Events

• 355 - Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with the government of the Prefecture of the Gauls.
• 1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot in Texas.
• 1632 - Death of King Gustavus Adolphus the Great of Sweden in the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years War.
• 1789 - Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.
• 1844 - The first constitution of the Dominican Republic is adopted.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
• 1865 - American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on its cruise that sank or captured 37 vessels.
• 1869 - In New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University defeats Princeton University, 6-4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game.
• 1913 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
• 1917 - World War I: Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium.
• 1918 - The Second Polish Republic is proclaimed in Poland.
• 1925 - Secret agent Sidney Reilly is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union.
• 1928 - Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the king.
• 1935 - Before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation."
• 1935 - First flight of the Hawker Hurricane.
• 1939 - World War II: Sonderaktion Krakau
• 1941 - World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, the Germans had lost 4.5 million soldiers and that Soviet victory was near.
• 1942 - Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign begins.
• 1943 - World War II: Russia recaptures Kiev. Before withdrawing, the Germans destroy most of the city's ancient buildings.
• 1944 - Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility, subsequently used in the Fat Man Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
• 1947 - Meet The Press makes its television debut (the show went to a weekly schedule on September 12, 1948).
• 1957 - Félix Gaillard becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1962 - Apartheid: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.
• 1963 - Vietnam War: Following the November 1 coup and execution of President Ngo Dinh Diem, coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam.
• 1965 - Cuba and the United States formally agree to start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971, 250,000 Cubans will use this program.
• 1971 - The AEC tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.
• 1975 - Green March begins: 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara.
• 1977 - The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
• 1985 - In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19 Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, eventually killing 115 people, 11 of them Supreme Court justices.
• 1985 - "Irangate" scandal: The American press reveals that US President Ronald Reagan had authorized the shipment of arms to Iran.
• 1986 Sumburgh disaster - a British International Helicopters Boeing 234LR Chinook crashed 2.5 miles east of Sumburgh Airport killing 45 people. The deadliest civilian helicopter crash on record.
• 1999 - Australians vote to keep the British monarch as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum.
• 2002 - 12 people are killed in a fire on board a train headed for Vienna from Paris.
• 2004 - An express train collides with a stationary car near the village of Ufton Nervet, England, killing 6 and injuring 150.
• 2005 - The Evansville Tornado of November 2005 kills 25 in Northwestern Kentucky and Southwestern Indiana.
• 2005 - The military junta of Myanmar begins moving its government ministries from Yangon to Pyinmana.

Births