October 24th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, microbiologist.

1799 ~ Death of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Composer.

1929 ~ "Black Thursday" crash of the New York Stock Exchange.

1935 ~ Italy invaded Ethiopia.

1945 ~ Founding of the United Nations.

1948 ~ Death of Franz Lehár, Composer.

1956 ~ Soviet Union invaded Hungary.

1980 ~ Government of Poland legalized Solidarity trade union.

1991 ~ Death of Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek series.

2003 ~ Concorde made its last commercial flight, bringing the first era of civil supersonic transport to a close.

October 25th
 

1400 ~ Death of Geoffrey Chaucer, Poet.

1825 ~ Birthday of Johann Strauss II, Composer.

1838 ~ Birthday of Georges Bizet, Composer.

1854 ~ Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).

1881 ~ Birthday of Pablo Picasso, Painter & Sculptor.

1900 ~ United Kingdom annexed the Transvaal.

1924 ~ First appearance of "Little Orphan Annie”

1936 ~ Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1971 ~ United Nations seats the People's Republic of China and expels the Republic of China.

1993 ~ Death of Vincent Price, Actor.

Charge of the Light Brigade
 

For those who may be interested, here are a couple of links about this amazing event.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3944699.stm

You can listen and follow along to Lord Tennyson as he reads his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/tennyson.shtml

October 26th
 

1685 ~ Birthday of Domenico Scarlatti, Composer.

1759 ~ Birthday of Georges Jacques Danton, leader of the French Revolution.

1881 ~ The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1905 ~ Norway became independent from Sweden.

1918 ~ Erich von Ludendorff is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.

1947 ~ The Maharaja of Kashmir agreed to allow his kingdom to join India.

1972 ~ Death of Igor Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer.

1994 ~ Announcement of Andrew Wiles correct proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

1999 ~ Britain's House of Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.

2001 ~ The United States passed the controversial USA Patriot Act into law.

October 27th
 

1466 ~ Birthday of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Dutch writer and philosopher, and one of the more civilized people in recorded history.

1728 ~ Birthday of James Cook, British naval captain and explorer.

1782 ~ Birthday of Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer

1811 ~ Birthday of Isaac Singer, inventor of the sewing machine

1914 ~ Birthday of Dylan Thomas, British poet and writer. If you’ve never heard Richard Burton read “Under Milk Wood”, or “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, you have a treat in store for you!

1946 ~ First commercially-sponsored television program airs (Geographically Speaking, sponsored by Bristol-Myers).

1968 ~ Death of Lise Meitner, German physicist.

1990 ~ Death of Xavier Cugat, musician.

1991 ~ Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union.

2002 ~ Trades unionist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected as President of Brazil.

October 28th
 

1492 ~ Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba.

1704 ~ Death of John Locke, Philosopher.

1879 ~ Birthday of E.M. Forster, Novelist.

1886 ~ In New York Harbor, US President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty.

1903 ~ Birthday of Evelyn Waugh, Novelist.

1914 ~ Birthday of Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first effective polio vaccine.

1918 ~ Czechoslovakia gained its independence from Austria-Hungary.

1940 ~ World War II: Italy invaded Greece.

1955 ~ Birthday of Bill Gates, co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft.

1965 ~ In St. Louis, Missouri, the 630-foot-tall steel Gateway Arch was completed.

October 29th
 

1675 ~ Leibniz made the first use of the long s, ∫, for integral.

1787 ~ Mozart's opera Don Giovanni received its first performance in Prague.

1863 ~ Sixteen countries meeting in Geneva agreed to form the International Red Cross.

1879 ~ Birthday of Leon Trotsky - Russian revolutionary.

1897 ~ Birthday of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda.

1911 ~ Death of Joseph Pulitzer, newspaper publisher and journalist.

1923 ~ The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. (founded 1281)

1942 ~ Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures held a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.

1956 ~ Suez Crisis begins: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.

1957 ~ Death of Louis B. Mayer, film producer. The second “M” in “MGM”.

October 30th
 

1470 ~ Henry VI of England returned to the throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle.

1831 ~ Escaped slave Nat Turner was captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.

1885 ~ Birthday of Ezra Pound, Poet.

1938 ~ Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's “The War of the Worlds”, causing a panic.

