November 1, 1776 - Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in California. Each year, the swallows of Capistrano leave their nests there around St. John's Day (October 23rd) and return the following year near St. Joseph's Day (March 19th).
November 2, 1734 - American frontiersman Daniel Boone (1734-1820) was born in Berks County, near Reading, Pennsylvania.
November 3, 1957 - Soviet Russia launched the world's first inhabited space capsule, Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika.
November 4, 1879 - American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935) was born in Oologah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). "All I know is what I read in the newspapers," he once joked. He was killed in an airplane crash with aviator Wiley Post near Point Barrow, Alaska.
November 5th - Remembered as Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, for the anniversary of the failed "Gunpowder Plot" to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I in 1605.
November 6, 1860 - Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th U.S. President and the first Republican. He received 180 of 303 possible electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote.
November 8, 1895 - X-rays (electromagnetic rays) were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.
November 9, 1989 - The Berlin Wall was opened up after standing for 28 years as a symbol of the Cold War. The 27.9 mile wall had been constructed in 1961.
November 10, 1775 - The U.S. Marine Corps was established as part of the U.S. Navy. It became a separate unit on July 11, 1789.
November 11th - Celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day (formerly called Armistice Day) with parades and military memorial ceremonies. (Fly The Flag)
November 15, 1777 - The Articles of Confederation were adopted by Continental Congress.
November 17, 1800 - The U.S. Congress met for the first time in the new capital at Washington, D.C. President John Adams then became the first occupant of the Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House.
November 19, 1863 - President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address during ceremonies dedicating 17 acres of the Gettysburg Battlefield as a National Cemetery. Famed orator Edward Everett of Massachusetts preceded Lincoln and spoke for two hours. Lincoln then delivered his address in less than two minutes. Although many in attendance were at first unimpressed, Lincoln's words have come to symbolize the definition of democracy itself.
November 20, 1943 - The Battle of Tarawa began in the Pacific War as American troops attacked the Japanese on the heavily fortified Gilbert Islands. It took eight days for the 5th Amphibious Corps, 2nd Marine Division and the 27th Infantry Division to take Tarawa and the Makin Islands. Over 1,000 Americans were killed with 2,311 wounded. The Japanese lost 4,700 men.
November 22, 1963 - At 12:30 p.m., on Elm Street in downtown Dallas, President John F. Kennedy's motorcade slowly approached a triple underpass. Shots rang out. The President was struck in the back, then in the head. He was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where fifteen doctors tried to save him. At 1 p.m., John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, was pronounced dead. On board Air Force One, at 2:38 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President.
November 25, 1783 - At the end of the Revolutionary War, the last British troops left New York City.
November 26, 1789 - The first American holiday occurred, proclaimed by President George Washington to be Thanksgiving Day, a day of prayer and public thanksgiving in gratitude for the successful establishment of the new American republic.
November 29, 1929 - American explorer Richard Byrd and Bernt Balchen completed the first airplane flight to the South Pole.
November 30, 1782 - A provisional peace treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United States heralding the end of America's War of Independence. The final treaty was signed in Paris on September 3, 1783. It declared the U.S. "...to be free, sovereign and independent states..." and that the British Crown "...relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof."
