the Patriarch of Moscow and of the Russian Orthodox Church.

1930: Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1935: Parker Brothers releases the board game Monopoly.

1937: Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people.

1940: Incumbent Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie and becomes the United States' first third-term president.

1962: The Kings Bay accident on Svalbard that forces the Norweigian government to retreat.

1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace to win the US presidency.

1970: United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years, only 24. (I’m sure the families of those 24 were pleased to hear this news.)

1979 - The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio.

1979: Iran’s Ayatollah Kohmeini declares the USA to be "the great satan". (And if anybody would be up close enough to know satan when he met him…it would be this idiot.)

1980: In South Africa, Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years in the Robben Island prison. He had been sentenced to life for treason against the white minority South Africa government.

1983: A gunman, fleeing from an airport security checkpoint where he was found to be carrying a briefcase full of explosives, is killed when he exchanges gunfire with police inside the terminal at Montreal’s Dorval airport.

1990: Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.

1992: In Detroit, Michigan black motorist Malice Green is beaten to death by policemen Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn during a struggle.

1994: A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease.

1994: Forty-five year old George Foreman becomes boxing's oldest heavyweight champion when he knocks out Michael Moorer.

1996: Democrat incumbent Bill Clinton defeats Republican challenger Bob Dole to win his second term as president.

1998: During the Lewinsky scandal - As part of the impeachment inquiry, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde sends a list of 81 questions to US President Bill Clinton.

1998: The journal Nature publishes a genetic study showing compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings' son Eston Hemings Jefferson.

1999: US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a preliminary ruling that softwaremaker Microsoft had "monopoly power".

November 6th

1528: Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot on Texas.

1789: Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

1844 - The Dominican Republic gains its independence from Haiti.

1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.

1861: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.

1869: In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the first official intercollegiate American football game is played.

1888: Democrat incumbent President Grover Cleveland wins the overall popular vote, but is voted out of office because he loses in the Electoral College to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison.

1900: Republican incumbent President William McKinley is reelected, defeating Democrat challenger William Jennings Bryan.

1917: World War I: The Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Ypres in Belgium.

1917: The SS Mont Blanc, carrying 200 tons of TNT, 61 tons of gun cotton, 35 tons of benzyl and 2300 tons of picric acid, catches fire and explodes in Halifax harbor after being struck by another ship. The explosion is the largest before the atomic age, killing 1900, injuring over 9000 and destroying 325 acres of the city.

1918 - The Second Polish Republic is proclaimed.

1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins the US presidency by a wide margin over Democrat Alfred E. Smith.

1935: Appearing before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" ( FM radio).

1939: The Hedda Hopper Show debuts with Hollywood gossip queen Hedda Hopper as host. The show ran until
1951 and made Hopper a powerful figure amongst the Hollywood elite.

1941: Soviet leader Josef Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. His speech is filled with propaganda lies. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers and a total Soviet victory was near.

1947: Meet The Press makes its television debut.

1956: Republican incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected, defeating Democrat challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest four years earlier.

1962: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.

1962: Richard Nixon loses the election for governor of California, proclaiming "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more."

1963: Following the November 1 coup and murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem, coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam.

1965: Freedom Flights begin: Cuba and the United States formally agree to start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971 250,000 Cubans take advantage of this program.

1971: The Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb ever, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. Protests give birth to the organization “Greenpeace”.

1975: The Green March begins. 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara.

1977: The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39 people.

1985: In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19th Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, eventually killing 115 people, 11 of them Supreme Court justices.

1985: "The Iran-Contra" scandal. The American press reveals that US President Ronald Reagan authorized the shipment of arms to Iran.

1989: Kitty Dukakis, the wife of presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, is hospitalized for drinking rubbing alcohol.

1996: The family of Eduardo Quihua Maquixtle from Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, including his four children, are stabbed to death by three men accusing them of witchcraft.

