ON THIS DAY -- NOVEMBER

(Copyright 2004, Literary Liaisons, Ltd.  DO NOT REPRODUCE or distribute without permission.) 

For a more comprehensive list, including a Year by Year timeline, see our Research Guide.

Nov 1^st. . .

1500--Benvenuto Cellini, Italian sculptor and goldsmith, born.

1695--The Bank of Scotland was founded.

1755--An earthquake reduced two thirds of Lisbon to rubble.  About 60,000 people died in the catastrophe.

1757--Antonio Canova, Italian Neo-classical sculptor who did several tombs for Popes, born.

1762-- Spencer Perceval, British Prime Minister who was assassinated in the House of Commons, born.

1848--W.H. Smith opened their first railway bookstall at Euston Station, London, the start of Britain's first multiple retailer.

1849--William Merritt Chase, American portrait and landscape painter, born.

1871--Stephen Crane, U.S. author of The Red Badge of Courage, born.

1895--The first motoring organization, the American Motor league, was founded.

Nov 2^nd. . .

1470--Edward V, King of England from April 9 to June 1483, born.

1734--Daniel Boone, American frontiersman and hunter, born.

1755--Marie Antoinette, Austrian princess and Queen Consort of Louis XVI of France, born.

1795--James Polk, 11^th U.S. President, born.

1865--Warren Harding, 29^th U.S. President, born.

1871--In Britain, photographs of prisoners were taken for the first time, originating the world's first Rogues Gallery.

1877--Aga Khan III, hereditary head of the Ismailian Muslims, born.

1887--Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale', died.

1889-- North and South Dakota became the 39^th and 40^th states of the Union.

1896--The first motor insurance policies were issued in Britain but they excluded damage caused by frightened horses.

Nov 3^rd. . .

1611--Henry Ireton, parliamentarian commander of Oliver Cromwell, born.

1706--The town of Abruzzi in Italy was destroyed by an earthquake which killed about 15,000 people.

1718--John Montague, fourth Earl of Sandwich who gave his name to the Sandwich Islands, and to the 'sandwich' as a result of his reluctance to leave the gaming tables, born.

1793--Stephen Fuller Austin, pioneer colonizer of Texas and founder of the city of Austin, born.

1794-- William Cullen Bryant, American poet, born.

1801--Karl Baedeker, German publisher of guide books, born.

1801--Vincenzo Bellini, Italian opera composer of Norma, born.

1843--Nelson's statue was hauled to the top of the column in Trafalgar Square.

1871--American journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, met David Livingstone.

Nov 4^th. . .

1650--William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, born in Holland.

1740--Augustus Montague Toplady, English vicar of Hembury, Devon, and writer of the hymn 'Rock of Ages', born.

1787--Edmund Kean, English Shakespearean tragedian, born.

1840--Auguste Rodin, French sculptor and impressionist, born.

1847--Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, German composer and pianist, born.

1852--The House of Commons Press Gallery was opened.

1879--The first cash register was patented by James Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.

1890--The Prince of Wales traveled by Underground electric railway from King William Street to the Oval to mark the opening of what is now the City Branch of the Northern Line.  This was the first electrified underground railway system.

Nov 5^th. . .

1605--Guy Fawkes was betrayed and arrested for trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot.  From 1607 on, this date has been known as Guy Fawkes Night and fireworks are set off to mark the occasion.

1850--Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American poet, born. She is best known for her lines, 'Laugh and the world laughs with you, Weep and you weep alone.'

1854--Nineteen Victorian Crosses were won in the defeat of the Russians at the Battle of Inkerman.

1857--Ida M. Tarbell, American writer and historian, born.

1885--Will Durant, American author, born.

1891--Alfred 'Greasy' Neale, American football Hall of Famer and creator of the 5-man defensive line, born.

1893--Raymond Loewy, inventor, engineer, and industrial designer, born.

Nov 6^th. . .

1429--Henry VI was crowned King of England.

1638--James Gregory, Scottish mathematician and astronomer, born.

1771--Alois Senefelder, German inventor of lithography, born.

1814--Adolphe Sax, Belgian musical instrument maker who invented the saxophone, born.

1851--Charles Henry Dow, American financial journalist who with Edward D. Jones inaugurated the 'Dow-Jones' averages, born.

1854--John Philip Sousa, U.S. conductor and composer of marches, born.

1860--Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16^th U.S. President.

1860--Ignace Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist, patriot and statesman, born.

