Tag: November

Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in November 2026 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are ideal for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly selected an anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2026, which lists more than 3,600 anniversaries. The Date-A-Base Book 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 are also available.

Each edition is available in British and U.S. versions. Both have the same content, but with different date formats, spelling and grammar. If you click on the links above, you should be directed to the correct version, based on your location. We’ve taken the anniversaries below from the British version.

1 Nov 1936 – 90 years ago
The Berlin–Rome Axis: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini first used the term ‘axis’ to describe the alliance between Italy and Germany.

2 Nov 1976 – 50 years ago
Jimmy Carter was elected as the 39^th President of the United States. (Inaugurated 20^th January 1977.)

3 Nov 1926 – 100 years ago
Death of Annie Oakley, American markswoman who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

4 Nov 1966 – 60 years ago
The Florence flood, Italy. The Arno river burst its banks after days of intense rainfall. The city was devastated, thousands were made homeless or lost their businesses, and 35 people were killed. Millions of Renaissance books, manuscripts and artworks were damaged or destroyed. Restoration work is still ongoing to this day.

5 Nov 1946 – 80 years ago
The world’s first mobile bank went into service on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. It was operated by the National Bank of Scotland (now the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is part of the NatWest Group) and served crofters around Stornoway.

6 Nov 1926 – 100 years ago
Birth of Frank Carson, Northern Irish comedian and entertainer. (Died 2012.)

7 Nov 1976 – 50 years ago
Argentina established a clandestine naval base (Corbeta Uruguay) on Thule Island in the South Sandwich Islands (a British overseas territory). This was part of its attempt to legitimise its claim over the Falkland Islands.
(Britain destroyed the base at the end of the Falklands War.)

8 Nov 1966 – 60 years ago
Edward Brooke of Massachusetts became the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate.
He was inaugurated on 3^rd January 1967.

9 Nov 2001 – 25 years ago
The Dolby Theatre opened in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (as the Kodak Theatre).
It is the venue for the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

10 Nov 1951 – 75 years ago
The Direct Distance Dialling telephone service was launched in the USA and area codes were introduced.
For the first time, people could call each other right across the country without having to go through an operator.

11 Nov 1926 – 100 years ago
The United States Numbered Highway System was established, including the iconic Route 66 (Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California). The Interstate Highway System was established in June 1956 and supplemented or replaced many of the Numbered Highway System Routes. Route 66 was removed from the highway system in June 1985, but sections of it still remain in Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Arizona, where it is recognised as Historic Route 66.

12 Nov 1966 – 60 years ago
The pop/rock song I’m a Believer by the Monkees was released.
It was certified gold within two days of release and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.

13 Nov 1851 – 175 years ago
The first telegraph service between London, UK and Paris, France began operating.

14 Nov 2006 – 20 years ago
Microsoft released its Zune portable media player. It was discontinued in October 2011.

15 Nov 1926 – 100 years ago
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network was launched in the USA.

16 Nov 1966 – 60 years ago
American neurosurgeon Sam Sheppard was cleared of killing his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954. The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered a second trial after determining that the ‘carnival atmosphere’ surrounding his 1954 trial had made it impossible for due process to have been followed. He had served ten years in prison.
(He died of liver failure caused by alcoholism in 1970, aged 46.)

17 Nov 1901 – 125 years ago
Birth of Lee Strasberg, Polish/Ukrainian-born American actor, theatrical director and teacher. The chief proponent of method acting in the USA. Director of the Actors Studio (1951–82).

18 Nov 1626 – 400 years ago
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City was completed. It is the largest church in the world (measured by its interior).

19 Nov 1956 – 70 years ago
The Ford Motor Company established its Edsel brand, named in honour of founder Henry Ford’s son, Edsel.
The cars were regarded by customers as unattractive and low quality, and they were launched during a recession, so they did not sell well. The brand was discontinued in 1959 after making a loss of over $250 million (equivalent to more than $2 billion today).

