October 31
1517:
Luther's Ninety-five Theses posted.
According to tradition, Martin Luther this day in 1517 posted on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, his Ninety-five Theses, a manifesto that turned a protest about an indulgence scandal into the Protestant Reformation.
Today:
Although Halloween, celebrated this day, is now observed largely as a secular holiday, it is, as the eve of All Saints' Day, also a religious holiday among some Christians.
1968:
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an end to American bombing in North Vietnam.
1926:
Harry Houdini, the magician and escape artist, died of peritonitis stemming from a stomach injury.
1887:
Soldier and statesman Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949 and subsequently head of the Chinese Nationalist government-in-exile on Taiwan, was born.
1864:
Nevada became the 36th state of the United States.
November 1
1952:
First thermonuclear bomb tested by the United States.
On this day in 1952 on an atoll of the Marshall Islands, Edward Teller and other American scientists tested the first thermonuclear bomb, its power resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
1994:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched its Wind spacecraft on a mission that would include a “halo orbit” between the Sun and Earth to explore the space environment there.
1981:
Antigua and Barbuda achieved independence from the United Kingdom, with Vere Bird serving as the first prime minister.
1950:
Puerto Rican nationalists, members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
1922:
The Grand National Assembly, at the behest of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), voted to abolish the sultanate of Turkey.
1765:
The Stamp Act went into effect, marking the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation of all colonial commercial and legal papers.
1755:
Lisbon was heavily damaged by an earthquake that demolished more than 9,000 buildings and killed as many as 30,000 people.
996:
Holy Roman Emperor Otto III granted the Bavarian bishopric of Freising 30 “royal hides,” or about 8 square km (2,000 acres), of land in a deed that contained the first recorded use of the name Ostarr頲hi, from which the name Austria is derived.
November 2
1976:
Jimmy Carter elected 39th U.S. president.
Jimmy Carter, former Democratic governor of Georgia and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, was elected 39th president of the United States this day in 1976, narrowly defeating Republican Gerald R. Ford.
2002:
In Norwegian-brokered peace negotiations held in Thailand, the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam agreed to set up a panel to discuss ways to share power.
1983:
U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill designating the third Monday in January a national holiday in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1963:
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a coup.
1950:
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw died at age 94.
1949:
The Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia signed the Hague Agreement, an attempt to end conflict over Indonesia's proclaimed independence.
1930:
Tafari Makonnen was crowned emperor of Ethiopia, taking the name Haile Selassie.
1917:
The British issued the Balfour Declaration, a statement of support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
1889:
North Dakota was admitted to the union as the 39th U.S. state and South Dakota as the 40th.
1755:
Marie-Antoinette, the queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774–93), was born.
November 3
1998:
Another section of Great Wall of China discovered.
Announced on this day in 1998 was the discovery in the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia of a previously unknown 15.5-mile (25-km) segment of the Great Wall of China, which runs in toto about 4,500 miles (7,300 km).
1978:
Dominica achieved full independence, with Patrick Roland John as its first prime minister.
1957:
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, which carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit the Earth.
1916:
Playwright Eugene O'Neill made his New York City debut with the one-act play Bound East for Cardiff.
1903:
Influenced by Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla and U.S. interests, a revolutionary junta proclaimed Panamanian independence from Colombia.
1793:
Stephen Austin, founder of the principal settlements of English-speaking
people in Texas in the 1820s, when that territory was still part of Mexico, was born.
1295:
Mahmūd Ghāzān, the most prominent of the Il-Khans (a Mongol dynasty) to rule Iran, was formally enthroned.
November 4
1995:
Yitzhak Rabin assassinated.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, corecipient with Shimon Peres and Yāsir ‘Arafāt of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994, was assassinated this day in 1995 by a Jewish extremist while attending a peace rally.
1980:
Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th president of the United States.
1979:
The hostage crisis in Iran began as the U.S. embassy in Tehrān was seized by Iranian militants in a move sanctioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
1922:
British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.
1791:
In what became known as St. Clair's Defeat, U.S. General Arthur St. Clair was beaten by the British-supported Northwest Indian Confederation.
November 5
1605:
Gunpowder Plot.
Celebrated with fireworks as Guy Fawkes Day, this English holiday marks the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, when Roman Catholics led by Robert Catesby tried to blow up Parliament, the king, and his family this day in 1605.
1998:
The journal Nature published a report that DNA testing had confirmed (still disputed by some) that Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings, as had long been alleged.
1940:
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term as president of the United States.
