- 164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah
- 235 St Anterus begins his reign as Catholic Pope, will only rule for 40 days
- 695 Pope Sergius names Willibrord as Archbishop Clemens of Friezen
- 1272 Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.
- 1317 Frederik of Sierck/Zyrick becomes bishop of Utrecht
- 1654 Richard Johnson, a free black, granted 550 acres in Virginia
- 1696 J Vanbrughe's "Relapse or Virtue in Danger" premieres in London
- 1729 Netherlands signs Treaty of Seville
- 1759 Battle at Maxen: Prussian army surrenders to Austrians
- 1783 Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes make 1st manned free balloon flight in a Montgolfier balloon
Event of Interest
1787 Andrew Jackson admitted to the bar
- 1813 Stettin surrenders to allied armies
- 1817 US soldiers attack Miccosukee Tribe village of Fowltown, Georgia, beginning what becomes known as the First Seminole War
- 1818 Russia's Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestine
- 1824 First Jewish Reform congregation forms, Charleston, South Carolina
- 1834 HMS Beagle anchors at Bay of San Carlos, Chile
- 1837 Thomas Morris of Australia skips rope 22,806 times
- 1847 Steamer "Phoenix" is lost on Lake Michigan, kills 200
- 1848 Alfred de Musset's "Andre del Sarto" premieres in Paris
- 1848 Cincinnati Turngemeinde founded
- 1849 Friedrich Hebbel's play "Der Rubin" premieres in Vienna
- 1852 Duke University founded in 1838 as Union Institute, chartered as Normal College
- 1864 -22] Battle at Griswoldville, Georgia
- 1865 Shaw University forms in Raleigh NC
- 1871 Moses F Gale patents a cigar lighter (NYC)
- 1876 Skirmish between HM Stanley's expedition & natives
- 1880 Henry Stanley and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza quarrel about possession of Congo
- 1902 1st night football game, Philadelphia Athletics beats Kanaweola AC, 39-0
- 1902 The Canadian government appoints a commission to consider revising, classifying, and consolidating the many public statutes passed over the years
- 1906 China prohibits the opium trade
- 1914 Billy Mallett of Hamilton Tigers kicks 9 singles in a game
- 1914 British army conquers Bazra
- 1916 HMHS Britannic sinks in the Aegean Sea after a mine explodes, killing 30 people
Event of Interest
1917 Maxim Gorky calls Vladimir Lenin a blind fanatic and unthinking adventurer
- 1918 2 German ammunition trains explode in Hamont Belgium, 1,750 die
- 1918 Polish soldiers organize a pogrom against Jews of Galicia, Poland
- 1918 The German High Seas Fleet of 5 battlecruisers, 9 battleships, 7 cruisers and 49 destroyers surrendered to the British Grand Fleet and were shepherded into the Firth of Forth
- 1920 Karel Čapek's "Vec Makropulos" premieres in Prague
Contract of Interest
1924 British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin cancels Labour contract with USSR
- 1933 1st US ambassador to USSR, W.C. Bullitt, begins service
- 1934 "Uiver" returns from Schiphol in London-Melbourne air race
- 1935 Jean Giraudoux' "La Guerre de Troie n'Aura" premieres in Paris
- 1938 -24] Belgian king Leopold III visits Netherlands
- 1938 Nazi forces occupy western Czechoslovakia and declare inhabitants to be German citizens
- 1940 Nazi occupiers forbid building schools in Netherlands
- 1941 German troops occupy Rostov-on-Don, Southern Russia
Appointment of Interest
1942 Adolf Hitler names field marshal Erich von Manstein commander of the newly-created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don)
- 1943 7 Belgian ministers in London criticise King Leopold III for surrendering to Germany
- 1944 Personnel & executive staff of Philips demonstrate for more food
- 1945 General Motors workers go on strike
- 1946 Georgi Dimitrov elected premier of Bulgaria
- 1946 Harry Truman becomes 1st US President to travel in a submerged sub
- 1952 1st US postage stamp in 2 colors (rotary process) introduced
Bare Bones of the Great Ape-Man Hoax
1953 Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce the "Piltdown Man" skull, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax
Event of Interest
1955 Argentina asks Panama for return of ex-president Juan Peron
- 1962 The Chinese People's Liberation Army declares a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War.