20 Nov 1976 – 50 years ago
The U.S. première of the sports drama film Rocky.
Released: 3^rd December. UK: 7^th January 1977.

21 Nov 1936 – 90 years ago
The first television gardening programme: In Your Garden, presented by Mr Middleton (C. H. Middleton), was broadcast by the BBC.

22 Nov 1946 – 80 years ago
The first Biro ballpoint pens went on sale in the UK.

23 Nov 1996 – 30 years ago
The first Tamagotchi handheld virtual pets were released by Bandai in Japan.
(Rest of the world: 1^st May 1997.)

24 Nov 1951 – 75 years ago
The play Gigi, based on the novel by Colette, opened on Broadway.
Audrey Hepburn (then an unknown actress) played the lead role.

25 Nov 1986 – 40 years ago
The King Fahd Causeway opened. It links Saudi Arabia and Bahrain across the Persian Gulf.

26 Nov 1926 – 100 years ago
Death of John Browning, American firearms designer and inventor. Founder of the Browning Arms Company. He pioneered the development of modern repeating, semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

27 Nov 1826 – 200 years ago
British chemist John Walker invented the first successful friction match.
He refused to patent it, meaning that anyone was free to make them.

28 Nov 1966 – 60 years ago
The Burundi coup. Prime Minister Michel Micombero overthrew the monarchy and installed himself as Burundi’s first president (until 1976 when he was ousted in another coup). He died in exile in Somalia in 1983, aged 42.
(The former king, Ntare V, was executed in 1972, aged 24.)

29 Nov 1951 – 75 years ago
The world’s first business computer, the LEO I (Lyons Electronic Office), went into service, running business applications for J. Lyons & Co. It was based on the EDSAC computer developed at the University of Cambridge, which Lyons had helped finance. In 1954 Lyons formed LEO Computers and marketed the computer to other companies. LEO Computers later became part of ICL and then Fujitsu.

30 Nov 1901 – 125 years ago
British inventor Frank Hornby was granted a UK patent for Meccano, a model construction system consisting of reusable parts. (UK Patent 190,100,587.) He sold it as ‘Mechanics Made Easy’. It was renamed Meccano in 1907.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2026.

The 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 editions are also available if you work further ahead.

Each edition is available as a PDF ebook (with a free Excel spreadsheet) or as a printed paperback book, in British or U.S. versions.

Reviews

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ A brilliant resource as usual
This book continues to astound me with its meticulous attention to detail and painstaking research. I use it all the time to generate ideas for documentaries and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone else who works in the media.” — Chris

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ A deeply researched goldmine of ideas
For journalists looking to plan ahead, the Date-A-Base Books offer a goldmine of ideas that are unavailable on the free internet.
I’ve already recommended it to fellow colleagues at the BBC. — Richard

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Great reference
This is a fantastic and extremely useful book – very well compiled, detailed and organised. Highly recommended for research or if you’re just curious about ‘on this day’ type history. — Mark

How to use the anniversaries:

How can you turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines, newspapers and websites? How do you get paid for writing them, and how can you make a great living from it?

Download our free guide Ditch Your Day Job. It tells you everything you need to know!

Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in November 2025 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly selected an anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2025, which lists more than 3,600 anniversaries. The Date-A-Base Book 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 are also available.

Each edition is available in British and U.S. versions. Both have the same content, but with different date formats and spellings. If you click on the links above, you should be directed to the correct version, based on your location. We’ve taken the anniversaries below from the British version.

1 Nov 1985 – 40 years ago
Quantum Link (also known as Q-Link), an online service for Commodore personal computers, began operating. In 1989, the service was renamed America Online (AOL) and was made available to users of other computers, including the IBM PC.

2 Nov 1950 – 75 years ago
Death of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and literary critic. Best known for Pygmalion. Winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature. Co-founder of the London School of Economics. The only person to win both an Academy Award and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

3 to 9 Nov 1900 – 125 years ago
The first major automobile show in the USA was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

4 Nov 1825 – 200 years ago
The Wedding of the Waters. Following the opening of the Erie Canal on 26^th October 1825, the Governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton, made the ten-day journey to New York Harbor. When his boat anchored off Sandy Hook, he poured a barrel of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean to celebrate the Wedding of the Waters.

