November 1st – All Hallows Day, also known as All Saints Day among Roman Catholics, commemorating those who have no special feast day.
November 2, 1721 – Peter I was proclaimed Emperor of all the Russias.
November 3, 1534 – King Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church of England following the passage of the Act of Supremacy by Parliament.
November 4, 1842 – Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois.
November 5th – Remembered as Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, for the anniversary of the failed “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I in 1605.
November 6, 1429 – Henry VI was crowned King of England at age eight. He had acceded to the throne at the age of nine months following the death of Charles VI.
November 7, 1659 – The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed, ending the Franco-Spanish war of 1648-59.
November 8, 1519 – Cortes conquered Mexico. After landing on the Yucatan Peninsula in April, Cortes and his troops had marched into the interior of Mexico to the Aztec capital and captured Aztec Emperor Montezuma.
November 9, 1872 – The Great Boston Fire started in a dry-goods warehouse then spread rapidly in windy weather, destroying nearly 800 buildings. Damage was estimated at more than $75 million. The fire’s bright red glare could be seen in the sky for nearly 100 miles.
November 10, 1775 – The U.S. Marine Corps was established as part of the U.S. Navy. It became a separate unit on July 11, 1789.
November 11th – Celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day (formerly called Armistice Day) with parades and military memorial ceremonies.
November 12, 1867 – A major eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy began, lasting several months.
November 13, 1927 – The Holland Tunnel was opened to traffic. The tunnel runs under the Hudson River between New York City and Jersey City and was the first underwater tunnel built in the U.S. It consists of two tubes, each large enough for two lanes of traffic.
November 14, 1666 – The first experimental blood transfusion took place in Britain, utilizing two dogs.
November 15, 1777 – The Articles of Confederation were adopted by Continental Congress.
November 16, 1918 – Hungary was proclaimed an independent republic following the break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
November 17, 1558 – Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England at the age of 25, reigning until 1603 when she was 69. Under her leadership, England became a world power, defeating the Spanish Armada, and witnessed a golden age of literature featuring works by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and others.
November 19, 1493 – Puerto Rico was discovered by Columbus during his second voyage to the New World.
November 20, 1789 – New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
November 21, 1783 – The first free balloon flight took place in Paris as Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis Francois Laurent d’Arlandes ascended in a Montgolfier hot air balloon. Their flight lasted about 25 minutes and carried them nearly six miles at a height of about 300 feet over Paris. Benjamin Franklin was one of the spectators.
November 22, 1943 – The Cairo Conference occurred as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, met to discuss the war in the Pacific against Japan.
November 23, 1890 – Ten-year-old Princess Wilhelmina became Queen of the Netherlands upon the death of her father William III. Her mother Queen Emma acted as Regent until 1898.
November 24, 1859 – Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was first published, theorizing that all the living creatures descended from a common ancestor.
November 25, 1783 – At the end of the Revolutionary War, the last British troops left New York City.
November 26, 1703 – A “Great Storm” lasting two days struck southern England, flooding the Thames and Severn Rivers, killing at least 8,000 persons.
November 27, 1701 – Anders Celsius (1701-1744) was born in Sweden. He invented the centigrade (Celsius) temperature scale commonly used in Europe.
November 28, 1520 – Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan passed through the strait (of Magellan) located at the southern tip of South America, thus crossing from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific.
November 29, 1864 – U.S. Army troops led by Colonel John Chivington attacked and killed at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado after they had already surrendered.
November 30, 1700 – The Battle of Narva occurred as eight thousand Swedish troops under King Charles XII invaded Norway, defeating a force of 50,000 Russians.