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November in History

An event for every day

30 days of November, one event for each: what happened, the year, and at least 2 sources to read more. Some days hold a second event, used in alternate years; across all 60 events we have for November, the subjects run: culture 16, exploration 15, society 13, technology 10, science 3, sports 3.

Every day is also a round of our daily history game, so the year and the story stay hidden for today and the next 30 days. You'll see the first clue instead, and the answer the day after it plays.

November, day by day

Showing all 30 days.

Every day of November: what happened, in which year, and where to read more
DayWhat happened
November 1Year hidden

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First clue: A group of neighboring countries took a big step toward closer union.

November 2Year hidden

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First clue: A new kind of broadcast began reaching a small number of homes in one city.

November 3Year hidden

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First clue: A living passenger went into orbit for the first time.

November 4Year hidden

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First clue: An archaeologist's long search finally turned up a buried staircase.

November 5Year hidden

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First clue: An Asian nation sent its first spacecraft toward another planet.

November 6Year hidden

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First clue: Two university teams played a game that became a huge American tradition.

November 7Year hidden

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First clue: A country was tied together by a long line of steel.

November 8Year hidden

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First clue: An accidental observation revealed a new kind of invisible radiation.

November 9Year hidden

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First clue: A barrier that had split a city for decades suddenly stopped holding people back.

November 10Year hidden

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First clue: A new TV show set out to teach preschoolers letters and numbers.

November 11Year hidden

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First clue: A new system of numbered roads was adopted across a whole country.

November 12Year hidden

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First clue: A spacecraft touched down on a kind of object never landed on before.

November 13Year hidden

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First clue: A rotor-driven flying machine left the ground with its pilot for the first time.

November 14Year hidden

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First clue: A journalist set out to beat a famous record from a novel.

November 15Year hidden

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First clue: A reusable spaceplane flew into orbit and back with nobody aboard.

November 16Year hidden

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First clue: A UN agency set out to build peace in people's minds through learning and culture.

November 17Year hidden

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First clue: A peaceful protest movement toppled a communist government within weeks.

November 18Year hidden

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First clue: A cartoon with synchronized sound made its star world-famous.

November 19Year hidden

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First clue: A speech of only about 270 words became legendary.

November 20Year hidden

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First clue: The first piece of the largest structure ever built in space was launched.

November 21Year hidden

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First clue: A new bridge linked two boroughs of a great city.

November 22Year hidden

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First clue: A double album came in a plain white sleeve.

November 23Year hidden

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First clue: A family TV show about a time traveler became one of the longest-running science fiction series.

November 24Year hidden

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First clue: A book about the living world transformed biology and sparked fierce debate.

November 251953

1953

Sports

Hungary beat England 6–3 at Wembley, England's first home defeat by a team from outside the British Isles.

Hungary's 6–3 win in 1953 shook English football, which began to study continental tactics and training. Hungary won the return match in Budapest 7–1 the next year.

Sources: Wikipedia — Match of the Century (1953 England v Hungary football match)Wikidata — Q469040

November 261965

1965

Exploration

France launches Astérix, its first satellite, becoming the third nation to reach orbit with its own rocket.

France followed only the Soviet Union and the United States in orbiting a satellite on its own rocket. The program laid the groundwork for the French space agency's later role in Europe's Ariane rockets.

Sources: Wikipedia — Astérix (satellite)Wikidata — Q22744

November 272013

2013

Culture

Disney's Frozen opens across the US and becomes the highest-grossing animated film of its time.

Frozen was released in 2013 and won two Oscars, including Best Animated Feature. "Let It Go" became a worldwide hit, and a sequel followed in 2019.

Sources: Wikipedia — Frozen (2013 film)Wikidata — Q246283

November 281925

1925

Culture

Radio station WSM in Nashville broadcasts its first Barn Dance, the show later called the Grand Ole Opry.

The Grand Ole Opry began in 1925 and is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history. Being invited to join it is still one of country music's highest honours.

Meanwhile in art: Early Modernism

Sources: Wikipedia — Grand Ole OpryWikidata — Q7098695

November 291961

1961

Exploration

NASA's Mercury-Atlas 5 carries the chimpanzee Enos into orbit, clearing the way for an American astronaut.

Enos became the first chimpanzee to orbit Earth in 1961 and landed safely. John Glenn flew the next Mercury-Atlas flight, becoming the first American in orbit in February 1962.

Sources: Wikipedia — Mercury-Atlas 5Wikidata — Q605092

November 302022

2022

Technology

OpenAI releases ChatGPT to the public, and the AI chatbot becomes one of the fastest-growing apps ever.

The chatbot could draft essays, answer questions, write code and hold long conversations, setting off a wave of public interest in generative AI. Other companies raced to release their own assistants, and schools, businesses and governments began debating how such tools should be used.

Sources: Wikipedia — ChatGPTWikidata — Q115564437

Born this month

Up to five well-known people born on each day of November, with their birth year. Names link to Wikipedia.

