Events Pre-1600 830 – Theodora is crowned Byzantine empress and marries then emperor Theophilos in the Hagia Sophia. She is credited with restoring Christian orthodoxy and icons. 1086 – Tutush, brother of Seljuk sultan Malik Shah, defeats Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, the Turkish ruler of Anatolia in the battle of Ain Salm. 1257 – Kraków, in Poland, receives city rights. 1284 – Battle of the Gulf of Naples: Roger of Lauria, admiral to King Peter III of Aragon, destroys the Neapolitan fleet and captures Charles of Salerno. 1288 – The Battle of Worringen ends the War of the Limburg Succession, with John I, Duke of Brabant, being one of the more important victors. 1305 – Election of Pope Clement V following the death of Pope Benedict XI in the previous year. 1601–1900 1610 – The masque Tethys' Festival is performed at Whitehall Palace to celebrate the investiture of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. 1644 – The Qing dynasty's Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor take Beijing during the collapse of the Ming dynasty. 1794 – Haitian Revolution: Battle of Port-Républicain: British troops capture the capital of Saint-Domingue. 1798 – Battle of New Ross: The attempt to spread the United Irish Rebellion into Munster is defeated. 1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched. 1829 – captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba. 1832 – The June Rebellion breaks out in Paris in an attempt to overthrow the monarchy of Louis Philippe. 1837 – Houston is incorporated by the Republic of Texas. 1849 – Denmark becomes a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution. 1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper. 1862 – As the Treaty of Saigon is signed, ceding parts of southern Vietnam to France, the guerrilla leader Trương Định decides to defy Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam and fight on against the Europeans. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont: Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners. 1873 – Sultan Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar closes the great slave market under the terms of a treaty with Great Britain. 1879 – The Zungeni Mountain skirmish takes place between British and Zulu forces during the second invasion of the Zulu Kingdom. 1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris. 1888 – The Rio de la Plata earthquake takes place. 1893 – The trial of Lizzie Borden for the murder of her father and step-mother begins in New Bedford, Massachusetts. 1900 – Second Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria.
1901–present 1915 – Denmark amends its constitution to allow women's suffrage. 1916 – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court; he is the first American Jew to hold such a position. 1916 – World War I: The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire breaks out. 1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day". 1940 – World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renew the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red"). 1941 – World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing. 1942 – World War II: The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. 1944 – World War II: More than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day. 1945 – The Allied Control Council, the military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power. 1946 – A fire in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, kills 61 people. 1947 – Cold War: Marshall Plan: In a speech at Harvard University, the United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe. 1949 – Thailand elects Orapin Chaiyakan, the first female member of Thailand's Parliament. 1956 – Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements. 1959 – The first government of Singapore is sworn in. 1960 – The Lake Bodom murders occur in Finland. 1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair". 1963 – Movement of 15 Khordad: Protests against the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In several cities, masses of angry demonstrators are confronted by tanks and paratroopers. 1964 – DSV Alvin is commissioned. 1967 – The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border. 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. 1975 – The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War. 1975 – The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). 1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses. Eleven people are killed as a result of flooding. 1981 – The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS. 1983 – More than 100 people are killed when the Russian river cruise ship Aleksandr Suvorov collides with a girder of the Ulyanovsk Railway Bridge. The collision caused a freight train to derail, further damaging the vessel, yet the ship remained afloat and was eventually restored and returned to service. 1984 – Operation Blue Star: Under orders from India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Army begins an invasion of the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. 1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. 1991 – Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-40, the fifth spacelab mission. 1993 – Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide. 1995 – The Bose–Einstein condensate is first created. 