Event of Interest
1963 US President John F. Kennedy flies to Texas (assassinated the next day)
- 1964 Verrazano-Narrows suspension bridge opens in New York City, then the world's longest
- 1965 1st freighter arrives in Ashdod Port, Israel
- 1965 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk, USSR
- 1966 Dutch government of Zijlstra forms
- 1967 Phillip & Jay Kunz fly a kite a record 28,000 feet
Vietnam War
1967 Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."
- 1969 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Coup d'état
1970 General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following a military coup
- 1971 Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by the Mukti Bahini, Bengali guerrillas, defeat the army of Pakistan
- 1971 Richard Baker becomes teacher of San Francisco Zen Center
Event of Interest
1973 US President Richard Nixon's attorney, J Fred Buzhardt, reveals presence of 18½ minute gap in a White House tape recording related to Watergate
- 1974 Birmingham pub bombings: 21 civilians killed when bombs explode at two pubs in Birmingham, England (deadliest attack in England during "the Troubles")
- 1974 Freedom of Information Act passed by Congress over President Ford's veto
- 1977 First flight of Concorde (London to New York)
- 1979 Crowd at Islamabad, Pakistan attack US embassy, 1 dies
- 1980 "Hi Infidelity" 9th studio album by REO Speedwagon is released
- 1980 Fire at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills 84
- 1981 400,000 demonstrate in Amsterdam against cruise missiles
- 1986 Central African Republic adopts constitution
- 1986 Suriname army leader Desi Bouterse massacres Moiwana village
Event of Interest
1989 Law banning smoking on most domestic flights signed by US President George H. W. Bush
- 1989 TV cameras permitted in British House of Commons
Event of Interest
1990 French President François Mitterrand voices support for a proposed UN resolution that would authorize the use of force in the Persian Gulf
- 1990 Michael Milken is sentenced to 10 years for security law violations
- 1991 Poetess Maria Elene Cruz Varela arrested in Cuba
Event of Interest
1992 Oregon Senator Bob Packwood issues apology for unwelcome sexual advances
- 1993 Neo-fascist MSI wins 36% of municipal elections in Rome
- 1995 Dow Jones closes above 5,000 for 1st time
- 1995 Israel grants jailed US spy Jonathan Pollard citizenship
- 1996 A propane explosion at the Humberto Vidal shoe store and office building in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 33.
- 1999 Elian Gonzalez, Cuban boy at the center of a heated 2000 controversy involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, departs from Cuba with his mother
- 2002 NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.
- 2004 Island of Dominica hit by the most destructive earthquake in its history. Damage concentrated in the north and the town of Portsmouth. Also felt in neighboring Guadeloupe, where one person is killed.
- 2004 The Paris Club agrees to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt.
- 2004 The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, unleashing massive protests and controversy over the election's integrity.
- 2006 Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel is assassinated in suburban Beirut.
- 2012 An Israel and Hamas ceasefire is negotiated
- 2013 31 people are killed by a truck bomb in northeaster Iraq
- 2013 54 people are killed after the roof of a supermarket collapses in Riga, Latvia
- 2013 The Alabama parole board grants posthumous pardons to three members of the Scottsboro boys
- 2016 India celebrates 50th anniversary of IR8, rice variety specially bred that saved much of Asia from famine
- 2017 Mt Agung on the Indonesian island of Bali begins erupting
- 2017 Pixar animation head John Lasseter takes 6 month leave of absence amid sexual misconduct claims
Robert Mugabe Ousted
2017 Robert Mugabe's resignation after 37 years in power is read out in Zimbabwe's parliaments during impeachment proceedings
- 2018 Former Guatemalan soldier Santos López Alonzo sentenced to 5,160 years for killing 171 people in Dos Erres during the civil war
- 2018 RIBA’s best building in the world biennial international prize awarded to Canuanã school in Brazil
- 2019 22 killed in displacement camp in attack by Syrian government in Idlib province, Syria
- 2019 44% of Americans work in low-wage jobs with medium annual wage of just $18,000, with most aged 25 - 54 according to analysis by Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program
- 2019 First of a series of national strikes in Colombia against the government of President Iván Duque and proposed cuts to pensions
- 2019 WHO says Measles has killed more than 5,000 people in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019, in world's largest and fastest-moving epidemic
- 2020 Texas National Guard mobilized to help El Paso County, deal with a morgue crisis as COVID-19 cases and deaths surge
- 2022 China reports new COVID-19 outbreaks, with 28,127 new cases, with half in Guangzhou and the municipality of Chongqing and public venues closed in Beijing and Shanghai [1]
- 2022 Magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes near the city of Cianjur, on the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 268 people, with over 1000 injured [1]