Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Libius Severus, sometimes enumerated as Severus III, was Western Roman emperor from November 19, 461 to his death on November 14, 465. A native of Lucania, Severus was the fourth of the so-called "Shadow Emperors" who followed the deposition of the Valentinianic dynasty in 455. He ruled for just under four years, attaining the throne after his predecessor, Majorian, was overthrown by his magister militum, Ricimer. Severus was the first of a series of emperors who were highly dependent on the general, and it is often presumed that Ricimer held most of the de facto power during Severus' reign.

Libius Severus is declared emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The real power is in the hands of the magister militum Ricimer.

The Rashidun Caliphate is a title given for the reigns of the first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the Muslim community and polity from the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, to the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate. The reign of these four caliphs is considered in Islam to have been "rightly-guided", meaning that it constitutes a model to be followed and emulated from a religious point of view. This term is not used by Shia Muslims, who make up 10–15% of the global Muslim population, as they reject the rule of the first three caliphs as illegitimate.

The Rashidun Caliphate defeated the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in Iraq.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).

The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between Americans and the British in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which had begun in 1792. For the Americans, the treaty's policy was designed by Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, supported by President George Washington. It angered France and bitterly divided American public opinion, encouraging the growth of two opposing American political parties, the pro-Treaty Federalists and the anti-Treaty Democratic-Republicans.

The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

The Garifuna people are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and traditionally speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language.

The Garinagu arrive at British Honduras (Present day Belize)

The University of Warsaw is a public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializations in humanities, technical, and natural sciences.

Warsaw University is established.

Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest in Canada, and the eighth-largest in North America. Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it now takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and a few, much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It lies 196 km (122 mi) east of the national capital, Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City.

The second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, is opened.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve African American slavery, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North.

American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.

A meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.

The Serbo-Bulgarian War or the Serbian–Bulgarian War, a war between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Principality of Bulgaria, erupted on 14 November [O.S. 2 November] 1885 and lasted until 28 November [O.S. 16 November] 1885. Despite Bulgaria's status as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans did not intervene in the war. Serbia initiated the fighting but suffered a decisive defeat. Austria-Hungary demanded that Bulgaria stop its invasion, and a truce resulted.

Serbo-Bulgarian War: Bulgarian victory in the Battle of Slivnitsa solidifies the unification between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.

The Doom Bar is a sandbar at the mouth of the estuary of the River Camel, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean on the north coast of Cornwall, England. Like two other permanent sandbanks further up the estuary, the Doom Bar is composed mainly of marine sand that is continually being carried up from the seabed. More than 60 per cent of the sand is derived from marine shells, making it an important source of agricultural lime, which has been collected for hundreds of years; an estimated 10 million tons of sand or more has been removed from the estuary since the early nineteenth century, mainly by dredging.

The Doom Bar in Cornwall claimed two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew except the captain.

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

First Balkan War: The Serbian Army captures Bitola, ending the five-century-long Ottoman rule of Macedonia.

Samuel Goldwyn was a Polish-born American film producer and pioneer in the American film industry, who produced the United States's first major motion picture. He was best known for being the founding contributor and executive of several motion picture studios. He was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award (1973), the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1947), and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1958).

Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, and it was the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.

World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.

Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II was a Ugandan royal and statesman who served as the first president of Uganda from 1962 to 1966, when he was overthrown by Milton Obote. Mutesa was also the Kabaka (King) of the traditional kingdom of Buganda in Uganda from 22 November 1939 until his death in 1969.

Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993.

Nazism, formally named National Socialism, is the far-right totalitarian ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequently called Hitler Fascism and Hitlerism. The term "neo-Nazism" is applied to far-right groups formed after World War II with similar ideology.

Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, as well as the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt previously served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913, the assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1920, and as the 44th governor of New York from 1928 to 1932.

World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.

The German occupation of Luxembourg in World War II began in May 1940 after the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by Nazi Germany. Although Luxembourg was officially neutral, it was situated at a strategic point at the end of the French Maginot Line. On 10 May 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Luxembourg was initially placed under a military administration, but later became a civilly administrated territory and finally was annexed directly into Germany. The Germans believed Luxembourg to be a Germanic state, and attempted to suppress what they perceived as alien French language and cultural influences. Although some Luxembourgers joined the resistance or collaborated with the Germans, both constituted a minority of the population. As German nationals, from 1942, many Luxembourgers were conscripted into the German military. Nearly 3,500 Luxembourgish Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The liberation of the country by the Allies began in September 1944, but due to the Ardennes Offensive it was not completed until early 1945.

World War II: Thirty members of the Luxembourgish resistance defend the town of Vianden against a larger Waffen-SS attack in the Battle of Vianden.

Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. Afghanistan's population is estimated to be between 40 and 50 million.

Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.

Alexandros Papagos was a Greek military officer who led the Hellenic Army in World War II and the later stages of the subsequent Greek Civil War.

Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.

TMC is a Franco–Monégasque entertainment television channel, owned by French media holding company Groupe TF1.

Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.

National Review is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. National Review's editor-in-chief is Rich Lowry, and its editor is Ramesh Ponnuru.