1998: Hugo Chavez is elected president of Venezuela.

1999: Australians vote to keep the British queen as their supreme head of state.

2001: Michael Bloomberg is elected mayor of New York City.

2001: David Trimble is re-elected prime minister of Northern Ireland.

2002: 12 people are killed in a fire on board a train headed for Vienna from Paris.

2002: Winona Ryder is found guilty of shoplifting after stealing items worth $5500 from a New York boutique.

November 7th


1665: The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is published for the first time.

1837: In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot to death by a mob while he is attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.

1848: Zachary Taylor is elected president in the first US presidential election held in every state on the same day.

1861: The Battle of Belmont takes place. In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.

1874: A cartoon by Thomas Nast, in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party

1885: In Craigellachie, British Columbia, the last spike is driven in on the Canadian Pacific Railway’s “Continental Line” (CPR Mainline) extending across all of Canada.

1893: In Colorado women are granted the right to vote.

1914: The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published.

1916: Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.

1917: In Russia the October Revolution begins. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, with the assistance of Bolshevik military leader and philosopher Leon Trotsky, leads his revolutionaries in a nearly bloodless coup d'état against the Provisional Government. Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show a date of October 25.

1917: The Third Battle of Gaza ends. British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.

1929: In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.

1932: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio for the first time.

1940: In Washington state “Galloping Girtie”, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapses in a windstorm a mere four months after the bridge's completion.

1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey to become the only U.S. president elected to a fourth term.

1956: In response to the Suez Crisis the United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for Great Britain, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Egypt immediately.

1957: In the Cold War, the US “Gaither Report” calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.

1962: Richard M. Nixon loses the California governor's race. In his concession speech, he states that this is his "last press conference" and that "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more".

1963: Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.

1967: US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

1972: Republican incumbent President Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern to retain the presidency.

1973: The United States Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.

1987: In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

1988: Boxing: In Las Vegas, Nevada, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard knocks out Donnie LaLonde.

1989: Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected black governor in the United States.

1989: In California convicted murder Richard Ramirez, "The Night Stalker", is sentenced to death.

1991: Basketball player Magic Johnson announces he tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, and that he was retiring.

1996: NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.

1996: A Nigerian Boeing 727 crashes into a lagoon 40 miles southeast of Lagos, Nigeria killing 143 passengers and crew.

2000: Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush defeats Democrat Vice President Al Gore for the presidency but the final outcome is not known for over a month because of disputed votes in Florida.

2000: Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.

2001: The super-sonic commercial aircraft Concorde resumes flying after a 15-month break.

2002: Iran bans advertising of US products. (By sheer coincidence they don’t ban the sale of Iranian products to the US…no hypocrisy here!)

November 8th

1847 - Born this day, Bram Stoker, Irish writer whose works include Dracula. Died in 1912.

1864 - As the Civil War raged, Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president.

1900 - Born this day, Margaret Mitchell, Pulitzer Prize-winning author. (Gone With the Wind). Died in 1949.

1923 - Adolf Hitler attempted to start a putsch in Munich's largest beer hall but was arrested two days later. He was trying to emulate Mussolini's 'March on Rome'. Hitler's failed coup became known as the 'Beer-Hall Putsch'.

1932 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected US president. With a landslide victory, and promising a "New Deal" for America, he was to remain in power until his death in 1945. He was re-elected three times.

1956 - Cecil B. DeMille's cinema classic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, premiered in New York. It later won an Oscar for Best Special Effects, and received a Best Picture nomination.

1960 - On this date in 1960, in one of the closest presidential elections in US history, Senator John F. Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wins 49.7-percent of the popular vote, surpassing by a fraction the 49.6-percent received by Vice President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican.

1965 - The daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives, starring MacDonald Carey as Dr. Tom Horton, premiered.

