Great Britain and France declared war on Turkey respecting their agreement with Russia, widening the conflict of World War I.
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What Happened in November?
Wars, expanding empires, and critical deaths. Explore significant events and milestones from November that have helped shape the world. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
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Jeannette Rankin becomes the first woman in the history of the nation to win a seat in the U.S. Congress. when she is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the State of Montana. More
The Hospital ship HM Britannic, Sister ship to the Titanic, sinks on her sixth voyage when she struck a mine and sank off the Greek coast in the Agean Sea. More than 1,000 crew, doctors and nurses were on board, and 30 people lost their lives. The Britannic sank in 55 minutes and was the largest ship lost in the First World War. More
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The statement came in the form of a letter from Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, More
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The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia begins with the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), leading to the establishment of Soviet power. More
The WWI Armistice between Germany and the Allies on the Western Front also known as the Armistice of Compiègne is officially signed, after more than four years of fighting and the loss of millions of lives. The armistice was basically a cease fire agreement which is widely considered the end of World War I.
The Armistice was followed by the Treaty of Versailles which was the official peace treaty that ended World War I. It was signed in France seven months later, on June 28, 1919. More
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated in Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC. On November 11, 1921, The prior month, in the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne, U.S. Army Sgt. Edward F. Younger, a decorated World War I veteran, had selected the "Unknown Soldier" to be interred in the planned Tomb at Arlington National Cemetery, by laying a spray of white roses upon one of four caskets.
The following day, the Unknown Soldier’s casket departed from the port of Le Havre on board the USS Olympia. In Washington DC, The Unknown Soldier was placed on a horse-drawn caisson and carried in a procession through Washington, D.C. and across the Potomac River. A state funeral ceremony was held at Arlington National Cemetery's new Memorial Amphitheater and buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. More
The first successful transfer of fuel in mid-air. On November 12, 1921, while circling over Long Beach, California as wing walker Wesley May climbed from the wingtip of a Standard J-1 biplane to a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane with a five-gallon can of gasoline strapped to his back and successfully poured the gas into the Jenny’s fuel tank.
The J-1 was piloted by Frank Hawks and the Jenny was piloted by Earl Daugherty. The first transfer of fuel using the more conventional fuel hose system took place in 1923.
The entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun (King Tut) is discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings by British archaeologist Howard Carter and his sponsor Lord Carnarvon. on November 4, 1922. After years of searching they found a step cut into the bedrock that led to a staircase and a sealed doorway.
Closer examination of the doorway seal revealed an inscription with the name of Tutankhamun, suggesting that this was his tomb. The discovery was made more than 3,300 years after Tutankhamun's death and burial.The excavators continued their exploration, entering the first antechamber which was full of treasures on November 26, 1922 and finally the most important burial chamber on February 16, 1923.
Twenty two days after British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun (King Tut) the excavators reached another sealed doorway on November 26, 1922 and opened the antechamber, the first of four chambers which was filled with treasures.
As the event is recalled in Carters book, when Carter peered into a hole in the door, he famously replied to Lord Carnarvon's anxious question, "Yes, wonderful things". The discovery of the largely intact burial site full of treasures and artifacts, became a worldwide sensation.
Almost three months later, on February 16, 1923, after clearing the outer chambers, Carter and Lord Carnarvon opened the sealed door to the burial chamber, the final and most important chamber of the tomb.
Adolf Hitler's first attempted coup, the Beer Hall Putsch, is foiled in Munich, Germany.
The fifth Imperial conference, hosted by King-Emperor George V in London, concludes on November 23, 1926. The Imperial Conference brought together the prime ministers of the Dominions of the British Empire and declared the Dominions as equal, autonomous communities within the British Empire, officially adopting the term "Commonwealth" to describe the community.
The conclusions arrived at the conference laid the foundation for the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which legislated the principles of dominion autonomy and granted legislative independence. No centralized constitution: Rejected the idea of a single, codified imperial constitution in favor of a more flexible arrangement.
The first U.S. federal prison for women officially opens in Alderson, West Virginia. The prison had a capacity for 700 inmates. All women serving federal sentences of more than a year were to be sent there.
The Soviet Union announces its policy of forced agricultural collectivization of agriculture on November 7, 1929 although the process began earlier; leading to significant upheaval in rural areas leading to massive rural upheaval, forced grain procurements, and the devastating Holodomor famine (1930-1933) as peasants resisted.
Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Jr., USN along with pilot Bernt Balchen, co-pilot/radioman Harold June, and photographer Ashley McKinley, make their historic first-flight over the South Pole, in 18 hours, 41 minutes in a Ford Tri-Motor airplane named the Floyd Bennett. More
Tafari Makonnen is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia following the death of Empress Zewditu, on November 2, 1930, taking the name Haile Selassie I, which means "Power of the Trinity". His full title was "His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God".
His official title reflected his dynastic lineage, which traces back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Haile Selassie was considered a descendant of King Solomon through Ethiopia's Solomonic Dynasty. According to the tradition, this lineage traces back to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Makeda), who are said to have had a son named Menelik I, the founder of the dynasty.
Sinclair Lewis wins the 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American to receive the honor. More
The U.S. Supreme Court hands down a landmark decision on the Powell v, Alabama case, (aka The Scottsboro Boys trial), reversing the convictions of the nine young African American men who had been convicted and sentenced to death for raping two white women in 1931 and ordering new trials.
The reversal was based on the ground that the due process clause of the United States Constitution guarantees the effective assistance of counsel at a criminal trial. In an opinion written by Associate Justice George Sutherland, the Supreme Court found the defendants had been denied effective counsel. During the retrials, one of the alleged victims admitted to fabricating the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the white women. More
The FBI Criminology Laboratory officially opens. During its first year, the Lab performed nearly 1,000 examinations. More
The Flying boat "China Clipper" lifts off the waters of San Francisco Bay, California, carrying 58 mailbags, weighing 1,837 lbs. containing 110,865 specially stamped letters on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight. More