National Review publishes its first issue.

The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln brand. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the single-letter ticker symbol F and is controlled by the Ford family. They have minority ownership but a plurality of the voting power.

The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.

Television Broadcasts Limited is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong. The company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese service, and TVB Pearl as its main English service. TVB is headquartered at TVB City at the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate.

The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. It was conceived in 1960 as a three-person spacecraft during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.

Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch.

Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.

TAP Flight 425 was a regular flight from Brussels, Belgium, to Santa Catarina Airport, Portugal, with an intermediate scheduled stop in Lisbon. On 19 November 1977, the Boeing 727 operating the service overran the airport's runway before crashing onto the nearby beach and exploding, killing 131 of the 164 people on board.

TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.

The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of them being held until January 20, 1981. The incident occurred after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed and occupied the building in the months following the Iranian Revolution. With support from Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Iranian Revolution and would eventually establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, the hostage-takers demanded that the United States extradite Iranian king Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had been granted asylum by the Carter administration for cancer treatment. Notable among the assailants were Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Mohammad Bagheri. The hostage crisis contributed to a dramatic decline in Iran–United States relations. After 444 days, it came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Accords between the Iranian and American governments; Iran's king had died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.

Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

The San Juanico disaster involved a series of fires and explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in the settlement of San Juan Ixhuatepec, a municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico, on 19 November 1984. The facility and the settlement, part of Greater Mexico City, were devastated, with 500–600 victims killed, and 5000–7000 suffering severe burns. It is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in world history, and the deadliest industrial accident involving fires and/or explosions from hazardous materials in a process or storage plant since the Oppau explosion in 1921.

San Juanico disaster: A series of explosions at the Pemex petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City starts a major fire and kills about 500 people.

The Cold War was a period of global geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

Pennzoil is an American motor oil brand currently owned by Shell plc. The former Pennzoil Company had been established in 1913 in Pennsylvania, being active in business as an independent firm until it was acquired by Shell in 2002, becoming a brand of the conglomerate.

Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.

The Baling District is an administrative district in southeastern Kedah, Malaysia. Located about 110 km from Alor Setar, it borders Perak and Betong, the southernmost town of Thailand.

Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.

Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeast and Central Europe. Located in the Balkans, it borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia to the northwest, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Montenegro to the southwest. Serbia also claims to share a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia has about 6.6 million inhabitants, excluding Kosovo. Serbia's capital, Belgrade, is also the largest city in the country.

Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević publicly declares that Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.

The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery established in 1994 in the United Kingdom. It is regulated by the Gambling Commission, and is operated by Allwyn Entertainment, who took over from Camelot Group on 1 February 2024.

In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

Joseph Gérard Maurice Baril, is a retired general officer in the Canadian Forces, a military advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations from 1992 to 1997, and Chief of the Defence Staff in Canada from 1997 to 2001.

Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire.

A sex scandal involving Bill Clinton, the president of the United States, and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, erupted in 1998. Their sexual relationship began in 1995—when Clinton was 49 years old and Lewinsky was 22 years old—and lasted 18 months, ending in 1997. Clinton ended televised remarks on January 26, 1998, with the later infamous statement: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted on both impeachment charges, of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day U.S. Senate trial.

Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was only beginning to gain critical attention before his death from suicide at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.

Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million.

Shenzhou 1 was the first uncrewed launch of the Shenzhou spacecraft, launched on 19 November, 1999. The spacecraft used was not equipped with a life support system, but did come with an emergency escape system. After orbiting the Earth 14 times, the command for retrofire was sent by the Yuan Wang 3 tracking ship off the coast of Namibia at 18:49 UTC. After a successful reentry it landed about 415 kilometres (258 mi) east of its launch pad and 110 kilometres (68 mi) north-west of Wuhai, Inner Mongolia.

Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.

An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets.

The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing over 20 million US gallons (76,000 m³) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.

The "Malice at the Palace" was a fight involving players and fans that occurred during a National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the Indiana Pacers and the defending champion Detroit Pistons on November 19, 2004, at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Associated Press called it "the most infamous brawl in NBA history".

The Malice at the Palace: The worst brawl in NBA history, Ron Artest suspended 86 games (rest of season), Stephen Jackson suspended 30 games

The Pike River Mine disaster was a coal mining accident that began on 19 November 2010 in the Pike River Mine, 46 km (29 mi) northeast of Greymouth, in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island following a methane explosion at approximately 3:44 pm. The accident resulted in the deaths of 29 miners.

The first of four explosions takes place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand; 29 people are killed in the nation's worst mining disaster since 1914.

The 2013 Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut was a double suicide bombing in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on 19 November 2013. The two bombings resulted in 23 deaths and injured at least 160 others.

A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others.

The College of Cardinals, also called the Sacred College of Cardinals, is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church. As of 8 November 2025, there are 245 cardinals, of whom 126 are eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Appointed by the pope, cardinals serve for life, but become ineligible to participate in a papal conclave if they turn 80 before a papal vacancy occurs.

Pope Francis created 17 new members of the College of Cardinals at a consistory in Vatican City.