355 – Roman emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with the government of the Prefecture of the Gauls.
1528 – Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot in the area that would become Texas.
1789 – Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.
1792 – Battle of Jemappes in the French Revolutionary Wars.
1844 – The first Constitution of the Dominican Republic is adopted.
1856 – Scenes of Clerical Life, the first work of fiction by the author later known as George Eliot, is submitted for publication.
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
1865 – American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on a cruise on which it sank or captured 37 unarmed merchant vessels.
1869 – In New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers College defeats Princeton University (then known as the College of New Jersey), 6–4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game.
1913 – Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
1917 – World War I: Battle of Passchendaele ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium.
1918 – The Second Polish Republic is proclaimed.
1934 – Memphis, Tennessee becomes the first major city to join the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1935 – Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" to the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
1939 – World War II: Sonderaktion Krakau takes place.
1941 – World War II: During the Battle of Moscow, Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet people for only the second time.
1942 – World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign begins.
1942 – World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He 219.
1943 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Kiev. Before withdrawing, the Germans destroy most of the city's ancient buildings.
1944 – Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
1947 – Meet the Press makes its television debut.
1948 – Deputy commander-in-chief of the Eastern China Field Army General Su Yu launches a massive offensive toward Xuzhou, defended by seven different armies under the General Suppression Headquarters of Xuzhou Garrison, the Huaihai Campaign. The largest operational campaign of the Chinese Civil War begins.
1962 – The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.
1963 – Following the November 1 coup and execution of President Ngo Dinh Diem, coup leader General Dương Văn Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam.
1965 – Cuba and the United States formally agree to begin an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971, 250,000 Cubans had made use of this program.
1971 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.
1977 – The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
1985 – In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the 19th of April Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, eventually killing 115 people, 11 of them Supreme Court justices.
1986 – Sumburgh disaster: A British International Helicopters Boeing 234LR Chinook crashes 21⁄2 miles east of Sumburgh Airport killing 45 people. It is the deadliest civilian helicopter crash on record.
1995 – Cleveland Browns relocation controversy: Art Modell announces that he signed a deal that would relocate the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore to become the Baltimore Ravens, the first time the city had a football team since 1983 when they were the Baltimore Colts.
1999 – Australians vote to keep the Head of the Commonwealth as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum.
2004 – An express train collides with a stationary car near the village of Ufton Nervet, England, killing seven and injuring 150.
2012 – Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate.
2013 – Several small bombs explode outside a provincial office of the Chinese Communist Party in the northern city of Taiyuan, killing at least one person and wounding eight others.