1970 - Placekicker Tom Dempsey of the New Orleans Saints kicked the longest field goal in NFL history at 63 yards. Dempsey's right kicking foot was artificial, and he had to wear a special shoe approved by the league. The kick was the last play of the game, and the Saints beat the Detroit Lions, 19-17. Dempsey also was missing his right hand.

1987 - 11 people were killed when a bomb ripped through a crowd gathered for a Remembrance Day service at a war memorial in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

1988 - Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush was elected the 41st president of the United States. He defeated Michael Dukakis.

November 8th

1519: Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Montezuma welcomes him with great pomp as would befit a returning god.

1520: The Stockholm Bloodbath begins. A successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces results in the execution several hundred.

1576: In the Eighty Years' War, The Pacification of Ghent - The States-General of the Netherlands meet and unite to oppose Spanish occupation.

1793: In Paris, the French Revolutionary government opens the Louvre to the public as a museum.

1837: The formation of Mount Holyoke Seminary, first US college founded for women.

1861: During the American Civil War, the "Trent Affair". The USS San Jacinto stops HMRMS Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the Britain and US.

1886: In Bristol, England my grandfather was born

1889: Montana is admitted as the 41st state of the Union.

1892: Grover Cleveland is elected over Benjamin Harrison and James B. Weaver to win the second of his non-consecutive presidential terms.

1895: While experimenting with electricity Wilhelm Röntgen discovers x-rays. (Wilhelm!!! You get down here for dinner right away, young man…and why are you glowing?)

1898: My grandmother was born.

1908: The first of its kind, the "all big gun" battleship HMS Dreadnought is commisioned by the Royal Navy.

1917: Bell Telephone Company runs its first ad for Army operators. There are over 7,000 applicants.

1929: The New York City Museum of Modern Art opens in the Hecksher Building.

1935: A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO), an organization charged with pushing the cause for industrial unionism.

1935: Fernand Bouisson becomes the Prime Minister of France. (That and $1.25 will get you a cup of java.)

1937: The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("the eternal Jew") opens in Munich.

1939: Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.

1939: In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes an assassination attempt while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.

1942: “Operation Torch”, US and British forces land in French North Africa.

1950: In The Korean War USAF Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying an F-86 Sabre shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet to jet dog fight in history.

1965: The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands.

1966: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first black elected to the United States Senate.

1973: The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay the $2,900,000 demanded.

1974: In Salt Lake City, Utah, Carol DaRonch narrowly escapes abduction by serial killer Ted Bundy.

1985: Allen Pascall, of Kansas City Mo., discovers and purchases for $65 the Winchester .44 lever action rifle (ser.# 1098)originally owned by "Buffalo Bill" Cody; at a makeshift gun show in Topeka, Kansas.

1991: Sonny Bono is elected to the United States Congress.

1991: Despite drug convictions and charges of corruption Marion Barry is reelected mayor of Washington, D.C.

1994: For the first time in 40 years the United States Republican Party takes control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections.

1997: US president Bill Clinton speaks at a dinner sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest gay rights organization.

1997: A newborn baby is found at a toilet in Walt Disney World's "Magic Kingdom". To this day the mother remains unknown.

2002: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".

November 9th

694: Hispano-Visigothic king Egica accuses Jews of aiding the invading Moors (Moslems) and sentences them to slavery.

1282: Pope Martin IV excommunicates King Peter III of Aragon.

1494: Family de' Medici become the rulers of Florence.

1520: Swedish King Christian II executes 600 nobles. (He was in a pissy mood that day.)

1541: Under orders of Henry VIII, Queen Catherine Howard is confined in London Tower.

1729: Spain, France and England sign the Treaty of Seville.

1851: Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

1862: In the American Civil War, Union General Ambrose Burnside assumes command of the Army of the Potomac, following General George McClellan's removal.

1872: The Great Boston Fire.

1887: The United States receives the rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1888: Jack the Ripper kills Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

1906: Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside of the United States when he leaves to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal.