1939 ~ Birthday of Grace Slick, singer with Jefferson Airplane.

1961 ~ The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb "Tsar Bomba" over Novaya Zemlya; with a yield greater than 50 megatons, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated.

1968 ~ The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, released.

1975 ~ Prince Juan Carlos becomes King of Spain after dictator Francisco Franco concedes that he is too ill to govern.

1995 ~ Quebec separatists narrowly lost a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).

1997 ~ British au pair Louise Woodward found guilty of the baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

October 31st
 

1517 ~ Protestant Reformation got under way: Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. For those who would like a unique insight to this happening, click here .

1795 ~ Birthday of John Keats, Poet.

1892 ~ Arthur Conan Doyle published “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”.

1926 ~ Death of Harry Houdini, Magician.

1940 ~ World War II: Battle of Britain ended.

1950 ~ Birthday of John Candy, Comedian & Actor.

1954 ~ Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.

1956 ~ Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

1984 ~ Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).

1987 ~ Death of Joseph Campbell, Author and expert on mythology.

November 1st
 

1512 ~ The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, was exhibited to the public for the first time.

1604 ~ At Whitehall Palace in London, the William Shakespeare tragedy “Othello” was presented for the first time.

1611 ~ At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's romantic comedy “The Tempest” was presented for the first time.

1755 ~ Lisbon earthquake: In Portugal, Lisbon was destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty and ninety thousand people.

1892 ~ Birthday of Alexander Alekhine, World Chess Champion.

1923 ~ Birthday of Gordon R. Dickson, Science Fiction author.

1952 ~ The United States successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok island in the Bikini atoll.

1963 ~ The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opened.

1972 ~ Death of Ezra Pound, Poet.


Holidays
All Saints Day. Holiday in Spain, Italy and Croatia.
World Vegan Day

November 2nd
 

1739 ~ Birthday of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Composer.

1755 ~ Birthday of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

1815 ~ Birthday of George Boole, Mathematician & Philosopher.

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

1920 ~ KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania started broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast was the results of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.

1930 ~ Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1950 ~ Death of George Bernard Shaw, Playwright.

1960 ~ Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity in the “Lady Chatterley's Lover” case.

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

2004 ~ U.S. Presidential Election between Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush.

November 3rd
 

1801 ~ Birthday of Vincenzo Bellini, Italian opera composer.

1816 ~ Birthday of Jubal Early, Confederate General.

1838 ~ The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper was founded.

1903 ~ Panama proclaimed itself independent from Colombia.

1918 ~ Poland declared its independence from Russia.

1954 ~ The first in the Godzilla series of films was released in Japan.

1954 ~ Death of Henri Matisse, French artist.

1957 ~ Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter space - a dog named Laika.

1986 ~ Iran-Contra Affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reported that the United States had been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

1993 ~ Death of Leon Theremin, Russian inventor.

November 4th
 

1847 ~ Death of Felix Mendelssohn, German composer.

1869 ~ The first issue of scientific journal Nature was published.

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

1924 ~ Death of Gabriel Fauré, French composer.

1942 ~ World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein - Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel led his forces on a five-month retreat.

1946 ~ Birthday of Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States.

1948 ~ T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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

1979 ~ Iran hostage crisis began: Iranian radicals, mostly students, invaded the United States embassy in Tehran and took 90 hostages (63 of whom are American).

1995 ~ The Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

November 5th
 

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

1872 ~ Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony voted for the first time (she was later fined $100).

1892 ~ Birthday of J. B. S. Haldane, Geneticist.

1914 ~ United Kingdom annexed Cyprus, and with France declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

1930 ~ Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1977 ~ Death of Guy Lombardo, Conductor.

1979 ~ Death of Al Capp, Cartoonist.

1989 ~ Death of Vladimir Horowitz, Pianist.

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

1999 ~ Microsoft antitrust case: US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a preliminary ruling that softwaremaker Microsoft had "monopoly power".

November 6th
 

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

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

1854 ~ Birthday of John Philip Sousa, Composer.

1861 ~ Birthday of James Naismith, inventor of basketball.

1861 ~ Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.

1893 ~ Death of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1913 ~ Mahatma Gandhi was arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

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

1999 ~ Australians voted to keep the British queen as their head of state.

