Roman Empire
308 The Congress of Carnuntum: Attempting to keep peace within the Roman Empire, the leaders of the Tetrarchy declare Maxentius and Licinius to be Augusti, while rival contender Constantine I is declared Caesar of Britain and Gaul.
Event of Interest
1158 Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa declares himself ruler of North Italy
- 1208 Otto van Wittelsbach chosen German king
- 1215 4th Lateran Council (12th ecumenical council) opens in Rome
- 1400 Battle of Aleppo: Timur and his army defeat the forces of Sultan Faraj, Mameluke ruler of Egypt, 20,000 people reportedly massacred and a pyramid of their skulls built
- 1417 Oddo Colonna elected as Pope Martinus V
Historic Discovery
1493 Explorer Christopher Columbus discovers Saba
- 1500 Treaty of Granada: France & Aragon divide the Kingdom of Naples
The Mayflower
1620 Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, the 1st framework of government in the territory that is now the USA [N.S. Nov 21]
- 1620 Mayflower Pilgrims make their first landing in America, at Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts [1]
- 1634 Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery".
- 1640 Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, impeached by the House of Lords on the evidence of John Pym, and imprisoned in the Tower of London; he was later executed.
- 1647 Massachusetts passes first compulsory school attendance law in the American colonies
- 1648 Dutch & French agree to divide St Maarten, Leeward Islands
- 1671 Dutch States-General forbids importation of French wine
- 1673 Second Battle of Khotyn in the Ukraine, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski. defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets of Kazimierz Siemienowicz were successfully used.
Event of Interest
1675 German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function
Event of Interest
1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army enters England
Event of Interest
1775 Mohawk military leader Joseph Brant goes to London to solicit more support from the government and to persuade the Crown to address past Mohawk land grievances in exchange for their participation as allies in the impending war
Battle of Interest
1805 Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein - 8000 French troops attempted to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.
Historic Publication
1807 Washington Irving's Salmagundi periodical published - first to associate the name "Gotham" with New York City
- 1811 Cartagena Colombia declares independence from Spain
- 1813 Dresden surrenders to allied armies
- 1836 Chile declares war on Bolivia & Peru
- 1839 The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
- 1851 Alvan Clark patents telescope
- 1864 Sherman's troops destroy Rome, Georgia
- 1864 Skirmish at Shoal Creek, AL
- 1865 Mary Edward Walker, the first US Army female surgeon, awarded Medal of Honor
- 1865 Thomas William Robertson's play "Society" premieres in London
- 1865 Treaty of Sinchula is signed in which Bhutan ceded the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
- 1868 1st American amateur track & field meet (NYC)
Victory in Battle
1868 War of the Triple Alliance: Allied victory in the Battle of Avay leaves 3,000 Paraguayan soldiers dead, 600 wounded and the road to Asunción open
- 1880 Australian Bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol
- 1887 Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies (b. 1855), Albert Parsons (b. 1848), Adolph Fischer (b. 1858) and George Engel (b. 1836) are executed.
- 1887 Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal starts at Eastham.
- 1889 British Open Men's Golf, Musselburgh Links: Willie Park Jr wins his second Open title; beats Andrew Kirkaldy by 5 in 36-hole playoff
- 1889 Washington admitted as 42nd state of USA
- 1890 D McCree patents portable fire escape
- 1895 Bechuanaland becomes part of Cape Colony
- 1896 Jules Vandenpeereboom becomes Belgium's minister of War
- 1896 Samuel Pierpont Langley's Number 6 'heavier-than-air' aircraft model flies over 1,500 m (5,000 ft).
- 1899 Stuart/Rubens/Boyd-Jones' "Floradora" premieres in London
Music History
1901 Maurice Ravel's piano composition "Jeux d'eau" premieres
- 1905 High Commissioner Prince George declares amnesty for all leaders of the insurrection that has been disturbing Crete during the recent months - but which never gained mass support
- 1906 Ethel Smyth's "Standrecht" premieres in Leipzig
- 1909 Construction of US navy base begins at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
- 1909 J M Synge's "Tinker's Wedding" premieres in London
- 1911 Many cities in the U.S. Midwest broke their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. (see The 11/11/11 cold wave).