1918: Germany is proclaimed a Republic. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates and chooses to live in exile in the Netherlands as a result of the German Revolution.

1918: Provisional National Council Minister-President Kurt Eisner declares Bavaria to be a republic.

1923: Beer Hall Putsch fails. In Munich, policeman and troops crush the first Nazi Party attempt to seize control of the German government.

1932: Riots erupt and street battles take place between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland - 12 dead, 60 injured.

1938: Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany's first large-scale act of physical anti-Jewish violence, begins. (The term Kristallnacht is a widely used euphemism for Reichspogromnacht.)

1953: Cambodia becomes independent from France.

1963: In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital.

1965: The Great Northeast Blackout of ‘65. Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 1/2 hours.

1965: Catholic Worker member Roger Allen LaPorte sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in protest of the Vietnam War.

1967: NASA launches the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy.

1970: The Supreme Court of the United States chooses to not hear a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.

1971: John List, an accountant from Westfield, New Jersey murders his mother, wife and three children. He then hides under a new identity for 18 years. (Oh Johnny! You’re SO brave!)

1989: In one of freedom’s greatest moments, the Berlin Wall comes down.

1993: Stari Most, the 1566 constructed "old bridge" in Bosnian Mostar collapses after several days of bombing.

1998: In the largest civil settlement in United States history, a federal judge approves a $1.03 billion settlement requiring dozens of brokerage houses to pay investors cheated in a price-fixing scheme on the NASDAQ.

2002: Television and film actor Merlin Santana is shot to death while sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car.

2003: A terrorist suicide attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 17 people, during the holy month of Ramadan.

2003: The (3 day) Paul Massey Blues Festival Marathon concludes, having raised $35,463,812 for cancer research.

November 10th

1444: At the Battle of Varna, the crusading forces of King Ladislaus III of Poland are crushed by the Turks under Sultan Murad II and Ladislaus is killed.

1674: In the Anglo-Dutch War, as provided in the Treaty of Westminster, Netherlands cedes New Netherlands to England.

1766: The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College. It is later renamed Rutgers University.

1775: During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress passes a resolution creating the Continental Marines (later renamed the United States Marine Corps) to serve as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy.

1871: Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika greeting him with the famous "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1865: Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged, and became the only American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes. (Quantrill aside.)

1919: The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The convention ended on November 12.

1926: Michinomiya Hirohito is crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan.

1938: Kate Smith sings Irving Berlin's God Bless America for the first time on her weekly radio show.

1940: Walt Disney begins serving as a informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI; his job is to report back information on Hollywood "subversives".

1942: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan‘s agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

1951: Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

1954: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery.

1969: National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.

1970: Soviet Lunar probe Lunokhod 1 is launched.

1971: In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine airplanes.

1972: Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham is hijacked and, at one point, threatened to be crashed into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.

1975: The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.

1975: United Nations Resolution 3379: The United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism. The resolution was repealed in December 1991.

1982: "The Wall". The Vietnam War Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC.

1989: After 35 years of communist rule in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov is replaced by former Prime Minister Petre Mladenov who changes the party's name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

1992: Le Banque du Montreal (The Bank of Montreal), Canada's oldest financial institution, is rocked by an embezzelment scandal involving over 17.5 million dollars.

1995: In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) are hanged by government forces.

1997: Telcoms WorldCom and MCI announce a US$37 billion merger. It is the largest corporate merger in US history.

1997: A jury in Fairfax, Virginia finds Mir Aimal Kasi guilty of the murder of two CIA employees in 1993.

1997: Seymore Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot" is published. It includes allegations of explicit photos of John F. Kennedy with various sex partners having been taken and brought to a Washington, D.C. gallery for framing by a Secret Service agent.

November 11th

1620: In what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, the Mayflower Compact is signed on the Mayflower, establishing the basic laws for the Plymouth Colony.

1648: France and the Netherlands agree to divide the island of Sint Maarten (Saint Martin).