1861--James A. Naismith, U.S. inventor of basketball, born.

1893--Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer, died.

Nov 7^th. . .

1637--Anne Hutchinson, the first female religious leader in the American colonies, is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy.

1783--The last public hanging in Britain took place at Tyburn, near where Marble Arch now stands.

1832--Andrew Dickson White, American diplomatist and historian, and first president of Cornell University, born.

1837--Abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot to death by a mob while trying to protect his printing shop in Alton, Illinois.

1865--The Erie Pocket Lighter, the first ever, was manufactured by the Repeating Light Company of Springfield, Massachusetts.

1867--Marie Curie, Polish-French physicist and chemist, and co-discoverer of radium, born.

1872--The Marie Celeste sailed from New York to be found abandoned some time later.

1878--Lise Meitner, Austrian physicist and co-discoverer of nuclear fission, born.

1885--After four and one half years' work, the last spike was driven to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Nov 8^th. . .

1656--Edmund Halley, English astronomer and mathematician, born.

1674--John Milton, blind English poet of Paradise Lost, died.

1793--The Louvre was opened to the public by the revolutionary government.

1802--Sir Benjamin Hall, commissioner of works at the time of Big Ben's installation and from whom the clock gets its name, born.

1847--Bram Stoker, Irish author of Dracula, born.

1865--Tom Sayers, English pugilist who took part in the first international heavyweight championship, died.

1866--Herbert Austin, later Baron Austin, English motor car manufacturer, born.

1883--Sir Arnold Bax, English composer and Master of the King's Music, born.

1889--Montana became the 41^st state of the Union.

1895--William Rontgen discovered X-rays during an experiment at the University of Wurzburg.

Nov 9^th. . . 

1802--Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Illinois newspaper publisher and abolitionist, born.

1818--Ivan Turgenev, Russian playwright and novelist, born.

1841--King Edward VII, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, born.

1847--In Edinburgh, Dr. James Young Simpson delivered Wilhemina Carstairs while chloroform was administered to the mother, the first child to be born with the aid of anesthesia.

1858--The New York Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert under Leopold Damrosch.

1859--From this day, flogging was no longer permitted in the British Army.

1881--Dr. Herbert Thomas Kalmus, U.S. inventor of Technicolor, born.

1888--At 3:30 a.m. in London's Whitechapel, 25-year-old Mary Kelly became Jack the Ripper's last known victim.

Nov 10^th. . .

1483--Martin Luther, German religious reformer, born.

1668--Francois Couperin, French composer and harpsichordist, born.

1683--George II, King of England, born.

1697--William Hogarth, English painter best known for his series, "The Rake's Progress," born.

1728--Oliver Goldsmith, Irish poet and novelist of The Vicar of Wakefield, born.

1759--Johann Cristoph Friedrich von Schiller, German poet and playwright, born.

1871--Henry Morton Stanley finally made contact with Scottish missionary David Livingstone at Ujiji.

1880--Sir Jacob Epstein, British sculptor, born in the United States.

1885--Paul Daimler, son of German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, became the first motor-cyclist when he rode his father's new invention on a round trip of six miles.

Nov 11^th. . .

1729--Louis Antoine de Bougainville, first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world, born.

1744--Abigail Smith Adams, wife of 2^nd President John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams, 6^th U.S. President, born.

1821--Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist of Crime and Punishment, born.

1836--Thomas Bailey Aldrich, American author and poet, and editor of Atlantic Monthly, born.

1868--Jean Edouard Vuillard, French painter, born.

1880--Notorious Australian bank robber Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne for the murder of two constables. He was 25 years of age.

1885--General George Patton, American soldier, born.

1889--Washington became the 42^nd state of the Union.

Nov 12^th. . .

1035--Canute II, King of England and Denmark, died.

1684--Edward Vernon, English admiral, born.

1746--Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles, French scientist who invented and flew in the first hydrogen balloon, born.

1815--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American leader in the cause of equal rights for women, born. 

1834--Alexander Borodin, Russian composer, born.

1840--Auguste Rodin, French sculptor of The Thinker and The Kiss, born.

1842--Lord Rayleigh, English physicist and Nobel prize winner, born.

1859--Leotard made his debut in Paris on the flying trapeze.

1865--Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell, English author of Cranford, died.

1866--Sun Yat-sen, first president of the Republic of China, born.

Nov 13^th. . .

1312--Edward III, King of England who was defeated by the Scots at Bannockburn, born.