- 1911 Russia issues an ultimatum to Persia and follows it with an invasion of North Persia to impose political control
- 1918 Dutch SDAP leader Troelstra announces revolution
- 1918 Emperor Charles I of Austria abdicates
- 1918 Poland declares independence
The War's Over, But Don't Get Too Excited
1918 WWI Armistice signed by the Allies and Germany comes into effect and World War I hostilities end at 11am, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"
- 1919 Pope Benedictus XV states Roman Catholics political and business views
- 1920 Great Britain's monument to her war dead, the Cenotaph in Whitehall, designed by Edwin Lutyens, unveiled
- 1920 The burials of unknown soldiers take place simultaneously in Westminster Abbey, London, and at the Arc de Triomphe, Paris
Event of Interest
1921 US President Warren G. Harding dedicates Tomb of Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery
Scientific Discovery
1925 American scientist Robert A. Millikan announces discovery of cosmic rays
- 1925 City of Chicago, Illinois renames Municipal Grant Park Stadium, as Soldier Field, in honor of US soldiers killed in combat during World War I
- 1925 Earnest Thalmann becomes chairman of German KPD
Music Recording
1925 Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five begin their first recording session
- 1925 Night of Kersten - Prime Minister Hendrikus Colijn's Dutch government falls by SGP-amendement
Appointment of Interest
1926 Future Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman Eddie Collins is released as Chicago White Sox player/manager; replaced by another future HOF'er catcher Ray Schalk
- 1926 U.S. Route 66 is established from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California 2,448 miles (3,940 km)
- 1928 France's 5th government of Raymond Poincaré forms
- 1928 KXO-AM in El Centro CA begins radio transmissions
- 1928 WGL-AM in Ft Wayne IN begins radio transmissions
- 1928 WMT-AM in Cedar Rapids IA begins radio transmissions
- 1928 WOL-AM in Washington, D.C. begins radio transmissions
Historic Invention
1930 Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention of the Einstein refrigerator
Music History
1933 Billie Holiday's second song and first hit, "Riffin' the Scotch", is released
- 1934 WOC-AM in Davenport Iowa splits from WHO-WOC & becomes KICK-AM
- 1935 Explorer 2 balloon sets altitude record of 72,000 feet over South Dakota
- 1937 German aircraft Messerschmidt ME-109V13 flies a new world air speed record for landplanes with piston engines of 610.95 km/h (379.62 mph)
- 1937 Nobel prize for physics awarded to American Clinton Joseph Davisson and Briton George Paget Thomson "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"
- 1938 German & Austrian Jewish suffer 1 billion Mark damage in nazi
Music History
1939 Kate Smith first sings Irving Berlin's "God Bless America"
- 1940 Blizzard strikes midwestern US killing over 100
- 1940 British Fleet Air Arm attack destroys half of Italian fleet at Taranto
- 1940 Thousands of Paris students lay a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier
- 1940 Willys unveiled its General Purpose vehicle ("Jeep")
- 1941 Czech premier General Eliasj arrested by Nazis
- 1942 -12] last German offensive in Stalingrad
- 1942 Germany completes its WWII occupation of France
- 1942 Jews in the Free Zone of France ordered to wear a yellow star of David
- 1942 Lt-general Kumakashi Harada becomes Japanese commander on Java
- 1942 Transport #45 departs with French Jews to Nazi-Germany
Victory in Battle
1942 WWII: British led Allied forces defeat Erwin Rommel's German and Italian Army Panzers in Second Battle of El-Alamein, North Africa, helping to secure the Suez Canal
Sports History
1943 New York Yankees pitcher Spud Chandler wins AL MVP; St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Stan Musial wins NL MVP
- 1943 US air raid on Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
- 1944 New York Rangers beat Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 to end NHL record 25 game winless streak (0-21-4)
- 1946 New York Knicks play their first Basketball Association of American (BAA) home game at Madison Square Garden; lose, 78-68 to Chicago Stags in overtime
Film Premiere