2000 ~ Death of L. Sprague De Camp, Science Fiction writer.

November 7th
 

1665 ~ The London Gazette, the oldest surviving English language journal, was first published.

1867 ~ Birthday of Marie Curie, Chemist, Physicist, recipient of two Nobel Prizes.

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

1886 ~ Birthday of Aron Nimzowitsch, chess grandmaster and popularizer of hypermodernism in chess.

1913 ~ Birthday of Albert Camus, writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature.

1917 ~ Russian Revolution began: In Russia, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, with the assistance of Bolshevik military leader and philosopher Leon Trotsky, led his revolutionaries in a nearly bloodless coup d'état against the Provisional Government.

1922 ~ Birthday of Al Hirt, Musician.

1926 ~ Birthday of Dame Joan Sutherland, Opera singer.

1940 ~ In Washington, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in a windstorm, four months after the bridge's completion..

1980 ~ Death of Steve McQueen, Actor.

November 8th
 

1519 ~ Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomed him with great pomp as would befit a returning god.

1900 ~ Death of John Milton, English poet.

1793 ~ In Paris, the French Revolutionary government opened the Louvre to the public as a museum.

1836 ~ Birthday of Milton Bradley, manufacturer, lithographer, game maker.

1847 ~ Birthday of Bram Stoker, Irish novelist.

1884 ~ Birthday of Hermann Rorschach, psychiatrist.

1895 ~ While experimenting with electricity Wilhelm Röntgen discovered x-rays.

1942 ~ World War II: Operation Torch - United States and United Kingdom forces landed in French North Africa.

1986 ~ Death of Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician.

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

November 9th
 

1541 ~ Queen Catherine Howard confined in London Tower.

1731 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Banneker, American scientist.

1888 ~ Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

1918 ~ Germany is proclaimed a Republic. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicated and choose to live in exile in the Netherlands as a result of the German Revolution.

1934 ~ Birthday of Carl Sagan, American Astronomer & Writer.

1938 ~ Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany's first large-scale act of physical anti-Jewish violence, began.

1953 ~ Death of Dylan Thomas, British poet and author

1965 ~ Several U.S. states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 1/2 hours.

1970 ~ Death of Charles de Gaulle, French general and politician.

1989 ~ Cold War: Communist-controlled East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall and allowed its citizens to freely travel to West Germany for the first time since 1961.

November 10th
 

1483 ~ Birthday of Martin Luther, a leader of the Protestant Reformation.

1668 ~ Birthday of François Couperin, French composer.

1775 ~ American Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress passed 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 located missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1919 ~ Birthday of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, Soviet inventor, AK-47.

1925 ~ Birthday of Richard Burton, Actor.

1938 ~ Death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Turkey.

1951 ~ Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service began in the United States.

1975 ~ The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board. Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a song about the tragedy.

2084 ~ A transit of Earth from Mars will be visible to hypothetical future Mars colonists.

November 11th
 

1634 ~ Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passed "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery" (anal sex).

1675 ~ Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the y=x function.

1821 ~ Birthday of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist.

1880 ~ Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly was hung in Melbourne.

1885 ~ Birthday of George Patton, American general.

1904 ~ Birthday of Alger Hiss, American government official, spy.

1918 ~ World War I ends: Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France.

1922 ~ Birthday of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Novelist.

1992 ~ The Church of England voted to allow women to become priests.

2004 ~ Death of Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority.

November 12th
 

1035 ~ Death of Canute the Great.

1833 ~ Birthday of Alexander Borodin, Russian composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Auguste Rodin, French sculptor.

1918 ~ Austria became a republic.

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

1944 ~ World War II: The Royal Air Force launched one of the more successful precision bombing attacks of war and sunk the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.

1969 ~ Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the My Lai story.

1970 ~ The Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy a rotting beached Grey whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident. (scroll to the bottom)

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

1990 ~ Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

November 13th
 

354 ~ Birthday of Saint Augustine of Hippo, Theologian.

1460 ~ Death of Henry the Navigator, Patron of African exploration.

1775 ~ American Revolutionary War: Patriot revolutionary forces under Col. Ethan Allen captured Montreal from British General Guy Carleton.

1850 ~ Birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson, Novelist.