1675: Guru Gobind Singh becomes the Tenth Guru of the Sikhs.

1831: In Jerusalem, Virginia Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

1839: The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.

1864: Sherman's March to the Sea - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.

1880: Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hung in Melbourne.

1889: Washington is admitted as the 42nd U.S. state.

1911: Many cities throughout the American midwest broke their record high and low temperatures on the same day as a strong cold front rolled through.

1918: Armistice Day. Hostilities end in World War I as Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France.

1918: Józef Piłsudski comes to Warsaw and assumes supreme military power in Poland.

1918: Emperor Charles I of Austria abdicates the throne.

1921: The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.

1930: Patent number US1781541 was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein Refrigerator.

1933: In South Dakota, the worst dust storm on record strips topsoil from desiccated farmlands.

1940: Battle of Taranto - The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, destroying the Italian fleet anchored at Taranto.

1940: The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.

1940: Armistice Day Blizzard. An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in U.S. Midwest.

1942: The Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, premieres.

1957: The loss of an American landmark as the original cable car barn at California and Hyde St. is demolished in San Francisco.

1965: Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) was declared independent by the white minority regime of Ian Smith.

1966: NASA launches spaceship Gemini 12.

1967: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.

1968: A second republic is declared in the Maldives.

1969: Jim Morrison of The Doors is arrested by the FBI after repeatedly prodding a stewardess.

1972: The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.

1975: Angola gains its independence from Portugal.

1975: The Australian constitutional crisis. Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is sacked by the Australian Governor General, Sir John Kerr.

1978: Maumoon Abdul Gayoom succeeds Ibrahim Nasir as the president of the Republic of Maldives. He has since been re-elected for six consecutive 5-year terms.

1986: Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form Unisys, becoming the second largest computer company in the world.

1988: In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of 60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente.

1992: The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

1997: Mary McAleese is elected the eighth President of Ireland.

2000: In Kaprun, Austria, 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel.

2004: New Zealand’s Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial in Wellington.

November 12th



764: Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days. (Now there’s a switch…Tibet invading and occupying China!)

1028: Future Byzantine empress Zoe marries Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of dying Constantine VIII

1439: Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

1912: The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

1918: Austria becomes a republic.

1927: Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.

1927: The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.

1929: Grace Kelly, movie star and later Princess of Monaco, was born.

1933: Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster; four of them turn out to be blank, while the last one is later proven to be a hoax.

1934: The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief.

1936: In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.

1938: Hermann Goering announces Nazi Germany plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that actually was first considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.

1941: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the invading German forces, freezing near the city.

1942: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, it will last for three days.

1944: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.

1946: A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.

1948: In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.

1956: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.

1960: NASA’s Mercury Program “Redstone 1” test launch fails at only 6.1 miles (10 km) altitude.


1969: During the Vietnam War, independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai Massacre.

1970: Over 200,000 die as cyclones and floods hit East Pakistan (Bangladesh).

1971: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.

1979: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.

1980: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn, returning photo images of the palnet to earth the likes of which had never been seen before.

1982: In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.

1990: Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.

1990: Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1991: The Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.

1996: A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349.

1997: Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

1998: Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.

2001: In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587 an Airbus A300 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.

2001: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.

2003: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.

November 13th

1775: Patriot revolutionary forces under Col. Ethan Allen capture Montreal from British General Guy Carleton.

1851: The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what will become Seattle, Washington.

1887: “Bloody Sunday” clashes in central London.

1909: The Ballinger-Pinchot scandal begins. Collier's magazine accuses US Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in the Alaskan coal fields.

1940: Walt Disney’s classic animated feature-length film Fantasia is released.

1941: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal torpedoed by U 81, resulting in its sinking on November 14.

1942: During “The Battle of Guadalcanal” torpedo bombers from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese heavy cruiser BB- Hiei.

1954 - Great Britain defeated France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators.