5 Nov 1935 – 90 years ago
The board game Monopoly was launched by Parker Brothers. Its inventor, Charles Darrow, was awarded a U.S. Patent for it design on 31^st December. (U.S. Patent 2,026,082.) He assigned it to Parker Brothers.

6 Nov 1975 – 50 years ago
British punk rock group the Sex Pistols gave their first public performance, at St Martin’s College of Art in London. The performance was cut short after ten minutes and a fight broke out.

7 Nov 1775 – 250 years ago
American Revolutionary War: Dunmore’s Proclamation. John Murray, the 4^th Earl of Dunmore (also known as Lord Dunmore), Governor of the Province of Virginia, issued a proclamation declaring martial law and offering freedom to any male slaves who left their provincial masters and joined the British Army. Between 800 and 2,000 slaves are reported to have taken up his offer.

8 Nov 1950? – 75 years ago
Korean War: the first all-jet aerial dogfight in history took place, with U.S. jets taking on North Korea’s Chinese-supplied MiG-15s. (Some sources report that the first all-jet dogfight took place a week earlier on 1^st November.)

9 Nov 1965 – 60 years ago
The death penalty was abolished in the United Kingdom.

10 Nov 1925 – 100 years ago
Birth of Richard Burton, Welsh stage and film actor (Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Taming of the Shrew, and many more). Fifth and sixth husband of the actress Elizabeth Taylor. (Died 1984.)

11 Nov 1965 – 60 years ago
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. The move was widely condemned, and the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on 20^th November.

12 Nov 1995 – 30 years ago
The Croatian War of Independence ended with the signing of the Erdut Agreement.

13 Nov 1925 – 100 years ago
The world’s first exhibition of Surrealist art opened at Galerie Pierre in Paris, France. It included works by Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray.

14 Nov 1935 – 90 years ago
Holocaust: the Nazis began implementing the Nuremburg Laws, stripping German Jews of their German citizenship. The laws were extended to cover gypsies and negroes on 26^th November.

15 Nov 1985 – 40 years ago
The Anglo–Irish Agreement was signed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish President Garret Fitzerald. It gave the Irish government a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland.

16 Nov 1945 – 80 years ago
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, was founded.

17 Nov 1925 – 100 years ago
Birth of Rock Hudson, American film and television actor. One of the most popular film stars of his era. The first major celebrity to die from AIDS. (Died 1985.)

18 Nov 1985 – 40 years ago
The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson was first published. (It ended in December 1995.)

19 Nov 1995 – 30 years ago
The U.S. première of the film Toy Story. It was the first feature-length computer-generated film, and the first full-length film made by Pixar. (Released USA: 22^nd November. UK: 22^nd March 1996.)

20 Nov 1985 – 40 years ago
Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released.

21 Nov 1975 – 50 years ago
American mass murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr. was convicted of the Amityville murders in Long Island, New York in November 1974. He shot and killed his mother, father, two brothers and two sisters. The case inspired the novel and film The Amityville Horror. He received six sentences of 25 years to life in prison. He died in 2021.

22 Nov 1925 – 100 years ago
Birth of Jerrie Mock, American aviator. The first woman to fly solo around the world (1964). (Died 2014.)

23 Nov 1945 to 1 Oct 1946 – 80 years ago
The first Nuremberg trial was held in Germany.
23 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich were tried for war crimes. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death, and ten were executed on 16^th October 1946. (The other two were already dead.)

24 Nov 1950 – 75 years ago
The Great Appalachian Storm (also known as The Great Thanksgiving Storm or the Storm of the Century) hit eastern USA and Canada. More than 300 people were killed.

25 Nov 1975 – 50 years ago
American radiologist Robert Ledley was granted a U.S. patent for his invention of the whole-body CT scanner. (U.S. Patent 3,922,552.)

26 Nov 1965 – 60 years ago
France became the world’s third space power when it successfully launched its first satellite Astérix into orbit from Algeria.

27 Nov 1945 – 80 years ago
Care International was founded (as CARE – the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, later renamed the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere). It was originally intended to be a temporary organisation to send food packages to Europe following the end of WWII.

28 Nov 1925 – 100 years ago
The first Grand Ole Opry country music concert was held in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and also broadcast on the radio.

29 Nov 1945 – 80 years ago
Yugoslavia abolished its monarchy and became the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

30 Nov 1900 – 125 years ago
Death of Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, short story writer and poet. Known for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his play The Importance of Being Earnest, and his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He was convicted of gross indecency (homosexual acts) and served two years in prison. (Meningitis, aged 46.)

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2025.

The 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 editions are also available if you work further ahead.

Each edition is available as a PDF ebook (with a free Excel spreadsheet) or as a printed paperback book, in British or U.S. versions.

How to use the anniversaries:

How can you turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines, newspapers and websites? How do you get paid for writing them, and how can you make a great living from it?

Download our free guide Ditch Your Day Job. It tells you everything you need to know!

Share this:

Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in November 2024 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2024, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries (an average of eight newsworthy anniversaries for every day of the year).

1 Nov 1924 – 100 years ago
The Boston Bruins ice hockey team was founded. It was the first NHL team in the USA.

2 Nov 1924 – 100 years ago
The first crossword puzzle to appear in a British newspaper was published in the Sunday Express.
(The world’s first modern crossword puzzle was published in the New York World in the USA in December 1913.)

3 Nov 1949 – 75 years ago
Death of Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman, art collector and philanthropist who established the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

4 Nov 1899 – 125 years ago
Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams was published.

5 Nov 1824 – 200 years ago
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was founded in Troy, New York, USA.
It is the oldest technological university in the USA. It opened on 3^rd January 1825.

6 Nov 1944 – 80 years ago
The B Reactor at the Hanford Site in Washington, USA began producing plutonium. It was the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium from the reactor was used in the USA’s first nuclear bomb (the Trinity test), and in the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945. (The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima used highly enriched uranium.)

7 Nov 1944 – 80 years ago
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term. No other U.S. President has been elected for more than two terms.

8 Nov 1974 – 50 years ago
British aristocrat Lord Lucan disappeared from his home in London after his children’s nanny was bludgeoned to death and his wife was attacked. There were hundreds of claims of sightings around the world in the following years, but none were substantiated. He was never found and is presumed dead.

9 Nov 2004 – 20 years ago
The Firefox web browser was officially released (version 1.0).

10 Nov 1974 – 50 years ago
The discovery of the charm quark, a type of subatomic particle, was announced by two teams of American scientists at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The leaders of the two teams were awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics.

11 Nov 1999 – 25 years ago
The House of Lords Act was passed in Britain. It removed the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House. Most members are now life peers.

12 Nov 1974 – 50 years ago
The United Nations General Assembly suspended South Africa because of its apartheid policies. The suspension was lifted in 1993.

13 Nov 1974 – 50 years ago
Death of Karen Silkwood, American chemical technician and union activist. Killed in a car crash in uncertain circumstances after raising concerns about health and safety practices at a nuclear facility. Her story is told in the film Silkwood.

14 Nov 1994 – 30 years ago
The first fare-paying passengers travelled through the Channel Tunnel linking England and France.

15 Nov 1899 – 125 years ago
Second Boer War: future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers while working as a journalist for the Morning Post newspaper. His train was derailed by Boer shelling, and he was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp. He escaped in December and rejoined the army, helping to relieve the siege of Ladysmith.

16 Nov 1824 – 200 years ago
Australia’s longest river, the Murray River, was discovered by Hamilton Hume and William Hovell during their great expedition to explore eastern Australia. The expedition was commissioned by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane.

17 Nov 1944 – 80 years ago
World War II: the USA launched the first large-scale bombing raids on the Japanese capital, Tokyo. The raids continued until the end of the war.

18 Nov 1874 – 150 years ago
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

19 Nov 1874 – 150 years ago
Former New York senator William M. Tweed (‘Boss’ Tweed) was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. He had defrauded New York City taxpayers of as much as $200 million. His sentence was later reduced to one year. He escaped, but was recaptured, and died in prison in 1878.

20 Nov 1924 – 100 years ago
Birth of Benoît Mandelbrot, Polish-born French-American mathematician. The father of fractals. (Died 2010.)

21 Nov 1974 – 50 years ago
Birmingham Pub Bombings, UK. 21 people were killed and 182 injured when bombs exploded in two pubs. The IRA was thought to be responsible, but denied it. The ‘Birmingham Six’ were convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but were later acquitted.

22 Nov 1774 – 250 years ago
Death of Robert Clive, 1^st Baron Clive, (Clive of India), British general who helped found the British Empire in India.

23 Nov 1899 – 125 years ago
The world’s first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, California, USA. It was built by the Pacific Phonograph Company and used an Edison electric phonograph. Up to four people could listen at a time, via coin-operated stethoscope-like tubes.

24 Nov 1874 – 150 years ago
American farmer and inventor Joseph Glidden was granted a U.S. patent for barbed wire. (U.S. Patent 157,124.)

25 Nov 1984 – 40 years ago
36 musicians gathered in London to record the Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

26 Nov 1949 – 75 years ago
India became a republic within the British Commonwealth.

27 Nov 1924 – 100 years ago
The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held, in New York City, USA. (It was called the Macy’s Christmas Parade.)

28 Nov 1964 – 60 years ago
NASA launched Mariner 4 – the first successful mission to Mars. It reached Mars in July 1965 and returned the first close-up images of another planet.

29 Nov 1924 – 100 years ago
The first photo was sent across the Atlantic using a wireless facsimile system invented by Richard H. Ranger of RCA. The photo was sent from New York City, USA to London, England and was of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. Operators in the UK then sent back several photos taken in London, which were published in the New York Herald Tribune newspaper the following day, 30th November.

30 Nov 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1940–45, 1951–55). Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2024. The 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The 2029 edition will also be published in the next few weeks – we’re working on it right now. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.

How to use the anniversaries:

So, how do you turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, and how can you make a great living from it? Simply download our free guide Ditch Your Day Job, which tells you everything you need to know!

Share this:

Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in November 2023 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries.

1 Nov 1848 – 175 years ago
The first railway bookstall was opened by W. H. Smith at Euston Station, London, UK.

2 Nov 1948 – 75 years ago
Harry S. Truman was re-elected as U.S. President for a second term, in the greatest election upset in U.S. history. Every prediction had indicated that Thomas E. Dewey would win. The Chicago Daily Tribune famously (and erroneously) announced Dewey’s ‘victory’ on the front page of its 3^rd November issue.

3 Nov 1983 – 40 years ago
In a referendum, the white citizens of South Africa voted to approve the Tricameral Parliament. Indian and coloured South Africans would be represented by new, separate parliamentary chambers, while blacks would continue to be excluded. The new parliament was established in September 1984 and remained in effect until 1994.

4 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
Birth of Alfred (‘Freddy’) Heineken, Dutch brewery executive. He turned Heineken into a worldwide brand using innovative marketing methods. (Died 2002.)

5 Nov 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II: the Vatican City was bombed – the only time this happened during the war. The perpetrators remained a mystery for decades, but it is now known that Italian Fascists dropped five bombs from an unmarked plane in an attempt to knock out the radio station, which they believed was broadcasting military messages to the enemy. Four of the bombs exploded, causing some damage, but no deaths were reported.

6 Nov 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II: the Soviet Red Army recaptured Kiev (now in Ukraine) from the Germans. The Germans had destroyed numerous historic buildings.

7 Nov 1973 – 50 years ago
The War Powers Resolution came into effect in the USA. It limits the President’s power to commit the country to an armed conflict without congressional approval.

8 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
Birth of Jack Kilby, American electrical engineer. Joint winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for co-inventing the integrated circuit. He also designed the first pocket calculator. (Died 2005.)

9 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
Birth of Alice Coachman, American athlete. The first African American woman to win an Olympic gold medal (1948, high jump).

10 Nov 1983 – 40 years ago
American computer student Fred Cohen demonstrated the first computer virus at a computer security seminar. He had created the virus with computer scientist Len Adleman on 3^rd November.

11 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
The eternal flame at the tomb of the unknown solder under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France was lit. It was the first modern-day eternal flame in Europe.

12 Nov 1933 – 90 years ago
The first known photographs of the Loch Ness Monster were taken by Hugh Gray, a local man, during one of his regular Sunday walks. (1 photo was later confirmed to be a hoax, and 4 of the others were blank.)

13 Nov 1973 – 50 years ago
Britain declared a state of emergency as a strike by coal miners caused supplies to dwindle. A 3-Day Week was introduced to conserve supplies.

14 Nov 1948 – 75 years ago
Birth of King Charles III of the United Kingdom.

15 Nov 1963 – 60 years ago
The island of Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland, was ‘born’ when an under-water volcano erupted and rose above the surface of the sea.

16 Nov 1873 – 150 years ago
Birth of W. C. Handy, (‘the Father of the Blues’), American blues/jazz composer and trumpet player who introduced Delta blues to a national audience.

17 Nov 1873 – 150 years ago
Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, was formed when the cities of Buda, Pest and Óbuda merged.

18 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
Birth of Alan B. Shepard, American astronaut. The first American in space. (Died 1998).

19 Nov 1523 – 500 years ago
Pope Clemens VII was elected.

20 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
American inventor Garrett Morgan was granted a U.S. patent for the three-position traffic light. (U.S. Patent No. 1,475,024.)

21 Nov 1953 – 70 years ago
British scientists revealed that the fossilised skull of ‘Piltdown Man’, discovered in England in 1912 and thought to be from one of the earliest humans, was a hoax constructed from the skulls of 3 different species.

22 Nov 1963 – 60 years ago
U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President.

23 Nov 1963 – 60 years ago
The first episode of the science fiction television series Doctor Who was broadcast in the UK. It is the longest-running and most successful science fiction TV series in the world.

24 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
Radio Belgium began broadcasting.

25 Nov 1923 – 100 years ago
The first two-way transatlantic radio broadcast. Amateur radio enthusiast Leon Deloy from Nice, France conversed with two other amateur radio operators, Fred Schnell and with John Reinartz, in the USA. They sent Morse code messages using shortwave radios.

26 Nov 1948 – 75 years ago
The first Polaroid instant cameras (the model 95 Land Camera) went on sale, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

27 Nov 1998 – 25 years ago
The Sega Dreamcast video games console was released in Japan. It was Sega’s last games console. (North America: 9^th September 1999, Europe: 14^th October 1999.)

28 Nov 1958 – 65 years ago
The USA carried out its first successful full-range flight of an Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).
The Soviet Union had already fully tested its first ICBM (the R-7) in August 1957.

29 Nov 1898 – 125 years ago
Birth of C. S. Lewis, Irish-born British novelist, theologian and broadcaster. Best known for The Chronicles of Narnia.

30 Nov 1993 – 30 years ago
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (commonly known as the Brady Bill) was signed into law in the USA by U.S. President Bill Clinton. It required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and background checks of prospective buyers.
(Effective from 28^th February 1994.)

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2023. The 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.

How to use the anniversaries:

If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.

It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, hundreds of article-writing tips and ideas, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.

Share this:

Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.

Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in November 2022 (so you have time to write about them!)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2022. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead, and the 2027 edition will be available from August 2022.

1 Nov 1952 – 70 years ago
The USA carried out the first successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb, in a test on the Pacific island of Elugelab, Marshall Islands. The island was completely destroyed and no longer exists.

