Browse Historical Events by Month:
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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The United States conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test, code-named "Ivy Mike." The detonation occurred at 7:15 AM local time on the island of Elugelab in the Enewetak Atoll, which corresponds to the evening of October 31st in the continental United States. More
Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president. A popular World War II general who ran on the slogan “I Like Ike,” Eisenhower easily defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson becoming the the 34th president of the United States.
Mrs. Thomas J. White of the Indiana Textbook Commission calls for a ban of the "Robin Hood" book and references to it, for promoting communism because "he stole from the rich to give to the poor".
The call came at a time when 50 percent of the country supported McCarthyism. The Indianapolis superintendent of schools stated that he could not find anything particularly subversive about the story. The attempt to censor Robin Hood failed. More
The Ellis Island Immigration Gateway is officially closed. The processing center began receiving arriving immigrants on January 1, 1892. Over the next 62 years, more than 12 million, mostly working class immigrants, would arrive in the United States via Ellis Island.
About 40% of people in the US are descendants of people who travelled through Ellis Island. First and second-class passengers bypassed the island and could go straight ashore. But third class passengers were subjected to medical and legal checks. After 1924, Ellis Island changed from being a processing center to being a detention and deportation facility. More
A meteorite crashes through the roof of a home near Sylacauga, Talladega County, Alabama, striking resident Ann E. Hodges. Hodges was the first person in modern history to have reportedly been injured by a meteorite.
The meteorite, which weighs about eight and one-half pounds, is on permanent display at the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. More
The Suez Crisis begins as Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula, leading to international tensions and intervention. More
Soviet troops move against Budapest with great force to crush a nascent rebellion in the capital of the Soviet satellite state of Hungary. Over the course of the next several days, thousands of Hungarians were killed by Red Army troops. Hundreds of thousands more fled to the West, seeking asylum. More
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that racial segregation on public buses is unconstitutional on November 13, 1956. The decision effectively ends the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott that began with Rosa Parks' arrest. The official order to desegregate the Montgomery buses was delivered on December 20.
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The Soviet Union launches a dog into space aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft. The dog, named Laika, was the first animal in Orbit. More
The obscenity trial of Penguin Books for publishing DH Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover ends with their acquittal. The verdict is seen as a major victory for freedom of expression in Britain and liberalizing the cultural landscape.
It is also believed that it helped shift views on major human rights issues including legalization of homosexuality and abortion, the abolition of the death penalty and divorce reform. More
John F. Kennedy is elected president of the United States, becoming the 35th President of the nation. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas; the fourth American president to be assassinated.
Six -year old Ruby Bridges, accompanied by federal marshals, walks through a mob of angry protesters to attend her first-grade on November 14, 1960 and becomes the first Black child to integrate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.
Due to the hostility, she spent her entire first day and the rest of the school year. alone in a classroom with her teacher, Barbara Henry, and had to be escorted to the bathroom by marshals. She was not allowed to eat in the cafeteria or play outside during recess. Despite the intense racism she faced, Ruby never missed a single day of school that year. More
The U.N. General Assembly requested Member States to take specific measures to bring about the abandonment of apartheid in South Africa, including breaking of diplomatic, trade and transport relations. It also established a Special Committee to follow developments and report to the General Assembly and the Security Council. More
Generals in the South Vietnamese Army depose President Ngo Dinh Diem and assassinate Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. More
President John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was the fourth American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 , James A. Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901. More
Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with connections to the criminal underworld, shoots and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy at 11:20 AM CST in the basement of the Dallas police station.
Oswald was being escorted from the city jail to the county jail at the time. He died at 1:07 PM at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Ruby was convicted but in October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital in January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, More
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, three days after his assassination in Dallas, Texas while riding in an open-car motorcade with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally on a campaign trip. Kennedy's alleged assassin, was Ex-Marine and communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald. More
Richard Nixon is elected as the 37th President of the United States (1969-1974) after previously serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from California. He became the only President to ever resign the office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. More
Sesame Street, a beloved educational children's television program, premieres in the United States.
Apollo 12 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 14, 1969. It was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon.
Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean spent one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.