1868 ~ Death of Gioacchino Rossini, Composer.

1940 ~ The animated feature-length film Fantasia was released.

1955 ~ Birthday of Whoopi Goldberg, Entertainer.

1960 ~ Sammy Davis, Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt. Interracial marriage is still illegal in 31 US states out of 50.

1990 ~ Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first known World Wide Web page.

2002 ~ Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agreed to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

November 14th
 

1716 ~ Death of Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher & Mathematician.

1719 ~ Birthday of Leopold Mozart, Austrian musician, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

1832 ~ Death of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Declaration of Independence signer, US Senator.

1851 ~ Herman Melville's novel “Moby-Dick” was first published.

1840 ~ Birthday of Claude Monet, French impressionist painter.

1900 ~ Birthday of Aaron Copland, Composer.

1922 ~ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began radio service in the United Kingdom.

1940 ~ World War II: In England, the city of Coventry was heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers.

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

2001 ~ War on Terror: Northern Alliance fighters took over the capital Kabul.

November 15th
 

1630 ~ Death of Johannes Kepler, astrologer, astronomer and mathematician.

1787 ~ Death of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Composer.

1854 ~ In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was given the needed royal concession by the Said.

1887 ~ Birthday of Georgia O'Keeffe, Painter.

1891 ~ Birthday of Erwin Rommel, German field marshal.

1942 ~ Birthday of Daniel Barenboim, Pianist & Conductor.

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

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

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

1998 ~ Iraqi climbdown averted air strikes: American and British bombers were on their way to Baghdad when they were called off after Iraq's letter was delivered to the United Nations Security Council. "Now Iraq must live up to its obligations," President Bill Clinton Clinton said.

November 16th
 

1532 ~ Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Incan Emperor Atahualpa and his nobles.

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

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

1895 ~ Birthday of Paul Hindemith, Composer

1922 ~ Birthday of Gene Amdahl, computer scientist.

1940 ~ World War II: In response to the Luftwaffe leveling Coventry two days before, the Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg.

1945 ~ Cold War: The United States controversially imported 88 German scientists to help in the development of rocket technology.

1960 ~ Death of Clark Gable, Actor.

1965 ~ The Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

2004 ~ Vivendi Universal and Valve Software released Half-Life 2, the sequel to the groundbreaking hit PC game Half-Life.

November 17th
 

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

1790 ~ Birthday of August Ferdinand Möbius, Mathematician.

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

1869 ~ In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was inaugurated.

1887 ~ Birthday of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

1917 ~ Death of Auguste Rodin, Sculptor.

1929 ~ Death of Herman Hollerith, Statistician.

1959 ~ Death of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian Composer.

1970 ~ Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the first computer mouse.

2003 ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger wasinaugurated Governor of California.

November 18th
 

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

1626 ~ St. Peter's Basilica was consecrated.

1786 ~ Birthday of Carl Maria von Weber, Composer.

1836 ~ Birthday of Sir William S. Gilbert, Dramatist.

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

1916 ~ World War I: First Battle of the Somme ended - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916. (Stalemate – Approx. 1,120,000 casualties, 310,000 killed or missing)

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

1978 ~ Jonestown mass suicide: In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones lead his People's Temple in a mass murder-suicide; 913 die, including 276 children.

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

2003 ~ The Local Government Act 2003, repealing Section 28, became effective.

November 19th
 

1493 ~ Christopher Columbus became the first European to go ashore on an island he only named the day before. He named it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).

1794 ~ The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain signed Jay's Treaty, which attempted to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War. Interestingly, the American people were very displeased with this, and there were protests against Justice Jay and his treaty. Alexander Hamilton, however, convinced Washington it was the best treaty that could be expected, and Washington agreed to sign it. This action caused Thomas Jefferson to start forming an active and open opposition group to Hamilton and his associates. They began to call themselves Republicans, and would later morph in the Democratic Party.

1805 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and Suez Canal engineer.

1828 ~ Death of Franz Schubert, Austrian Composer.

1884 ~ Birthday of José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban Chess Grand Master.

1917 ~ Birthday of Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India.

1941 ~ World War II: The Royal Australian Navy cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sank each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

1977 ~ Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement. Much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit.