1930:
Social critic Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American to receive the honour.
1914:
France and Britain declared war on Turkey, widening the conflict of World War I.
1838: Honduras declared its absolute independence, seceding from the United Provinces of Central America.
1556:
Mughal power was restored in India following Bayram Khān's victory at the second Battle of Panipat.
November 6
1860:
Abraham Lincoln elected president of the United States.
On this day in 1860, Americans elected as their president Abraham Lincoln, whose victory led to the secession of Southern states and the long and bloody Civil War that lasted until 1865 and ended slavery in the U.S.
1984:
U.S. President Ronald Reagan won reelection in a landslide victory over Democratic candidate Walter F. Mondale.
1917:
The second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 began (October 25, Old Style) as the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.
1888:
Benjamin Harrison was elected U.S. president by an electoral majority despite losing the popular vote by more than 90,000 to his opponent, Grover Cleveland.
1887:
Professional baseball player Walter Johnson, who had perhaps the greatest fastball in the history of the game, was born in Humboldt, Kansas.
November 7
2000:
Disputed U.S. presidential election.
On this day in 2000, the U.S. presidential election ended in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, only to be settled on December 12 by the U.S. Supreme Court after a bitter legal dispute.
1962:
Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt died in New York City at age 78.
1944:
Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Thomas E. Dewey and was elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president of the United States.
1940:
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge connecting the Olympic Peninsula with Tacoma, Washington, broke up in a wind of about 42 miles (67 km) per hour.
1837:
Abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his press building.
1811:
In the Battle of Tippecanoe, a seasoned U.S. expeditionary force under Major General William Henry Harrison defeated Shawnee Indians led by Tecumseh's brother Laulewasikau (Tenskwatawa), known as the Prophet.
November 8
1989:
Douglas Wilder elected governor.
On this day in 1989, Virginian Douglas Wilder became the first African American to win a U.S. gubernatorial election, and, after he left office when his term expired in 1994, he was elected mayor of Richmond in 2004.
1978:
American illustrator Norman Rockwell, best known for his covers of The Saturday Evening Post, died.
1960:
John F. Kennedy was narrowly elected president of the United States.
1956:
Comet Arend-Roland was discovered.
1932:
During the Great Depression, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt easily defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover to win the presidency of the United States.
1900: Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
1837:
One of the first institutions of higher education for women in the United States, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) opened in Massachusetts.
1656:
English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley, the first to calculate the orbit of Halley's Comet, was born in Greenwich, Kent, England.
1520:
The Danish king Christian II began mass executions of Swedish nobles in what became known as the Stockholm Bloodbath.
November 9
1989:
Opening of the Berlin Wall.
Long a symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 and eventually extending 28 miles (45 km) to divide the western and eastern sectors of Berlin, was opened by the East German government on this day in 1989.
1996:
Evander Holyfield scored a technical knockout of Mike Tyson to win the heavyweight boxing championship for a third time.
1943:
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was created by a 44-nation agreement.
1938:
Beginning on this night, called Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night” or “Night of Broken Glass”), some 48 hours of Nazi-orchestrated anti-Jewish violence erupted throughout Germany and Austria, resulting in the destruction and vandalizing of synagogues and Jewish businesses, along with the deaths of at least 91 Jews.
1923:
The Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler ended after 16 Nazis were killed on a march toward the Marienplatz in the centre of Munich, Germany.
1923:
Alice Coachman, the first African American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, was born in Albany, Georgia.
1799:
The Coup of 18–19 Brumaire began in Paris, marking Napoleon's rise to power and the end of the French Revolution.
November 10
1871:
Dr. David Livingstone found by Henry Stanley.
On this day in 1871, according to his journal, explorer Henry Stanley greeted David Livingstone, the fellow explorer in search of the source of the Nile River, with the famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
2001:
After 15 years of negotiations, China's membership in the World Trade Organization was approved, and the following day Taiwan's membership was approved.
1982:
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by Maya Lin, was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1982:
Soviet statesman and Communist Party leader Leonid Ilich Brezhnev died in Moscow after presiding as the leader of the Soviet Union for more than 18 years.
1938:
Turkish reformer Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president (1923–38) of the Republic of Turkey, died in Istanbul.
1918:
Józef Piłsudski, Polish revolutionary and first chief of state of the newly reconstituted Poland, arrived in Warsaw to declare Poland an independent state.
1888:
Jack the Ripper's infamous killing spree in the Whitechapel district of London's East End came to an end.
