1979 – 500 Iranian students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini seize the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages for 444 days
1429 – Joan of Arc and Charles d’Albret liberate the heavily fortified town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier after a siege
1520 – Danish Norwegian king Christian II crowned King of Sweden
1529 – English cardinal Thomas Wolsey arrested on charges of treason
1646 – Massachusetts uses death penalty for denying that Holy Bible is God’s word
1839 – The Newport Rising is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain
1845 – First nationally observed uniform election day in the United States, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November
1846 – A patent for an artificial leg was granted to Benjamin Palmer.
1847 – Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson discovered the anesthetic qualities of chloroform.
1862 – American inventor Richard Jordan Gatling patents the hand cranked Gatling machine gun in Indianapolis
1903 – Panama and Colombia wake up to news that the insurrectionists have declared an independent Republic of Panama
1910 – Russian Tsar Nicholas II visits German Emperor Wilhelm II at Potsdam; they force tentative agreements on spheres of influence in the Middle East
1921 – Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated by a right wing fanatic in Tokyo
1922 – In Egypt, Howard Carter discovered the entry of the lost tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
1924 – Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was elected America’s first woman governor so she could serve out the remaining term of her late husband, William B. Ross.
1924 – Miriam (Ma) Ferguson one of the first two women elected US governor (of Texas)
1928 – American gangster Arnold Rothstein is shot at a business meeting for reputedly refusing to pay gambling debts (dies 6th November)
1939 – During World War II, the U.S. modified its neutrality stance with the Neutrality Act of 1939. The new policy allowed cash-and-carry purchases of arms by belligerents.
1939 – At the 40th National Automobile Show the first air-conditioned car was put on display.
1942 – During World War II, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa. It was a major victory for the British.
1952 – In the United States, the National Security Agency (NSA) was established.
1956 – Soviet forces enter Hungary in order to suppress the uprising that had begun on October 23, 1956.
1970 – Genie, a 13 year old feral child found in Los Angeles, California, having been locked in her bedroom by her father for most of her life
1970 – Former King Peter II of Yugoslavia died in Denver, CO. He was the first European king or queen to die and to be buried in the U.S.
1979 – 500 Iranian students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini seize the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages for 444 days
1980 – Libyan invasion in Chad
1981 – Dr George Nichopoulas is acquitted of overprescribing addictive drugs for Elvis Presley
1984 – Nicaragua held its first free elections in 56 years.
1985 – Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko announced he was returning to the Soviet Union. He had charged that he had been kidnapped by the CIA.
1989 – About a million East Germans filled the streets of East Berlin in a pro-democracy rally.
1990 – Iraq issued a statement saying it was prepared to fight a “dangerous war” rather than give up Kuwait.
1991 – Imelda Marcos returns from exile to the Philippines and was arrested the next day for tax fraud and corruption. She was then released on $6,400 bail.
1995 – Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, He was the Prime Minister of Israel when he was killed in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir, an Israel who opposed the role that Rabin played in the Oslo Peace Accords. The Accords were a collection of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that set up the process of Palestinian self-determination and created the Palestinian Authority.
1999 – The United Nations imposed economic sanctions against the Taliban that controlled most of Afghanistan. The sanctions were imposed because the Taliban had refused to turn over Osama bin Laden, who had been charged with masterminding the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
2003 – Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy becomes the first person indicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He was eventually acquitted.
2004 – 12 French soldiers, 3 UN personnel and hundreds of civilians die during the Côte d’Ivoire civil war.
2014 – The US votes in mid-term elections: Republicans retain the house & regain the Senate
2014 – Tim Scott becomes the first African-American Senator in the south since the Reconstruction
2015 – Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta announces his resignation after protests over a Bucharest nightclub fire that killed 32
2017 – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigns in a shock TV broadcast from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, amid concerns he is being forcibly detained
2017 – Saudi Arabia arrests 11 princes and other ministers on corruption charges, including billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
2019 – Largest mass commutation in US history when 462 non-violent inmates freed from Oklahoma prisons as part of state prison reforms
2019 – Nine members of a US Mexican Mormon family, including six children, shot and killed in attack by criminal gang in Northern Mexico
2020 – Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed orders military offensive and state of emergency in northern region of Tigray, amid fears of a civil war
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