1960: Sammy Davis, Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt. At the time interracial marriage was still illegal in 31 of the 50 US states.

1961: Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB.

1969: Anti-war protesters in Washington, DC stage a symbolic "March Against Death."

1970: A 110-mph tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people; this is regarded as the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster.

1982: Korean boxer Kim Duk Koo is left in a coma after being knocked out by Rat Mancini during a match in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kim's subsequent death on November 17 led to significant changes in the rules governing the sport.

1982: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) is dedicated in Washington D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.

1985: The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buries Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.

1990: The first known World Wide Web page is written.

1994: Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.

2001: The World Trade Organization ends a four-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.

2001: “The War on Terrorism. In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts of terrorism on the United States.

2002: Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441. It fails to comply.

2002: The oil tanker Prestige sinks off the Galician coast causing a massive oil spill.

2003: Actress Kellie Waymire (best known for her recurring role on Star Trek: Enterprise as Crewman Elizabeth Cutler) died in Los Angeles, California at age 36 of cardiac arrhythmia.

November 14th

1380 - King Charles VI of France is crowned at the age of 12.

1792 - Captain George Vancouver and his crew are the first Englishmen to sail into San Francisco Bay.

1851 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick is first published.

1862 - President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia which led to the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1889 - Pioneer woman Journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to beat travel around the world in less than 80 days.

1896 – The power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation.

1908 - Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light.

1910 – The first airplane flight from deck of a ship takes place at Norfolk, Virginia.

1918 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.

1919 - The Red Army captures Omsk, Siberia.

1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom.

1927 – 28 workers die when the worlds largest gas tank, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, explodes.

1935 - Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims the Philippines a free commonwealth.

1935 - Nazi's deprive German Jews of their citizenship.

1939 – An oil refinery fire kills 500 and destroys virtually all of Lagunillas, Venezuela.

1940 - In a massive air raid, German Luftwaffe bombers destroy nearly all of historic Coventry, England.

1941 - The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is sunk due to torpedo damage from U-81 sustained on November 13.

1942 – The last Vichy-French troops in Algeria surrender to Allied forces.

1956 – The Hungarian revolt is put down, in typical bloody fashion, by the Red Army.

1960 - Belgium threatens to leave UN due to criticism on it's Congo-policy. (AWWWW! Anybody got a crying towel for the poor Belgians?)

1965 – The US military sends 90,000 troops to Vietnam.

1965 – The Battle of the Ia Drang begins. It is the first major engagement between American army regulars and North Vietnamese forces.

1969 - NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

1970 - Southern Airways DC-9 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virgina killing all 75 aboard.

1971 – NASA’s Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.

1973 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.

1975 - Spain abandons the Western Sahara.

1979 - US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive Order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States and US banks in response to the Tehran hostage crisis.

1982 - Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released from prison after 11 months of internment near the Soviet border.

1990 - Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the border at the Oder-Neisse line.

1991 - American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.

1991 - Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after 13 years of exile.

1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and run most government offices with skeleton staff.

1998 - Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra were married in Las Vegas, Nevada. (What were you thinking, Carmen?)

2000 - Netscape Navigator version 6.0 is launched following two years of open source development.

2001 - Northern Alliance fighters take over the Afghanistan capital of Kabul.

2002 - Argentina defaults on a (US) $805 million payment to the World Bank.

2002 - The US House of Representatives votes not to create an independent commission to investigate the September 11th attacks.

2003 - Discovery of 90377 Sedna, a cold planetoid about 2/3 the size of Pluto.

November 15th

655 - Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.

1777 - After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

1806 - Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is later named Pikes Peak.

1854 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the needed royal concession by Said.
1864 - American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman orders Atlanta, Georgia burned and starts “Sherman's March to the Sea.”

1889 - Brazil is declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca when Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.

1920 - In Geneva, the first assembly of the League of Nations is held.

1926 - The NBC radio network opens its doors for business with 24 stations.

