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Today (November 2)
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November 2  Allan Walters (2 November 1905 – 19 October 1968) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Over the course of World War II, Walters led No. 1 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron in Singapore, No. 1 (Fighter) Wing in Darwin, No. 72 Wing in Dutch New Guinea, and Northern Command in Papua New Guinea. He was decorated with the Air Force Cross in 1941 for his work with No. 1 Squadron, and mentioned in despatches in 1944 for his service with No. 72 Wing. Walters was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1946 for his service with Northern Command. He later became air officer commanding (AOC) Southern Area Command; AOC RAAF Overseas Headquarters in London; Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in Washington, DC; AOC Home Command; Air Member for Personnel; and AOC Support Command. He was promoted to acting air vice-marshal in 1952 (substantive in 1954), and appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1956 before retiring in 1962. (Full article...) |
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 Crew of Expedition 1
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Tomorrow (November 3)
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November 3  Rolf Theil Endresen, who documented the Nizaa language Nizaa is an endangered Mambiloid language spoken in the Adamawa Region of northern Cameroon. Most of the language's speakers live in and around the village of Galim in the department of Faro-et-Déo. Nizaa has a complex sound system with 60 consonant phonemes, eleven tones, and a contrast between oral and nasal vowels. In terms of grammar, it is the only Bantoid language that allows multiple verbal suffixes on one verb. It also is neither a head-initial nor head-final language (the head or main element of a clause appears both before and after its modifiers with roughly equal frequency). Nizaa was first extensively documented in the 1980s by Norwegian linguists Rolf Theil Endresen (pictured) and Bjørghild Kjelsvik. The language is endangered, but the exact number of active speakers is unknown, as the last census of speakers took place in 1985, and a 1983 survey reported drastically different figures. (Full article...)
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November 3: Constitution Day in the Dominican Republic (2025); Culture Day in Japan  George II of Greece
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November 3 A series of avisos were acquired by the German navies, beginning with the Prussian Navy in the 1840s, for use in a variety of roles, including as scouts, flagships for gunboat flotillas, and dispatch vessels. The first German aviso, SMS Preussischer Adler, was a packet steamer requisitioned for service during the First Schleswig War in 1848, though she returned to civilian duty after the war. Many of the vessels served as yachts for the royal and later imperial family. At the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Prussians purchased Falke and requisitioned Pommerania. Grille engaged French forces in the Baltic during the war, but the rest of the fleet's avisos saw little activity in the conflict. The 1880s saw a significant aviso construction program that included two Blitz-class avisos, Greif, two Wacht-class avisos, and two Meteor-class avisos (three vessels pictured). (Full list...)
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In two days (November 4)
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November 4  The 2019 Champion of Champions was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 4 and 10 November 2019 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England. It was the ninth Champion of Champions event, the first of which was held in 1978. The tournament featured 16 participants who had won World Snooker events throughout the prior snooker season. In 2019, the Women's World Champion competed at the tournament for the first time. As an invitational event, the Champion of Champions tournament carried no world-ranking points. Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion having defeated Kyren Wilson 10–9 in the final of the 2018 event. O'Sullivan lost 5–6 to Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. Robertson defeated reigning world champion Judd Trump 10–9 in the final to win the championship, having required foul shots in the penultimate frame to avoid losing the match. (Full article...)
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November 4: National Unity and Armed Forces Day in Italy .jpg?lang=en) Yitzhak Rabin
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In three days (November 5)
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November 5  Conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November, as the prelude to a revolt in the Midlands during which James's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on the scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow plotters (pictured) were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Sir Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes was given charge of the explosives. (This article is part of a featured topic: Gunpowder Plot.)
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November 5: Guy Fawkes Night in Great Britain and some Commonwealth countries, Guru Nanak Gurpurab (Sikhism, 2025)  Meir Kahane
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In four days (November 6)
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November 6  The sieges of Berwick were the Scottish capture of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and their subsequent unsuccessful siege of Berwick Castle, and the English siege and recapture of the town. In 1355 the Second War of Scottish Independence had been under way for over 22 years when, encouraged by the French who were fighting the English in the Hundred Years' War, the Scots assembled an army on the border. In September a truce was agreed and much of the English army left to join King Edward III's campaign in France. In October the Scots broke the truce. On 6 November a Scottish force led by the Earls of Angus and March captured the town of Berwick in a pre-dawn escalade, but failed to take the castle, which they besieged. Edward returned from France and gathered a large army at Newcastle. Most of the Scots withdrew. When the English army arrived in January 1356 the remaining Scots negotiated a safe passage and also withdrew. The English army went on to invade and devastate southern Scotland. (Full article...)