November 1–7
November 1
  • Aishwarya Rai (1973) · Indian actress (1973–)
  • Edward Said (1935) · Palestinian-American professor (1935–2003)
  • Süleyman Demirel (1924) · 9th President of the Republic of Turkey (1924-2015)
  • Alfred Wegener (1880) · German climatologist and geophysicist (1880–1930)
  • Tim Cook (1960) · American business executive, former Apple executive chairman
November 2
  • James K. Polk (1795) · President of the United States from 1845 to 1849 (1795–1849)
  • Warren G. Harding (1865) · president of the United States from 1921 to 1923
  • Shah Rukh Khan (1965) · Indian actor, producer and television personality
  • Marie Antoinette (1755) · last Queen of France prior to the French Revolution (1755–1793)
  • George Boole (1815) · English mathematician, philosopher and logician (1815–1864)
November 3
November 4
  • Laura Bush (1946) · First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009
  • Matthew McConaughey (1969) · American actor (born 1969)
  • Tony Abbott (1957) · Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015
  • Traian Băsescu (1951) · President of Romania from 2004 to 2014
  • Luís Figo (1972) · Portuguese football player and philatelist (born 1972)
November 5
  • Vivien Leigh (1913) · British actress (1913–1967)
  • Bryan Adams (1959) · Canadian singer-songwriter and musician (born 1959)
  • Vandana Shiva (1952) · Indian philosopher, activist and environmentalist (*1952)
  • Yair Lapid (1963) · Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Former Prime Minister of Israel in 2022 and Chairman of the Yesh Atid Party
  • Famke Janssen (1964) · Dutch actress
November 6
November 7
  • Marie Curie (1867) · Polish-born French physicist and chemist (1867–1934)
  • Albert Camus (1913) · French philosopher, author, and journalist (1913–1960)
  • Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888) · Indian physicist (1888–1970)
  • Konrad Lorenz (1903) · Austrian zoologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 (1903–1989)
  • David Guetta (1967) · French DJ and electronic music producer (born 1967)
November 8–14
November 8
  • Alain Delon (1935) · French actor (1935–2024)
  • Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) · British novelist (born 1954)
  • Bram Stoker (1847) · Irish novelist and short story writer (1847–1912)
  • Margaret Mitchell (1900) · American author and journalist (1900–1949)
  • Gottlob Frege (1848) · German philosopher, logician, and mathematician (1848–1925)
November 9
  • Ivan Turgenev (1818) · Russian writer (1818–1883)
  • Carl Sagan (1934) · American astrophysicist, cosmologist and author (1934–1996)
  • Muhammad Iqbal (1877) · British-Indian Islamic philosopher, poet and politician (1877-1938)
  • Edward VII (1841) · King of the United Kingdom from 1901 to 1910
  • Imre Kertész (1929) · Hungarian author (1929–2016)
November 10
November 11
November 12
  • Sun Yat-sen (1866) · Chinese politician, physician, and revolutionary (1866–1925)
  • Auguste Rodin (1840) · French sculptor (1840–1917)
  • Hassan Rouhani (1948) · President of Iran from 2013 to 2021
  • Grace Kelly (1929) · American actress and Princess consort of Monaco (1929–1982)
  • Anne Hathaway (1982) · American actress (born 1982)
November 13
November 14
  • Charles III (1948) · King of the United Kingdom since 2022 (born 1948)
  • Claude Monet (1840) · French painter (1840–1926)
  • Josh Duhamel (1972) · American actor and former model (born 1972)
  • Astrid Lindgren (1907) · Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays (1907–2002)
November 15–21
November 15
  • Gerhart Hauptmann (1862) · German dramatist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912 (1862-1946)
  • Erwin Rommel (1891) · German field marshal (1891-1944)
  • Mahmoud Abbas (1935) · president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005
  • Georgia O'Keeffe (1887) · American modernist artist (1887–1986)
  • Ed Asner (1929) · American actor (1929–2021)
November 16
  • Guillermo Lasso (1955) · 55th President of Ecuador from 2021 to 2023
  • José Saramago (1922) · Portuguese novelist (1922–2010)
  • Chinua Achebe (1930) · Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic (1930-2013)
  • Sanna Marin (1985) · Prime Minister of Finland from 2019 to 2023
  • Paul Scholes (1974) · English association football player
November 17
November 18
  • Margaret Atwood (1939) · Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, pépiniériste and inventor (born 1939)
  • Qaboos bin Said Al Said (1940) · sultan of Oman from 1970 to 2020 (1940–2020)
  • Louis Daguerre (1787) · French scientist, artist and photographer (1787–1851)
  • Owen Wilson (1968) · American actor (born 1968)
  • Patrick Blackett (1897) · British physicist (1897-1974)
November 19
November 20
November 21
November 22–28
November 22
November 23
November 24
November 25
  • John XXIII (1881) · priest, bishop, cardinal, pope
  • Andrew Carnegie (1835) · Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist (1835–1919)
  • Carl Benz (1844) · German automotive and engine designer and manufacturer (1844–1929)
  • Xabi Alonso (1981) · Spanish football manager and player
  • Christina Applegate (1971) · American actress (born 1971)
November 26
November 27
  • Bruce Lee (1940) · Hong Kong–American martial artist and actor (1940–1973)
  • Jimi Hendrix (1942) · American guitarist (1942–1970)
  • Yulia Tymoshenko (1960) · Ukrainian politician, former Prime Minister
  • Han Kang (1970) · South Korean writer
  • Alexander Dubček (1921) · first Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (1921-1992)
November 28
November 29–30
November 29
November 30

Birth dates and descriptions from Wikidata (CC0).

Keep going

Play today’s puzzlePrevious days

History by topic, across the year: