November 4 - Events

Events

• 1333 – The River Arno flooding causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani.
• 1429 – Joan of Arc liberates Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.
• 1501 – Catherine of Aragon (later Henry VIII's first wife) meets Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII's older brother – they would later marry.
• 1576 – Eighty Years' War: In Flanders, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city is nearly destroyed).
• 1677 – The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later jointly reign asWilliam and Mary.
• 1737 – The Teatro di San Carlo is inaugurated.
• 1783 – W.A. Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria.
• 1791 – The Western Confederacy of American Indians wins a major victory over the United States in theBattle of the Wabash.
• 1825 – The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Watersceremony in New York Harbour.
• 1839 – The Newport Rising: the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain.
• 1852 – Count Camillo Benso di Cavour becomes the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expands to become Italy.
• 1861 – The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville – Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material.
• 1890 – City & South London Railway: London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.
• 1918 – World War I: Austria-Hungary surrenders to Italy.
• 1918 – The German Revolution begins when 40,000 sailors take over the port in Kiel.
• 1921 – The Sturmabteilung or SA is formed by Adolf Hitler
• 1921 – Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo.
• 1921 – The Italian unknown soldier is buried in the Altare della Patria (Fatherland Altar) in Rome.
• 1922 – In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
• 1924 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected the first female governor in the United States.
• 1939 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.
• 1942 – World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein – Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
• 1944 – World War II: Bitola Liberation Day
• 1952 – The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.
• 1955 – After being totally destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio.
• 1956 – Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
• 1962 – In a test of the Nike-Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Island. It would also be the last atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States.
• 1966 – Two-thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the River Arno floods; together with the contemporaneous flood of the Po River in northern Italy, this leads to 113 deaths, 30,000 made homeless, and the destruction of numerous Renaissance artworks and books.
• 1970 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States turns control of the Binh Thuy Air Base in the Mekong Delta over to South Vietnam.
• 1970 – Genie, a 13-year-old feral child is found in Los Angeles, California having been locked in her bedroom for most of her life.
• 1973 – The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are deserted and are used only bycyclists and roller skaters.
• 1979 – Iran hostage crisis begins: a group of Iranians, mostly students, invades the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
• 1993 – A China Airlines Boeing 747 overruns Runway 13 at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport while landing during a typhoon, injuring 22 people.
• 1994 – San Francisco: First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.
• 1995 – Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extremist Orthodox Israeli.
• 2002 – Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing a pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress.
• 2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.
• 2008 – Proposition 8 passes in California, revoking state recognition of LGBT marriages.