1825--Charles Frederick Worth, Anglo-French costumier and leading designer of his day, born.

1831--James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist and mathematical genius, born.

1833--Edwin Booth, American tragedian and founder of the Players Club in New York City, born.

1850--Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author of Treasure Island, born.

1851--The telegraphic service between London and Paris began operating. 

1853--John Drew, American actor and producer, born.

1854--John Peel, English farmer and huntsman featured in the song 'D'ye ken John Peel', died.

1856--Louis Dembitz Brandeis, American jurist and author, born.

Nov 14^th. . .

1687--Nell Gwynn, English actress and mistress of Charles II, died.

1719--Leopold Mozart, Austrian composer and father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born. 

1734--Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth and mistress of Charles II, died.

1765--Robert Fulton, U.S. engineer who developed the first commercially viable steamboat, born.

1770--Scottish explorer James Bruce discovered the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.

1840--Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter, born.

1863--Leo Baekeland, U.S. chemist who invented the first commercial plastic, born in Belgium.

1889--Nellie Bly, female reporter, set sail from New York to beat Fogg's 80 days to go around the world.  She did it in 72 days.

1891--Sir Frederick Grant Banting, Canadian physician who with Charles Best discovered insulin, born.

1896--The speed limit for horseless carriages in Britain was raised from 4 m.p.h. to 14 m.p.h.

Nov 15^th. . .

1638--Catherine of Braganza, Queen to Charles II, born.

1708--William Pitt the Elder, 1^st Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister, born. 

1731--William Cowper, English poet and hymn-writer, born.

1738--Sir William Herschel, German astronomer who discovered Uranus, born.

1777--The Articles of Confederation of the union of the United States of America were adopted by the Congress of Philadelphia.

1802--George Romney, English portrait painter, died.

1806--Zebulon Pike, American explorer, discovered Pikes Peak.

1837--Isaac Pitman published details of his short-hand system.

1862--Gerhart Hauptmann, German playwright and novelist, born.

1864--General Sherman began his march from Atlanta to Savannah, scorching the earth in his wake.

1889--Brazil became a republic on Pedro II's abdication following a revolution.

Nov 16^th. . .

42_BC--Tiberius Claudius Nero, second Roman emperor, born.

1717--Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French author and mathematician, born. 

1724--Jack Sheppard, Stepney-born highwayman, was hanged at Tyburn in front of 200,000 spectators.

1803--William John Thoms, English writer and bibliographer who originated the word 'folklore', born.

1811--John Bright, English statesman, reformer and orator, born.

1824--Australian explorer Hamilton Hume discovered the Murray River, the longest in Australia.

1839--William Frend De Morgan, English novelist, artist and Pre-Raphaelite, born.

1848--Frederic Chopin gave his last public performance at London's Guildhall.

1869--The formal opening of the Suez Canal took place.

1873--William Christopher Handy, American composer of St. Louis Blues, born.

Nov 17^th. . .

1558--Mary I, Mary Tudor, English queen known as 'Bloody Mary', died. 

1603--The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh began.  Falsely accused of treason, he denied his part in the plot to put Arabella Stuart, cousin of James I, on the throne.

1755--Louis XVIII, first King of France after the fall of Napoleon, born.

1800--The U.S. Congress met for the first time and John Adams became the first president to move into the Executive Mansion, now known as the White House.

1869--The first cycle road race, 83 miles from Paris to Rouen, was won by England's James Moore.

1869--The Suez Canal was opened for use after the formal opening the previous day.

1880--The first three women to graduate in Britain received their Bachelor of Arts degrees at London University.

1887--Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, English soldier, born.

Nov 18^th. . .

9_AD--Vespasian, Roman emperor who consolidated the empire, born. 

1477--Caxton published the first dated book printed in England, the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, was published.

1626--St. Peter's in Rome was consecrated.

1785--Sir David Wilkie, Scottish artist and official painter to William IV, born.

1786--Carl von Weber, German composer, born.

1789--Louis Daguerre, French photographic pioneer, born.

1836--Sir W.S. Gilbert, English librettist and humorist who collaborated with Sir Arthur Sullivan to produce light operas, born.

1852--The state funeral of the Duke of Wellington took place in London.

1860--Ignace Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist and composer, born.

1883--Standard time went into effect in the United States.

Nov 19^th. . .

1600--Charles I, King of England and Scotland, born. 

