783 – The Asturian queen Adosinda is held at a monastery to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.
1161 – Battle of Caishi: A Song dynasty fleet fights a naval engagement with Jin dynasty ships on the Yangtze river during the Jin–Song Wars.
1476 – Vlad the Impaler defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Báthory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.
1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as proclaimed by President George Washington at the request of Congress.
1805 – Official opening of Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
1812 – The Battle of Berezina begins during Napoleon's retreat from Russia.
1825 – At Union College in Schenectady, New York, a group of college students form the Kappa Alpha Society, the first college social fraternity.
1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.
1863 – United States President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November. Following the Franksgiving controversy from 1939 to 1941, it has been observed on the fourth Thursday in 1942 and subsequent years.
1865 – Battle of Papudo: A Spanish navy schooner is defeated by a Chilean corvette north of Valparaíso, Chile.
1914 – HMS Bulwark was destroyed by a large internal explosion with the loss of 741 men near Sheerness.
1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
1918 – The Montenegran Podgorica Assembly votes for a "union of the people", declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia.
1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of PharaohTutankhamun in over 3000 years.
1922 – The Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor. (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so, but it was not widely distributed.)
1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates an incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.
1941 – World War II: Japan's 1st Air Fleet departs the Kuril Islands to strike Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
1942 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
1942 – Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City.
1943 – World War II: HMT Rohna is sunk by the Luftwaffe in an air attack in the Mediterranean north of Béjaïa, Algeria.
1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
1949 – The Constituent Assembly of India adopts the constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People's Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
1965 – France launches Astérix, becoming the third nation to put an object in orbit using its own booster.
1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire. He is later awarded the Medal of Honor.
1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.
1977 – An unidentified hijacker named Vrillon, claiming to be the representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command", takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes, starting at 5:12 pm.
1983 – Brink's-Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink's-Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.
1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.
1986 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of committing war crimes as a guard at the Nazi Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.[1]
1991 – National Assembly of Azerbaijanabolishes the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan and renames several cities back to their original names.
1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland.
1998 – The Khanna rail disaster takes 212 lives in Khanna, Ludhiana, India.
1999 – The 7.5 Template:MAmbrym earthquake shakes Vanuatu and a destructive tsunami follows. Ten people were killed and forty were injured.
2000 – George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote.
2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: A man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.
2004 – The last Poʻouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii, before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
2008 – Mumbai attacks, a series of terrorist attacks killing approximately 166 citizens by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan based extremist Islamist terrorist organisation, and the ship, Queen Elizabeth 2 is out of service, and docks in Dubai.
2011 – NATO attack in Pakistan: NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani check post in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others.
2011 – The Mars Science Laboratory launches to Mars with the Curiosity Rover.[3]
2018 – The robotic probeInsight lands on Elysium Planitia, Mars.
2019 – A magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes western Albania leaving at least 52 people dead and over 1000 injured. This was the second deadliest earthquake to strike Albania in recorded history, and the deadliest in 168 years.[4]
Births[]
907 – Rudesind, Galician bishop (d. 977)
1288 – Go-Daigo, Japanese emperor (d. 1339)
1401 – Henry Beaufort, 2nd Earl of Somerset (d. 1418)
1436 – Catherine of Portugal (d. 1463)
1466 – Edward Hastings, 2nd Baron Hastings, English noble (d. 1506)
1518 – Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora, Catholic cardinal (d. 1564)
1534 – Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley (d. 1613)
1552 – Seonjo of Joseon, King of Joseon (d. 1608)
1594 – James Ware, Irish genealogist (d. 1666)
1604 – Johannes Bach, German organist and composer (d. 1673)
1607 – John Harvard, English minister and philanthropist (d. 1638)
1609 – Henry Dunster, English-American clergyman and academic (d. 1659)
1657 – William Derham, English minister and philosopher (d. 1735)
1678 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist and astronomer (d. 1771)
1703 – Theophilus Cibber, English actor and playwright (d. 1758)
1727 – Artemas Ward, American general and politician (d. 1800)
1731 – William Cowper, English poet and hymnwriter (d. 1800)
1792 – Sarah Moore Grimké, American author and activist (d. 1873)
1817 – Charles Adolphe Wurtz, Alsatian-French chemist (d. 1884)
1827 – Ellen G. White, American religious leader and author, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church (d. 1915)
1828 – Robert Battey, American surgeon and academic (d. 1895)
1828 – René Goblet, French journalist and politician, 52nd Prime Minister of France (d. 1905)
1832 – Rudolph Koenig, German-French physicist and academic (d. 1901)
1832 – Mary Edwards Walker, American surgeon and activist, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1919)
1837 – Thomas Playford II, English-Australian politician, 17th Premier of South Australia (d. 1915)
1853 – Bat Masterson, American police officer and journalist (d. 1921)
1857 – Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist and author (d. 1913)
1858 – Katharine Drexel, American nun and saint (d. 1955)
1864 – Edward Higgins, English 3rd General of the Salvation Army (d. 1947)