1939 - In Washington, DC, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

1940 - The Warsaw Ghetto, with a population of 400,000 Jews, is sealed off from the outside world by the Nazis.

1941 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.

1942 -The Battle of Guadalcanal ends.

1943 - German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies were to be put "on the same level as Jews” and placed in concentration camps.

1948 - Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeds William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada. King had the longest combined time (3 terms, 22 years in total) as Prime Minister in British Commonwealth history.

1956 - Love Me Tender, the first film starring Elvis Presley, opens.

1960 – The first Polaris missile is test launched.

1966 - Gemini program: Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1969 - The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.

1969 - In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War.

1971 - Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1976 - René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.

1978 - A chartered DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.

1979 - A package from the Unabomber explodes in the mail on its way to Washington.

1985 - A research assistant is injured as a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.

1988 - In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle "Buran" is launched on her first and last space flight.

1988 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.

1990 - Producers acknowledge that Milli Vanilli, who won the 1990 "Best Artist" Grammy Award, did not, themselves, sing on their album.

2000 - A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people.

2001 - Halo: Combat Evolved, a now legendary Microsoft XBox video game, is released in North America.

2002 - Hu Jintao becomes general secretary of the Communist Party of China.

November 16, 2004


On this date:

• In 1776, British troops captured Fort Washington during the American Revolution.

• In 1864, Union Gen. William T. Sherman and his troops began their "March to the Sea" during the Civil War.


• In 1933, the United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations.

• In 1959, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway.

• In 1961, House Speaker Samuel T. Rayburn died in Bonham, Texas, having served as speaker since 1940 except for two terms.

• In 1973, Skylab III, carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. . . . President Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law.

• In 1981, actor William Holden was found dead in his apartment in Santa Monica, Calif.; he was 63.

• In 1982, an agreement was announced in the 57th day of a strike by National Football League players.

• In 2003, Serbians failed for the third time in a year to elect a president because of low voter turnout.

November 16th

534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.

1384 - Hedwig is crowned King of Poland, even though she is a woman.

1532 - Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Incan Emperor Atahualpa and his nobles.

1821 - Missouri trader William Becknell is the first person to arrive in Santa Fe, New Mexico over the route that was to become known as “The Santa Fe Trail”.

1849 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his execution is canceled at the last minute.

1857 - The relief of Lucknow. The most Victoria Crosses won in a single day (24).

1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Campbell Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.

1885 – Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", is executed for high treason.

1904 - John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube.

1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.

1914 - The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.

1940 - In response to the German Luftwaffe leveling Coventry two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg into rubble.

1940 - Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1940 - New York City's "Mad Bomber" places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.

1943 - American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vermork, Norway.

1945 - Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.

1957 - Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim Bernice Worden.

1965 - Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

1969 - The first episode of The Clangers is broadcast by the BBC.

1977 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind opens in theaters.

1979 - The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.

1981 - Luke and Laura marry on General Hospital; it is the highest-rated hour in daytime television history.

1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that the Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence.

1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister.

1996 - Mother Teresa receives honorary US citizenship.

1997 - After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.

2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting US President to visit Vietnam.

2001 - The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is released, becoming the second highest grossing film of all time.

November 17th

1292 - (Julian calendar) John Balliol becomes King of Scotland.

1558 - The Elizabethan era begins. Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.

1603 - English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.

1796 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Arcole - French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.

1800 - The United States Capitol building in Washington, DC holds its first session of Congress.

1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. The Palmer Peninsula was later named after him.

1839 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.

1863 – The Siege of Knoxville begins - Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege. The two week long siege and one attack was unsuccessful.

1856 - On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.

1869 - In Egypt the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

1871 - The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.

1903 - The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority"). Later the Mensheviks became the majority party, meaning that the Mensheviks became the bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks became the mensheviks. (Only in Russia, huh?)

1917 - Lenin defends a "temporary" removal of freedom of the press.