1997 – The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War begins. 1998 – A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants. The strike lasts seven weeks. 2000 – The Six-Day War in Kisangani begins in Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Ugandan and Rwandan forces. A large part of the city is destroyed. 2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the second costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. 2002 – Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-111, carrying the Expedition 5 crew to the International Space Station to replace the Expedition 4 crew. Astronaut Franklin Chang-Díaz becomes the second person to have flown on seven spaceflights., Wired Science, November 14, 2007 2003 – A severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50 °C (122 °F) in the region. 2004 – Noël Mamère, Mayor of Bègles, celebrates marriage for two men for the first time in France. 2009 – After 65 straight days of civil disobedience, at least 31 people are killed in clashes between security forces and indigenous people near Bagua, Peru. 2009 – A fire at a day-care center kills 49 people in Hermosillo, Mexico. 2012 – Last transit of Venus until the year 2117. 2015 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.0 strikes Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia, killing 18 people, including hikers and mountain guides on Mount Kinabalu, after mass landslides that occurred during the earthquake. This is the strongest earthquake to strike Malaysia since 1975. 2016 – Two shootings in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, kill six people. 2017 – Montenegro becomes the 29th member of NATO. 2017 – Six Arab countries—Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates—cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of destabilising the region. 2022 – A constitutional referendum is held in Kazakhstan following violent protests and civil unrest against the government. 2024 – The Boeing Starliner is launched on its first crewed flight, carrying astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the International Space Station. 2025 – The Nintendo Switch 2 video game console is released worldwide.
Births Pre-1600
1341 – Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, son of King Edward III of England and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (died 1402)G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), Volume XII/2, page 895. 1412 – Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, Italian ruler (died 1478) 1493 – Justus Jonas, German priest and academic (died 1555) 1523 – Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry (died 1573) 1554 – Benedetto Giustiniani, Italian clergyman (died 1621) 1587 – Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, English colonial administrator and admiral (died 1658) 1596 – Peter Wtewael, Dutch Golden Age painter (died 1660)
1601–1900 1640 – Pu Songling, Chinese author (died 1715) 1646 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Italian mathematician and philosopher (died 1684) 1660 – Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (died 1744) 1757 – Pierre Jean George Cabanis, French physiologist and philosopher (died 1808) 1760 – Johan Gadolin, Finnish chemist, physicist, and mineralogist (died 1852) 1771 – Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (died 1851) 1781 – Christian Lobeck, German scholar and academic (died 1860) 1801 – William Scamp, English architect and engineer (died 1872) 1819 – John Couch Adams, English mathematician and astronomer (died 1892) 1830 – Carmine Crocco, Italian soldier (died 1905) 1850 – Pat Garrett, American sheriff (died 1908) 1862 – Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist and optician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1930) 1868 – James Connolly, Scottish-born Irish rebel leader (died 1916) 1870 – Bernard de Pourtalès, Swiss captain and sailor (died 1935) 1876 – Isaac Heinemann, German-Israeli scholar and academic (died 1957) 1877 – Willard Miller, Canadian-American sailor, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1959) 1878 – Pancho Villa, Mexican general and politician, Governor of Chihuahua (died 1923) 1879 – Robert Mayer, German-English businessman and philanthropist (died 1985) 1883 – John Maynard Keynes, English economist, philosopher, and academic (died 1946) 1883 – Mary Helen Young, Scottish nurse and resistance fighter during World War II (died 1945) 1884 – Ralph Benatzky, Czech-Swiss composer (died 1957) 1884 – Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author (died 1969) 1884 – Frederick Lorz, American runner (died 1914) 1887 – Ruth Benedict, American anthropologist (died 1948) 1892 – Jaan Kikkas, Estonian weightlifter (died 1944) 1894 – Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet, Canadian-English publisher and academic (died 1976) 1895 – William Boyd, American actor and producer (died 1972) 1895 – William Roberts, English soldier and painter (died 1980) 1898 – Salvatore Ferragamo, Italian shoe designer, founded Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. (died 1960) 1898 – Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet, playwright, and director (died 1936) 1899 – Otis Barton, American diver, engineer, and actor, designed the bathysphere (died 1992) 1899 – Theippan Maung Wa, Burmese writer (died 1942)