1990 ~ Pop group Milli Vanilli was stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the “Girl You Know It’s True” album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.

1998 ~ Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings against US President Bill Clinton.

November 20th
 

1820 ~ An 80-ton sperm whale attacked the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).

1889 ~ Birthday of Edwin Hubble, Astronomer.

1908 ~ Birthday of Alistair Cooke, Journalist

1910 ~ Death of Leo Tolstoy, Novelist.

1917 ~ World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins – The first successful use of tanks; the British attack ended as another failure.

1924 ~ Birthday of Benoît Mandelbrot, Mathematician.

1945 ~ Nuremberg Trials began: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II started at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.

1947 ~ The Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.

1998 ~ A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declared accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regards to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

2003 ~ Michael Jackson was arrested charges of child molestation.

November 21st
 

1695 ~ Death of Henry Purcell, Composer.

1783 ~ In Paris, Jean Rozier and François Laurent made the first untethered hot air balloon flight (flight time: 25 minutes, Maximum height: 100m, distance: 9 km).

1787 ~ Birthday of Samuel Cunard, Shipping Magnate.

1877 ~ Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound.

1898 ~ Birthday of René Magritte, Belgian painter.

1953 ~ Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announced that the skull of the "Piltdown Man" was a hoax.

1969 ~ The first ARPANET link was established.

1974 ~ The Birmingham Pub Bombings by the IRA killed 21 people.

1985 ~ United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested for spying (he was caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations and was eventually sentenced to life in prison).

1995 ~ Toy Story was released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

November 22nd
 

1718 ~ Off the coast of Virginia, English pirate Edward Teach (best known as "Blackbeard") was killed in battle when a British boarding party cornered and then shot and stabbed him more than 25 times.

1890 ~ Birthday of Charles de Gaulle, general, President of France.

1900 ~ Death of Arthur S. Sullivan, Composer.

1913 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1935 ~ The China Clipper took off from Alameda, California to deliver the first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean.

1963 ~ Birthday of C. S. Lewis, Author.

1963 ~ Death of Aldous Huxley, Author.

1963 ~ In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy wss assassinated.

1977 ~ British Airways inaugurated regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.

1990 ~ Margaret Thatcher resigned as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

November 23rd

1644 ~ ”Areopagitica” by John Milton was published.

1860 ~ Birthday of Billy the Kid, Bandit.

1869 ~ In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper ship "Cutty Sark" was launched (it was one of the last clipper ships to be built, and the only one surviving to the present day).

1876 ~ Birthday of Manuel de Falla, Composer.

1887 ~ Birthday of Boris Karloff, Actor.

1888 ~ Birthday of Harpo Marx, Comedian.

1902 ~ Death of Walter Reed, Bacteriologist.

1955 ~ Death of Shemp Howard, actor, comedian (The Three Stooges)

1963 ~ The first episode of the sci-fi TV series "Doctor Who" debuts on the BBC.

1971 ~ The People's Republic of China was given the Republic of China's seat on the United Nations Security Council.

November 24th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher.

1642 ~ Here’s on for Grumble! Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).

1853 ~ Birthday of Bat Masterson, Gunslinger, Policeman, Sports Reporter.

1859 ~ British naturalist Charles Darwin published “The Origin of Species”, a book which argues that organisms gradually evolve through natural selection (it immediately sold out its initial print run).

1868 ~ Birthday of Scott Joplin, Musician.

1947 ~ Red Scare: After refusing to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of Communist influence in the movie industry, the United States House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10.

1963 ~ Death of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassination suspect.

1993 ~ In the United Kingdom, 11-year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were convicted of the child murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool (they were sentenced to "indefinite detention").

1991 ~ Death of Freddie Mercury, musician (Queen).

1998 ~ America Online announced it would acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$4.2 billion.

November 25th
 

311 ~ Execution of Peter of Alexandria, "The Seal of the Martyrs", believed to be the last one to lose his life for the faith in the Diocletian Persecutions.

1783 ~ American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

1844 ~ Birthday of Karl Benz, Engineer.

1913 ~ Birthday of Lewis Thomas, Physician & Essayist.

1926 ~ Birthday of Poul Anderson, Science Fiction writer.