1703--The Man in the Iron Mask, the subject of a novel by Alexandre Dumas, died this day a prisoner in the Bastille.  His identity has never been revealed.

1805--Viscomte Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and engineer who supervised the construction of the Suez Canal, born.

1828--Franz Schubert, prolific Austrian composer, died of typhus.

1831--James Garfield, 20^th U.S. president, born.

1850--Alfred Lord Tennyson became Poet Laureate.

1863--President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg address at the dedication of the National Cemetery.

1875--Hiram Bingham, archaeologist and U.S. senator, born.

1893--The first color supplement was published in the Sunday New York World.

Nov 20^th. . .

1759--The British fleet under Admiral Hawke defeated the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay and thwarted an invasion of England.

1787--Sir Samuel Cunard, shipowner who with two partners established the Cunard Line, born in Nova Scotia. 

1805--The first performance of Beethoven's Fidelio took place in Vienna.

1818--Simon Bolivar declared Venezuela independent from Spain.

1820--The whaler Essex, while hunting sperm whale near the western coast of South America, became the first American vessel sunk by a whale.

1847--Henry Francis Lyte, Scottish composer of 'Abide With Me', died.

1866--Howard University, the first university for African-American students, was founded in Washington, D.C., as the Howard Theological Seminary.

1889--Edwin Hubble, American scientist who gave his name to a law concerning the universe, born.

Nov 21^st. . .

1620--The Mayflower Compact was signed, which provided a government 'for the good of all'.

1694--Voltaire, French philosopher and satirist, born.

1695--Henry Purcell, English composer of 'Nymphs and Shepherds', born. 

1783--Man's first free-flight was made by Jean de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arlandes in the Montgolfier brother's hot air balloon.

1789--North Carolina became the 12^th state of the Union.

1831--Michael Faraday read his first series of papers at the Royal Society of London on 'Experimental Research in Electricity'.

1840--Victoria Adelaide Marie Louise, Princess Royal and first child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, born.

1843--Thomas Hancock patented vulcanized rubber.

1851--Sir Leslie Ward, English caricaturist, born.

1863--Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse, born.

Nov 22^nd. . .

1497--Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in his search for a route to India.

1643--Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, French explorer in America, born.

1718--Edward Teach, English pirate who sailed under the name of Blackbeard, was killed off the coast of North Carolina.

1774--Robert Clive, English soldier and administrator in India, died from an overdose of opium. 

1808--Thomas Cook, English travel agent who pioneered the tour business, born.

1819--Mary Ann Evans, English author of The Mill on the Floss who assumed the pen name George Eliot, born.

1830--Container transport was introduced by Pickford's by agreement with the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Company.

1859--Cecil James Sharp, founder of the English Folk Dancing Society, born.

Nov 23^rd. . .

1499--Perkin Warbeck, Flemish imposter claiming to be Richard, Duke of York who had been murdered in the Tower, was hanged at the Tower of London.

1585--Thomas Tallis, the 'the father of English cathedral music', died.

1670--The first performance of Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme took place in Paris.

1804--Franklin Pierce, 14^th U.S. President, born.

1852--The first pillar boxes were erected in St. Helier in the Channel Islands for the postal service, as there were no receiving offices for people in distant parts of the town. 

1859--William H. Bonney, U.S. outlaw known as 'Billy the Kid', born.

1869--Valdemar Poulsen, Danish engineer who invented the tape recorder, born.

1887--Boris Karloff, English actor who went to the U.S via Canada, born.

1889--The first juke box was installed in Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco.

Nov 24^th. . .

1434--The River Thames froze over, then again in 1715, it froze hard enough for a Frost Fair to be held on the ice.

1572--John Knox, founder of the Scottish Presbyterianism, died.

1642--Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovered Van Dieman's Land, which was later renamed Tasmania.

1713--Laurence Sterne, Irish clergyman and author, born. 

1784--Zachary Taylor, 12^th U.S. President and soldier, born.

1815--Grace Darling, English lighthouse keeper's daughter who rowed out in a storm to rescue survivors of the Farfarshire, born.

1848--Lord Melbourne, twice British Prime Minister, died.

1849--Frances Hodgson Burnett, English-born novelist of The Secret Garden, born.

1859--Darwin's controversial Origin of the Species was published.

1864--Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter and lithographer, born.

1868--Scott Joplin, American pianist and ragtime composer, born.

Nov 25^th. . . 

