- 1002 – English king Æthelred II orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St. Brice’s Day massacre.[1]
- 1093 – Battle of Alnwick: in an English victory over the Scots, Malcolm III of Scotland, and his son Edward, are killed.[2]
- 1160 – Louis VII of France marries Adela of Champagne.[3]
- 1642 – First English Civil War: Battle of Turnham Green: The Royalist forces withdraw in the face of the Parliamentarian army and fail to take London.[4]
- 1715 – Jacobite rising in Scotland: Battle of Sheriffmuir: The forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain halt the Jacobite advance, although the action is inconclusive.[5]
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot revolutionary forces under Gen. Richard Montgomery occupy Montreal.
- 1841 – James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism by Charles Lafontaine, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism.[6]
- 1851 – The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, before moving to the other side of Elliott Bay to what would become Seattle.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The three-day Battle of Bull’s Gap ends in a Union rout as Confederates under Major General John C. Breckinridge pursue them to Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.
- 1887 – Bloody Sunday clashes in central London.
- 1901 – The 1901 Caister lifeboat disaster.
- 1914 – Zaian War: Berber tribesmen inflict the heaviest defeat of French forces in Morocco at the Battle of El Herri.
- 1916 – World War I: Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes is expelled from the Labor Party over his support for conscription.
- 1918 – World War I: Allied troops occupy Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1927 – The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicle tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.
- 1940 – Walt Disney‘s animated musical film Fantasia is first released, on the first night of a roadshow at New York’s Broadway Theatre.
- 1941 – World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U-81, sinking the following day.
- 1942 – World War II: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: U.S. and Japanese ships engage in an intense, close-quarters surface naval engagement during the Guadalcanal Campaign.[7]
- 1947 – The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first proper assault rifles.
- 1950 – General Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, President of Venezuela, is assassinated in Caracas.
- 1954 – Great Britain defeats France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators.
- 1956 – The Supreme Court of the United States declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.
- 1966 – In response to Fatah raids against Israelis near the West Bank border, Israel launches an attack on the village of As-Samu.
- 1969 – Vietnam War: Anti-war protesters in Washington, D.C. stage a symbolic March Against Death.
- 1970 – Bhola cyclone: A 150-mph tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people in one night.
- 1982 – Ray Mancini defeats Duk Koo Kim in a boxing match held in Las Vegas. Kim’s subsequent death (on November 17) leads to significant changes in the sport.
- 1982 – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.
- 1985 – The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts and melts a glacier, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buries Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.
- 1985 – Xavier Suárez is sworn in as Miami‘s first Cuban-born mayor.
- 1989 – Hans-Adam II, the present Prince of Liechtenstein, begins his reign on the death of his father.
- 1990 – In Aramoana, New Zealand, David Gray shoots dead 13 people in a massacre before being tracked down and killed by police the next day.
- 1992 – The High Court of Australia rules in Dietrich v The Queen that although there is no absolute right to have publicly funded counsel, in most circumstances a judge should grant any request for an adjournment or stay when an accused is unrepresented.
- 1994 – In a referendum, voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union.
- 1995 – Mozambique becomes the first state to join the Commonwealth of Nations without having been part of the former British Empire.[8]
- 1995 – A truck-bomb explodes outside of a US-operated Saudi Arabian National Guard training center in Riyadh, killing five Americans and two Indians. A group called the Islamic Movement for Change claims responsibility.
- 2000 – Philippine House Speaker Manny Villar passes the articles of impeachment against Philippine President Joseph Estrada.
- 2001 – War on Terror: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.
- 2002 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.
- 2002 – During the Prestige oil spill, a storm bursts a tank of the oil tanker MV Prestige, which was not allowed to dock and sank on November 19, 2002 off the coast of Galicia, spilling 63,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil, more than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
- 2012 – A total solar eclipse occurs in parts of Australia and the South Pacific.
- 2013 – Hawaii legalizes same-sex marriage.
- 2013 – 4 World Trade Center officially opens.
- 2015 – Islamic State operatives carry out a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, including suicide bombings, mass shootings and a hostage crisis. The terrorists kill 130 people, making it the deadliest attack in France since the Second World War.[9]
-Source: wikipedia