2 Nov 1772 – 250 years ago
The Morning Post newspaper was first published in the UK. It ran until 1937 when it merged with The Daily Telegraph.

3 Nov 1957 – 65 years ago
The Soviet Union launched its Sputnik 2 spacecraft. It was the second spacecraft launched into orbit, and the first to carry a living animal – a dog named Laika, who died from overheating after a few hours. The spacecraft re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burnt up in April 1958.

4 Nov 1922 – 100 years ago
British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. On 26^th November he reached a second sealed doorway and discovered the famous treasures.

5 Nov 1872 – 150 years ago
Women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony voted in the U.S. presidential election (in which the incumbent Ulysses S. Grant was re-elected). She was arrested (on 18^th November) and fined $100, generating national controversy. This was a key moment in the women’s suffrage movement.

6 Nov 1947 – 75 years ago
The first episode of the news/current affairs television show Meet the Press was broadcast on NBC in the USA. It is still running and is the world’s longest-running TV programme.

7 Nov 1932 – 90 years ago
The first episode of the science fiction series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was broadcast on CBS radio in the USA.

8 Nov 1622 – 400 years ago
Birth of Charles X Gustav, King of Sweden (1654–60).

9 Nov 1872 – 150 years ago
The Great Boston Fire, Massachusetts, USA. Most of the downtown and financial districts were destroyed and 13 people were killed. It caused $1.4 billion worth of damage (in today’s money).

10 Nov 1982 – 40 years ago
Death of Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union (1964–82). Succeeded by Yuri Andropov.

11 Nov 1922 – 100 years ago
Birth of Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist, playwright and short story writer. (Died 2007.)

12 Nov 1992 – 30 years ago
The first episode of the TV comedy series Absolutely Fabulous was broadcast in the UK.

13 Nov 1982 – 40 years ago
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., USA was dedicated.

14 Nov 1922 – 100 years ago
The BBC launched its daily radio service on the radio station 2LO.

15 Nov 2002 – 20 years ago
Death of Myra Hindley, British serial killer. One of the notorious ‘Moors Murderers’, along with Ian Brady.

16 Nov 1272 – 750 years ago
Death of Henry III, King of England (1216–72). Succeeded by his son Edward I.

17 Nov 1962 – 60 years ago
Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., USA was dedicated.

18 Nov 1922 – 100 years ago
Death of Marcel Proust, French novelist. Best known for his 7-volume novel In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past).

19 Nov 2007 – 15 years ago
Amazon released its first Kindle e-book reader.

20 Nov 1947 – 75 years ago
The marriage of Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.

21 Nov 1897 – 125 years ago
Birth of Vito Genovese, Italian-born American mobster. He played a leading role in the rise of the Mafia and organised crime in the USA, and was a Mafia enforcer.

22 Nov 1997 – 25 years ago
Death of Michael Hutchence, Australian rock singer and songwriter (INXS). (Found hanged, aged 37.)

23 Nov 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II: the U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS) was established.

24 Nov 1947 – 75 years ago
The ‘Hollywood Ten’ were blacklisted by film studios for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A wider ‘Hollywood Blacklist’ came into effect on 25^th November.

25 Nov 1947 – 75 years ago
New Zealand became a fully independent sovereign state when the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act received Royal Assent.

26 Nov 1922 – 100 years ago
Birth of Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist. Creator of the Peanuts comic strip, which ran for almost 50 years. (Died 2000.)

27 Nov 1942 – 80 years ago
Birth of Jimi Hendrix, American rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. (Died 1970.)

28 Nov 1942 – 80 years ago
Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The nightclub was destroyed and 492 people were killed.

29 Nov 1972 – 50 years ago
Pong, the first commercially successful video game, was released by Atari as a coin-operated arcade game. The first machine was installed without any fanfare in a bar in Sunnyvale, California, USA.

30 Nov 1982 – 40 years ago
Michael Jackson’s album Thriller was released.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2022. The 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead, and the 2027 edition will be available from August 2022.
Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

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