1879:
American poet Vachel Lindsay, who, in an attempt to revive poetry as an oral art form of the common people, wrote and read to audiences compositions with powerful rhythms that had an immediate appeal, was born.
1444:
Turkish forces defeated the Hungarians in the Battle of Varna, securing Turkey's control over Constantinople (Istanbul) and assuring the Ottoman conquest in the Balkans.
911:
Conrad I was elected German king at Forschheim, after the death of Louis the Child, the last of the East Frankish Carolingians.
November 11
1921:
First Armistice Day celebrated.
On this day in 1921, the anniversary of the end of World War I, the first Armistice Day was commemorated with the burial of the bodies of unknown soldiers in tombs in Paris, in London, and outside Washington, D.C.
1975:
Angola declared independence after the Portuguese withdrew.
1966:
Gemini 12, the last spacecraft in the Gemini series and the first to make an automatically controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere, was launched.
1918:
At 5:00 AM the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice document in the railway carriage of Ferdinand Foch, the commander of the Allied armies, and six hours later World War I came to an end.
1889:
Washington was admitted to the union as the 42nd U.S. state.
1813:
British troops under Colonel J.W. Morrison defeated U.S. forces led by General John Boyd at the Battle of Crysler's Farm during the War of 1812.
1778:
During the American Revolution, Iroquois Indians, in direct retaliation for colonial assaults on two Indian villages, attacked a New York frontier settlement in the Cherry Valley Raid.
1493:
Christopher Columbus discovered the island of St. Martin.
1417:
Martin V was unanimously elected pope, bringing an end to the Great Schism.
November 12
1990:
Akihito enthroned.
Japanese Emperor Akihito—according to tradition, the 125th direct descendant of Jimmu, Japan's legendary first emperor—was formally enthroned on this day in 1990, nearly two years after the death of his father, Hirohito.
1980:
The U.S. space probe Voyager 1 reached the planet Saturn.
1968:
Baseball player Sammy Sosa was born in the Dominican Republic.
1930:
The first Round Table Conference, called by the British government to consider the future constitution of India, opened in London.
1918:
One day after Emperor Charles's abdication, the National Assembly of Austria resolved unanimously that “German Austria is a democratic republic” and “German Austria is a component part of the German republic.”
1912:
Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas was assassinated by the anarchist Manuel Pardi馻s.
1859:
The first flying trapeze act was performed—by Jules Léotard, without a net, in Paris.
1833:
The great Leonid meteor shower, in which hundreds of thousands of meteors were observed in one night, was seen all over North America, initiating the first serious study of meteor showers.
November 13
2001:
Kabul captured by Northern Alliance.
On this day in 2001, on the heels of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan prompted by the deadly terrorist attacks of 9/11, the army of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance captured the capital city of Kabul.
1985:
Mount Ruiz in the Cordillera Central of the Andes, in west-central Colombia, erupted twice, burying the town of Armero on the Lagunilla River and killing an estimated 25,000 people.
1918:
Egyptian patriot Saʿd Zaghlūl formed Al-Wafd al-Miṣrī (Arabic: “Egyptian Delegation”), the nationalist political party that was instrumental in gaining Egyptian independence from Britain.
1916:
During World War I, the costly four-month Allied offensive against German positions along the Somme River ended.
1850:
Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books who was best known for his novels Treasure Island (1881), Kidnapped (1886), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1889), was born.
1770:
George Grenville, the English politician whose policy of taxing the American colonies started the train of events leading to the American Revolution, died in London.
1002:
English King Ethelred II launched an attack against Danish settlers in the St. Brice's Day massacre.
November 14
1962:
Eritrea made a province of the Ethiopian empire.
On this day in 1962, the Ethiopian parliament and Eritrean Assembly voted unanimously for the abolition of Eritrea's federal status, making Eritrea (independent since 1993) a simple province of the Ethiopian empire.
2002:
Chosen to succeed Richard Gephardt as leader of the Democratic Party in the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi of California became the first woman to be named leader of either party in either house of Congress.
1969:
Apollo 12 was launched, carrying a crew of Charles Conrad, Jr., Richard F. Gordon, Jr., and Alan L. Bean, and five days later the mission made the second landing on the Moon.
1915:
Educator, reformer, and first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) Booker T. Washington, the most influential spokesman for African Americans in the late 19th and the early 20th century, died.
1885:
The Serbo-Bulgarian War began when Serbian King Milan Obrenovic IV declared war on Bulgaria.