1947 "Gentlemen's Agreement" directed by Elia Karan and starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire premieres in New York (Best Picture 1948)
- 1949 WTTV TV channel 4 in Bloomington-Indianapol, IN (IND) 1st broadcast
Historic Publication
1954 Publication of "Two Towers", 2nd volume of "Lord of the Rings", by J. R. R. Tolkien by George Allen and Unwin in London
- 1957 Demolition begins on cable car barn at California & Hyde, San Francisco
Music Single
1957 Sun Record's release single "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis; sells a million copies in first ten day
- 1958 "La Plume de Ma Tante" opens at Royale Theater NYC for 835 performances
- 1958 AL announces Kansas City will play AL record 52 night games in 1959
- 1959 1st episode of Jay Ward's cartoon series "Rocky & His Friends", featuring Rocket J. ("Rocky") Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose. airs on NBC
- 1959 Seals Stadium, a minor league baseball park and temporary home of MLB Giants) in San Francisco, California demolished
- 1960 Record New York Knicks' crowd for the third Madison Square Garden venue on 49th Street, NYC; 18,499 see Knicks beat Syracuse Nationals, 112-108
- 1961 "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller is published by Simon and Schuster in New York
- 1961 Adulterous couple ride a dung cart through Staphorst, Netherlands
- 1961 Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian UN pilots
- 1961 Stalingrad renamed Volgograd
- 1962 Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
1963 Brian Epstein and Ed Sullivan sign a 3 show contract for appearances by The Beatles
- 1964 Murray Schisgal's "Luv" premieres in NYC
- 1965 Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith signs Unilateral Declaration of Independence, proclaiming independence from Britain
- 1965 William Alfred's "Hogan's Goat" premieres in NYC
- 1966 Gemini 12 (Lovell & Aldrin) launched on 4-day flight
- 1966 Methodist Church & Evangelical United Brethren Church unite as United Methodist Church (USA)
- 1966 NASA launches spaceship Gemini 12
Music History
1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear nude on cover of "Two Virgins" album
- 1968 Maldives (in Indian Ocean) becomes a republic
- 1968 Ron Hill sets record 10-mile run (46:44) at Leicester England
Music History
1969 Beatles with Billy Preston release "Get Back" in UK
Music History
1969 Jim Morrison arrested on an airplane by the FBI for drunkenness
Film & TV History
1971 Neil Simon's "Prisoner of Second Avenue" premieres in NYC
- 1972 Dow Jones Index moves above 1,000 for 1st time
- 1972 Rugby League World Cup, Stade de Gerland, Lyon, France: Australia and Great Britain draw 10-10; Great Britain awarded the Trophy
- 1972 US Army turns over Long Bihn base to South Vietnamese army
Album Release
1973 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's second album "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle"
Music History
1974 Operatic soprano Maria Callas makes her final public appearance in Sapporo, Japan
- 1975 Angola gains independence from Portugal (National Day)
- 1975 Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam removed from office by Governor General Sir John Kerr - 1st elected PM removed in 200 yrs
Event of Interest
1975 Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser sworn in as caretaker Prime Minister of Australia after sacking of the Whitlam Government by Governor General John Kerr
Sports History
1980 NY Islanders' future Hockey Hall of Fame right wing Mike Bossy scores 4 goals in a 6-6 tie against visiting Minnesota North Stars
- 1981 Donald Driver and Michael Valenti's musical comedy "Oh, Brother!" closes at ANTA Theater, NYC, after 3 performances
Sports History
1981 LA Dodgers starter Fernando Valenzuela becomes first MLB rookie to win a Cy Young Award; Milwaukee Brewers' Rollie Fingers takes AL Award
- 1982 5th NASA Space Shuttle Mission: Columbia makes the first officially "operational" shuttle mission
- 1982 Gas explosion in Israeli army headquarters near Tyre; kills 60
Sports History
1982 Joe Altobelli succeeds retiring Earl Weaver as Baltimore Orioles manager
- 1982 Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn's stage drama with songs "Foxfire", strring Jesica Tandy, Keith Carradine, and Cronyn, opens at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NYC; runs for 213 performances and wins a Tony Award for Tandy
