- Nov 1 Dutch government of Thorbecke forms
- Nov 13 Peter Burnett elected first governor of California
- Nov 15 1st US poultry show opens in Boston
- Nov 16 Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor
- Nov 21 Friedrich Hebbel's "Der Rubin" premieres in Vienna