1851:
Harper & Brothers published Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby Dick.
1305:
Clement V was crowned pope, becoming the first of the Avignon popes.
November 15
1988:
Palestinian statehood proclaimed by Yāsir ʿArafāt.
Meeting at Algiers, the Palestine National Council, at the urging of PLO chairman Yāsir ʿArafāt, issued a declaration of independence for a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on this day in 1988.
1938:
A farewell parade was held in Barcelona, Spain, for the volunteers of the International Brigades who fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.
1891:
W. Averell Harriman, a statesman and leading U.S. diplomat in relations with the Soviet Union during World War II and the Cold War, was born.
1889:
Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was forced to abdicate by a group of military officers led by Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca.
1885:
St. Joseph Mukasa, one of the Martyrs of Uganda, was beheaded by order of Mwanga, kabaka (ruler) of Buganda.
1884:
The Berlin West Africa Conference opened, in which the major European nations met to decide all questions connected with the Congo River basin of Central Africa.
1848:
Pellegrino Rossi, a former member of the Carbonaria, was assassinated in Rome during the Revolutions of 1848.
1818:
The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the first of four congresses held by Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and France following the Napoleonic Wars, concluded.
1630:
Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, died in Regensburg.
1315:
The Swiss Confederation achieved its first great military success against the Austrian Habsburgs at the Battle of Morgarten.
November 16
1988:
Election of Bhutto as Pakistan's prime minister.
Benazir Bhutto, elected prime minister of Pakistan on this day in 1988, became the first woman in modern history to lead a Muslim country, serving as prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996.
1855:
British explorer David Livingstone was the first European to see Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya).
1776:
Sint Eustatius became the first foreign government to recognize the fledgling United States.
1632:
Swedish King Gustav II Adolf died during the Battle of Lützen, though his forces were victorious, and his cause was skillfully directed by his chief adviser, Axel Oxenstierna.
1272:
British monarch Henry III died at age 65.
42:
Tiberius, the second Roman emperor and the adopted son of Augustus, was born.
November 17
2003:
Arnold Schwarzenegger inaugurated as governor of California.
Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born American bodybuilder and film actor, was inaugurated on this day in 2003 as the governor of California following a recall election that ousted the sitting governor.
1989:
Massive antigovernment demonstrations in Czechoslovakia were set off by police brutality at a demonstration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the suppression of a student demonstration in German-occupied Prague, and, under the leadership of Václav Havel, they continued until the communist government resigned.
1950:
German athlete Roland Matthes, one of the greatest backstrokers in the history of swimming, was born in East Germany.
1887:
British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was born in London.
1869:
After 10 years of construction, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt.
1800:
The U.S. Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.
1558:
At the death of Mary I this day, Elizabeth Tudor came to the English throne as Elizabeth I.
284:
Diocletian was acclaimed emperor by his soldiers.
November 18
1978:
Jonestown massacre.
Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple religious community that he formed in the 1950s, and some 900 of his followers died this day in 1978 in Guyana in a massive act of murder-suicide known as the Jonestown massacre.
1941:
John Christian Watson, the first Labour prime minister of Australia, died in Sydney.
1905:
Prince Charles (Carl) of Denmark was elected king of Norway as Haakon VII.
1903:
Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, representing Panama, met with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay to negotiate the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave the United States a strip 10 miles (16 km) wide across the Isthmus of Panama for construction of the Panama Canal.
1882:
Famed operatic soprano Amelita Galli-Curci was born in Milan.
1814:
Brazilian sculptor and architect Aleijadinho, known for his beautiful Rococo statues and his churches, died in Mariana.
1477:
William Caxton, a pioneering English printer, published Dictes and Sayenges of the Phylosophers, the first dated book printed in England.
November 19
1977:
Anwar el-Sādāt's visit to Israel.
After the Arab-Israeli war of 1973–74, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sādāt began to work toward peace, and on this day in 1977 he began his historic visit to Israel, during which he offered a peace plan to its parliament.
2002:
As had the House of Representatives the previous week, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved the creation of a new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security, to have a workforce of 170,000.
1863:
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the brief but renowned Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the National Cemetery in Pennsylvania during the American Civil War.
1820:
The Troppau protocol, a declaration of intention to take collective action against revolution, was signed by the Holy Alliance powers at the Congress of Troppau.
1794:
During his tenure as the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay negotiated the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, helping mend ties between the Americans and British.
1703:
The man in the iron mask, a political prisoner famous in French history and legend, died in the Bastille.