1922 - Deposed Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI is exiled to Italy.

1936 - After the first show Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy become an overnight success on radio.

1941 - The United States ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. His cable was ignored.

1959 - De Beers of South Africa announces the synthetic diamond.

1962 - In Washington, DC, US President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport.

1967 - Acting on optimistic reports he was given on November 13th, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells his nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." He had to eat his words two months later with the Tet Offensive.

1968 - NBC preempts the final 1:05 minutes of a very close NFL football match between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders with Heidi, prompting an outrage amongst sport fans.

1969 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

1970 - Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.

1970 - Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.

1970 - Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

1973 - Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."

1973 – A student uprising takes place against the military regime in Athens, Greece.

1979 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

1983 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is founded.

1989 - The Velvet Revolution begins. In Czechoslovakia a peaceful student demonstration in Prague is severely beaten back by the communist riot police. This sparked a revolution aimed at overthrowing the communist government, which succeeded on December 29.

1990 - Fugendake, in Mt. Unzen, Nagasaki prefecture, Japan became active again and erupted.

1993 - Annie Proulx wins the National Book Award for her novel The Shipping News.

1995 - Public Radio International's radio program This American Life broadcasts its first episode, "New Beginnings".

1997 - In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut. Police killed the assailants.

2000 - Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru.

2003 - Arnold Schwarzenegger is inaugurated Governor of California.

November 18th

1095 - The Council of Clermont began. The council was called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land.

1307 - According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head.

1421 - A seawall at the Zuider Zee dike breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people in the Netherlands.

1477 - William Caxton produces "Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres", the first English book printed on a printing press.

1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated

1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.

1883 - American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.

1903 - The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the Americans exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.

1905 - Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway.

1909 - Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of dictator Jose Santos Zelaya.

1916 - The First Battle of the Somme ends. In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.

1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.

1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize”.

1928 - Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the second appearances of Cartoon stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

1929 –The Grand Banks Earthquake. Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a 7.2 Richter magnitude earthquake centered beneath the ocean floor at the Grand Banks, breaks 12 submerged transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.

1938 - Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.

1951 - Former Cubs 1st baseman and the future TV star of “The Rifleman”, Chuck Connors is the first player to oppose the major league draft.

1955 – Bell’s X-2 rocket plane makes its first powered flight.

1959 - William Wyler's film Ben-Hur premieres at Loew's Theater in New York City.

1964 – J. Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King as "a most notorious liar". (And Hoover should know one when he hears one, for if ever there was a notorious, morally bankrupt liar…!)

1967 – The British government devalues the pound from a US equivalent of $2.80 to $2.40.

1970 - US President Richard Nixon asks the United States Congress for $155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government. $85 million was for military assistance in order to help prevent the overthrow of the government of Premier Lon Nol by the Khmer Rouge and North Vietnam.

1971 - Hard rock band Led Zeppelin release an untitled album, often dubbed "Led Zeppelin IV," featuring "Rock & Roll," "Stairway to Heaven" and other classic songs.

1978 – The Jonestown mass suicide/murder. In Jonestown, Guyana Jim Jones leads his People's Temple in a mass murder-suicide; 913 die, including 276 children.

1985 - The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson, was first published.

1987 - The United States Congress issues its final report on the Iran-Contra affair, stating that US President Ronald Reagan bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law".

1987 - In London 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station, King's Cross.

1988 - US President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.

1991 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.

1993 - In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.

1996 - World-renowned bird expert Tony Silva is sentenced to seven years in prison without parole for leading an illegal parrot smuggling ring.

1998 - Alice McDermott wins the National Book Award with her novel Charming Billy.

1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 28 injured at Texas A&M University when a huge bonfire under construction collapses.

1999 - In Jasper, Texas, 24-year old Shawn Allen Berry is sentenced to life in prison, becoming the third person convicted in the racially motivated dragging death of James Byrd, Jr.

2002 - The Iraqi disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.