November 2

971 – Mahmud of Ghazni is born

1570 – Over 1,000 are killed when a tidal wave in the North Sea destroys the sea walls from Holland to Jutland

1734 – American explorer, Daniel Boone, is born

1755 – Queen of France that was executed during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is born

1772 – The first Committees of Correspondence are formed under Samuel Adams

1777 – John Paul Jones sets sail towards the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships during the Revolutionary War

1789 – The state takes the property of the church away in France

1795 – 11th President of the US, James Polk, is born

1841 – The second Afghan War begins

1861 – Controversial Union General John C. Fremont is replaced by David Hunter during the Civil War

1865 – 29th President of the US, Warren Harding, is born

1869 – Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok loses his re-election in Ellis County, Kansas

1880 – James Garfield becomes the 20th president of the US

1882 – John Poe replaces Pat Garrett as sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico

1885 – Astronomer who discovered the sun is not at the center of the galaxy, Harlow Shapley, is born

1889 – North Dakota is made the 39th state and South Dakota becomes the 40th

1892 – Lawmen use dynamite and cannon fire to force outlaws Ned Christie and Arch Wolf out of their hideaway cabin near Tahlequah, Indian Territory (Oklahoma)

1903 – London’s Daily Mirror newspaper is published for the first time

1906 – Film director, Luchino Visconti, is born

1912 – The XIT Ranch of Texas, once among the largest ranches in the world, sells its last head of cattle

1913 – Actor, Burt Lancaster, is born

1914 – Russia declares war on Turkey

1917 – British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submits a document known as the Balfour Declaration, to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine

1920 – The first radio broadcast in the US is made

1920 – Charlotte Woodward casts her ballot in a presidential election, after having fought for women’s right to vote

1921 – The American Birth Control League is formed by Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett

1923 – A new world speed record (259 mph) is set in a Curtiss racer by US Navy aviator H.J. Brown

1926 – Air Commerce Act is passed, providing federal aid for airlines and airports

1929 – Nobel Prize-winning physicist who proved the existence of quark, Richard Taylor is born

1932 – Nobel Prize-winning physicist known for his work on neutrinos, Melvin Schwartz, is born

1934 – Australian tennis player Ken Rosewall is born

1936 – First female Chief Justice of California and first Chief Justice in California history to be removed from office by voters, Rose Bird is born

1936 – The first high-definition public television transmission begins in North London by the BBC

1938 – American conservative political commentator, Pat Buchanan, is born

1938 – Lead singer of Jay and the Americans, Jay Black, is born

1938 – Queen Sofia of Spain is born

1942 – General Montgomery breaks through Rommel’s defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing a retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa during World War II

1942 – Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower arrives in Gibraltar to set up an American command post for the invasion of North Africa

1943 – The US wins the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in Bougainville

1947 – Howard Hughe’s Spruce Goose, the largest aircraft ever built, flies for the first and last time

1948 – Harry Truman becomes the 33rd president of the US after defeating Governor Thomas Dewey in the greatest upset in presidential election history

1949 – Author, Lois McMaster Bujold, is born

1950 – Nobel Prize winning writer, George Bernard Shaw, dies

1952 – Singer, Maxine Nightingale, is born

1959 – Charles Van Doren confesses that the TV quiz show 21 is fixed and that he had been given the answers to the questions asked him

1960 – A British jury determines that D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is not obscene

1961 – Grammy-winning Canadian pop and country singer, songwriter and activist k.d. lang is born

1963 – South Vietnamese, President Ngo Dinh Diem, is assassinated

1965 – Indian actor, Shahrukh Khan, is born

1966 – Actor, David Schwimmer, is born

1966 – Nobel Prize winning physicist and chemist, Peter Debye, dies

1967 – President Johnson holds a secret meeting with some of the nation’s most prestigious leaders, who were collectively called “the Wise Men,” to ask for advice concerning the Vietnam War. The group included former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, General of the Army Omar Bradley, Ambassador-at-Large Averell Harriman, and former Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge

1972 – English actress, singer, and director, Samantha Womack, is born

1976 – Jimmy Carter is elected the 39th president of the US

1982 – A truck explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing around 3,000 people, but mostly Soviet soldiers traveling to Kabul

1983 – President Ronald Reagan signs a bill establishing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

1984 – Velma Barfield, a rare female serial killer, becomes the first woman executed in the US since 1962

1989 – Gwendolyn Graham is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for killing five elderly female residents of the Alpine Manor Nursing Home near Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she worked as a nursing aid

2000 – The first resident crew arrives at the International Space Station

2004 – Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, dies

2007 – American wrestler, The Fabulous Moolah, dies