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November 6: Gustavus Adolphus Day in Estonia, Finland, and Sweden  Collegium Novum of the Jagiellonian University
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In five days (November 7)
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November 7  U2 in 2005 "Slug" is a song by Passengers, a side project of rock band U2 (pictured) and musician Brian Eno. It was released on 7 November 1995 on Passengers' sole release, the experimental album Original Soundtracks 1. The song was almost left off the album before it was rediscovered later during the recording sessions. Though Eno made most of the creative decisions during the sessions, "Slug" was one of the few tracks that the members from U2 tried to craft themselves. Lyrically, it portrays a desolate soul with the confusion of romance and faith. U2 and Eno tried to create a visual suggestion from the music that was more important than the story within the lyrics. In "Slug", the instrumentation is intended as visual music representing the lights turning on in a city at night. The group primarily drew inspiration for the song from U2's experiences in Tokyo at the conclusion of their Zoo TV Tour in 1993. "Slug" has been praised as one of the best songs on the album by critics from various publications. (Full article...)
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 Sidney Lanier Bridge collapse
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November 7  A train entering Bukit Panjang station There are currently 42 operational stations on Singapore's Light Rail Transit (LRT) system, a series of local automated guideway transit lines spanning 26.5 kilometres (16.5 mi) and acting as a feeder service to the country's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. Conceptualised in 1991 and opened in 1999, there are currently three lines on the system: the Bukit Panjang LRT line (BPLRT), the Punggol LRT line (PGLRT), and the Sengkang LRT line (SKLRT). Of these, there are 13 stations on the BPLRT, 14 on the SKLRT, and 15 on the PGLRT. All stations are elevated and have barrier-free access and fixed platform screen doors. 4 LRT stations interchange with MRT lines, being Choa Chu Kang, Bukit Panjang (pictured), Sengkang, and Punggol. These 4 are also the only LRT stations connected to bus interchanges. Three stations are planned to interchange with upcoming MRT lines: Choa Chu Kang, Punggol, and Riviera. (Full list...)
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In six days (November 8)
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November 8  Hensley Henson (8 November 1863 – 27 September 1947) was an Anglican cleric who was Bishop of Hereford from 1918 to 1920 and Bishop of Durham from 1920 to 1939. He gained a first-class degree from Oxford in 1884 and was elected as a fellow of All Souls. Ordained in 1888, Henson served in the East End and Barking, becoming chaplain of Ilford Hospital Chapel in 1895. Appointed rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and canon of Westminster Abbey, in 1900, his tolerance of a wide range of theological views led the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England to try to block his appointment to the Hereford see. Henson was opposed to strikes, trade unions and socialism, which made him unpopular in the diocese, but some of his opinions changed over time. He came to believe politicians should not pass on church matters. He opposed prohibition, and fascist and Nazi aggression. He supported reform of the divorce laws, the controversial 1928 revision of the Book of Common Prayer and ecumenism. (Full article...)
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November 8: Intersex Day of Remembrance  Christian II of Denmark
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In seven days (November 9)
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November 9  The Royal Artillery Memorial is a First World War memorial located on Hyde Park Corner in London; it was unveiled on 18 October 1925. Designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger, with architectural work by Lionel Pearson, the memorial commemorates the 49,076 soldiers from the Royal Artillery killed in the First World War. The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund, formed in 1918, approached several eminent architects but its insistence on a visual representation of artillery meant that none was able to produce a satisfactory design. They approached Jagger, himself an ex-soldier who had been wounded in the war. He produced a design which was accepted in 1922. The memorial comprises a cruciform base in Portland stone supporting a sculpture of a howitzer. At the end of each arm of the cross is a sculpture of a soldier—an officer at the front (south side), a shell carrier on the east side, a driver on the west side, and at the rear (north) a dead soldier. The design was controversial when unveiled. (Full article...)
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On this day
 People walking through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin
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