1120--Henry I's only legitimate son, William, was drowned when the ship carrying him from Normandy to England sank off Barfleur.  This set up a conflict for the English crown between Stephen and Henry's daughter Matilda.

1562--Lope de Vega, Spanish dramatist and poet, born.

1775--Charles Kemble, English actor and manager, born.

1783--British troops evacuated New York.

1835--Andrew Carnegie, U.S. industrialist and philanthropist, born in Scotland, the son of a weaver. 

1844--Karl Benz, German engineer and motor car pioneer, born.

1880--Leonard Woolf, English publisher and husband of novelist Virginia Woolf, born.

1884--Evaporated milk was patented by John Mayenberg of St. Louis, Missouri.

1896--William Marshall became the first person in Britain to receive a parking summons after leaving his car in Tokenhouse Yard in the City of London.

Nov 26^th. . .

1607--John Harvard, English scholar and minister who emigrated to America and became the chief founder of Harvard College, born.

1703--Henry Winstanley, English engineer who built the first Eddystone lighthouse, was among those who died this day when it was destroyed in a gale.

1731--William Cowper, English poet and hymn writer, born.

1789--The harvest of 1623 was first celebrated nationally in America.  The day was a Thursday, and Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated annually on the last Thursday in November since then.

1810--William George Armstrong, English inventor of hydraulic equipment, born.

1832--John Mason introduced the first trams in New York running the Prince Street-14^th Street route.

1836--John Louden McAdam, Scottish road surface inventor, died. 

1867--Mrs. Lily Maxwell of Manchester cast her vote in a parliamentary election after her name had been placed on the register in error.

Nov 27^th. . .

1582--On or about this day William Shakespeare, aged 18, married Anne Hathaway.

1701--Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer who devised the Celsius thermometer, born.

1746--Robert R. Livingston, New York lawyer, statesman and diplomat, born. 

1758--Mary Robinson, English actress and writer, and mistress of the Prince Regent, born.

1809--Fanny Kemble, English actress, born.

1811--Andrew Meikle, Scottish agricultural engineer who invented the threshing machine, died.

1874--Chaim Weizmann, first president of Israel, born in Russia.

1874--Charles Austin Beard, American historian and political scientist, born.

Nov 28^th. . .

1632--Jean Baptiste Lully, Italian composer and music master to the French Royal Family, born.

1660--The Royal Society was founded in London.

1757--William Blake, mystic and visionary English poet, born. 

1765--Captain George Manby, English inventor of life saving equipment, born.

1820--Friedrich Engels, German political thinker who worked with Marx on the Communist Manifesto, born.

1837--John Wesley Hyatt, U.S. inventor who discovered a process for making celluloid, born.

1859--Washington Irving, U.S. author of Rip van Winkle, died.

1893--Women in New Zealand went to the polls in a general election, the first in the world to do so.

1899--The world's first Labour Prime Minister took office.

Nov 29^th. . .

1530--Thomas Wolsey, English Cardinal and Lord Chancellor, died en route from York to London.

1780--Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, died.

1797--Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer of operas, born. 

1803--Christian Johann Doppler, Austrian physicist, born.

1832--Louisa May Alcott, U.S. author of Little Women, born.

1834--Tz'u-hsi, dowager empress of China, born.

1849--Sir John Ambrose Fleming, English electrical engineer, born.

1864--American troops mounted a surprise attack on unarmed Indians at Sand Creek, ignoring the U.S. flag and white flag displayed by their chief, Black Kettle.  The troops slaughtered 400 men, women and children, setting off the Arapaho-Cheyenne war.

1872--Horace Greeley, U.S. editor and founder of the New York Tribune, died.

1898--C. S. Lewis, scholar and author, born in Belfast.

Nov 30^th. . .

1508--Andrea Palladio, Italian architect of the Villa Rotonda, born.

1554--Sir Philip Sidney, English poet and soldier, born.

1667--Jonathan Swift, Irish writer of Gulliver's Travels, born. 

1821--Frederick Temple, 95^th archbishop of Canterbury, born.

1835--Samuel Langhorne Clemens, alias Mark Twain, American writer and creator of 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn', born.

1840--Napoleon I's remains were returned from St. Helena to Paris.

1868--Angela Brazil, English writer of school stories for girls, born.

1872--The first international football match was played, with Scotland opposing England in Glasgow.  The match was drawn with no goals scored.

1874--Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian author of Anne of Green Gables, born.

1874--Winston Churchill, British statesman and Prime Minister, born.