1940 ~ Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film "Knock Knock".

1947 ~ New Zealand ratified the Statute of Westminster and thus became independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.

1968 ~ Death of Upton Sinclair, Journalist, Politician, Writer.

1984 ~ 36 of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gathered as Band Aid to record the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

1992 ~ The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia starting on January 1, 1993.

November 26th
 

1607 ~ Birthday of John Harvard, after whom Harvard University is named.

1778 ~ Captain James Cook discovered Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands.

1862 ~ Lewis Carroll sent the handwritten manuscript of “Alice's Adventures Underground” to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

1894 ~ Birthday of Norbert Wiener, mathematician, founder of cybernetics.

1922 ~ Birthday of Charles M. Schulz, Cartoonist.

1922 ~ Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamun; the first in over 3000 years.

1942 ~ The film “Casablanca” premiered in New York City.

1956 ~ Death of Tommy Dorsey, Big Band leader.

1983 ~ In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million were stolen from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.

2003 ~ Last ever flight by Concorde.

November 27th
 

8 BC ~ Death of Horace, poet. Remembered for “carpe diem”, (seize the day) among other things.

1095 ~ Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1895 ~ Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1907 ~ Birthday of L. Sprague de Camp, Science Fiction writer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Alexander Dubček, Czech politician.

1942 ~ Birthday of Jimi Hendrix, musician.

1946 ~ Cold War: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appealed to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

Guess what country subsequently developed nuclear weapons and a missile delivery system?

1953 ~ Death of Eugene O'Neill, playwright.

1978 ~ In San Francisco, California, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.

2001 ~ A hydrogen atmosphere was discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

November 28th
 

1520 ~ Three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

1632 ~ Birthday of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Composer.

1820 ~ Birthday of Friedrich Engels, social philosopher.

1859 ~ Death of Washington Irving, writer.

1905 ~ Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin as a political party whose goal is the independence for all of Ireland.

1919 ~ Lady Astor was elected to be the first female member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

1939 ~ Death of James A Naismith, creator of basketball.

1954 ~ Death of Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

1969 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album Let It Bleed.

1989 ~ Cold War: Velvet Revolution - The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced it would give up its monopoly on political power.

November 29th
 

1643 ~ Death of Claudio Monteverdi, Composer.

1777 ~ San Jose, California, was founded as ‘el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe’. It was the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

1797 ~ Birthday of Gaetano Donizetti, Opera Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Louisa May Alcott, Writer.

1890 ~ In West Point, New York, the United States Navy defeated the United States Army 24 to 0 in the first Army-Navy football game. Go Navy!

1898 ~ Birthday of C. S. Lewis, Writer.

1947 ~ The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

1982 ~ Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: The United Nations General Assembly passed United Nations Resolution 37/37, stating that the Soviet Union forces should withdraw from Afghanistan.

1990 ~ Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council passed UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

2001 ~ Death of George Harrison, musician.

November 30th
 

1667 ~ Birthday of Jonathan Swift, Writer & Satirist.

1782 ~ American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain signed preliminary peace articles which were later formalized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

1835 ~ Birthday of Mark Twain, Writer.

1872 ~ First ever international football match played at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland.

1874 ~ Birthday of Sir Winston Churchill , British political leader & Writer.

1936 ~ In London, the Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire (it had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition).

1900 ~ Death of Oscar Wilde, Writer.

1954 ~ In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound meteorite crashed through her roof and hit Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio. This is the only documented case of anyone being hit by a meteorite.

1989 ~ Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen was killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.

1999 ~ In Seattle, Washington, the first major mobilization, in the United States, of the anti-globalization movement caught police unprepared and forced the cancellation of opening ceremonies of a World Trade Organization meeting.

December 1st
 

1083 ~ Birthday of Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian.

1640 ~ Portugal regained its independence from Spain.

1824 ~ U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the House of Representatives was given the task to decide the winner, as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment.

1835 ~ Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales.

1918 ~ The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.

1935 ~ Birthday of Woody Allen, Film Director & Actor &Comedian.

1955 ~ American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws (Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr. later led the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott as a result).

1959 ~ Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, signed a treaty which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent. This was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War.

1964 ~ Death of J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist.

1990 ~ Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first ground connection between the island of Great Britain and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age.