- 1983 1st US cruise missiles arrive in Great Britain
- 1983 Australian cricket wicketkeeper/batsman Wayne Phillips scores 159 on Test debut vs Pakistan at WACA, Perth
Event of Interest
1983 President Reagan became 1st US President to address Japanese legislature
- 1984 "Three Musketeers" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 9 performances
- 1985 1st AIDS theme TV movie - "An Early Frost" screens in US on NBC
- 1985 Challenger flies back to Kennedy Space Center via Davis-Monthan Air Force Base
- 1985 Yonkers is found guilty of segregating schools & housing
- 1986 Houston's Astro Mike Scott (18-10) wins NL Cy Young Award
- 1986 Suriname government proclaims gold purification
- 1987 "Roza" closes at Royale Theater NYC after 12 performances
Sports History
1987 Boston Red Sox starter Roger Clemens wins back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards; Philadelphia Phillies starter Steve Bedrosian takes NL Award
- 1987 Football striker Mark Hughes plays for Wales and Bayern Munich in 2 countries on same day; appears for Wales in 2-0 European Championship loss to Czechoslovakia in Prague, then jets to Munich for 3-2 Cup win over Borussia
Event of Interest
1987 Judge Anthony Kennedy nominated to Supreme Court
- 1987 Moscow party secretary Boris Jerusalem resigns
- 1988 Oldest known insect fossils (390 million yrs) reported in Science
- 1989 Don Sebesky and Gloria Nissenson's musical "Prince of Central Park", starring Jo Anne Worley, closes at Belasco Theater, NYC, after 4 performances
- 1989 Romanian students protest in Bucharest before the Communist Party congress, shouting "we want reforms", in a sign of the revolution to come
- 1990 California Angel Chuck Finley & Seattle Mariner Randy Johnson combine to pitch a no-hitter in exhibition game between US & Japanese all-star teams
Music History
1990 William Nicholson's drama "Shadowlands", based on the life of C.S. Lewis, opens at Brooks Atkinson Theatre, NYC; runs for 169 performances and wins a Tony Award
Event of Interest
1993 Pope John Paul II hospitalized for 2 days for fractured shoulder
Event of Interest
1994 Bill Gates buys Leonardo da Vinci's "Codex" for $30,800,000
- 1994 Progress M-25 launched to space station Mir
- 1996 Atlanta Braves starting pitcher John Smoltz wins NL Cy Young Award; Pat Hentgen of the Toronto Blue Jays claims AL Award
- 1997 Canadian based players win Cy Young Awards for best MLB pitcher; Toronto Blue Jays' Roger Clemens wins his 4th AL Award; Pedro Martinez of Montreal Expos takes NL Award
Contract of Interest
1997 CBS News anchor Dan Rather renews his contract to 2002
- 1997 NHL’s new Columbus franchise (scheduled to begin play in 2000) announce team’s name would be “Blue Jackets” after soldiers in the Union army during the American Civil War
- 1997 WNBA announces franchises in Detroit (Shock) and Washington D.C. (Mystics) would join the League as expansion teams for the 1998 season
- 1999 Last upside down date until January 1, 6000
- 2000 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a funicular railway catches fire in an alpine tunnel near Kaprun, Austria
Federation Cup
2001 Federation Cup Women's Tennis, Madrid, Spain: Kim Clijsters beats Elena Dementieva 6-0, 6-4 to clinch Belgium's first title with unassailable 2-0 lead (ends, 2-1)
- 2001 Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they were traveling on top off.
Sports History
2002 Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters beats American Serena Williams 7–5, 6–3 to win the season-ending WTA Tour Championship at the Staples Center, Los Angeles
#1 in the Charts
2003 Josh Groban releases his second album "Closer"; it goes to #1 on US charts and becomes his biggest seller
- 2004 New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.
Election of Interest
2004 Yasser Arafat's death through unidentified causes confirmed by Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas elected PLO chairman minutes later.
Event of Interest
2006 New Zealand war memorial monument unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in London, United Kingdom, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army
