164 BC – During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah. 1620 – Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, [O.S. Nov 11]. 1694 – Birth of Voltaire, French philosopher and author. 1783 – The first crewed hot-air balloon flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d’Arlandes, travelling from the Château de la Muette across the Bois de Boulogne on the edge of Paris in a balloon made by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. 1791 – Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to 1st Lieutenant and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic. 1818 – Russia’s Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestine. 1906 – China prohibits the opium trade. 1920 – On Bloody Sunday, the Irish Republican Army killed 11 Englishmen suspected of being intelligence agents, and the Black and Tans took revenge the same afternoon, attacking spectators and players at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Dublin, killing 12 and wounding 60. 1964 – The Verrazzano– (originally Verrazano-) Narrows Bridge, spanning New York Harbor from Brooklyn to Staten Island, opened to traffic. 1970 – General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following the military coup. 1971 – Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas) defeat the Pakistan army. 1995 – A peace agreement, known as the Dayton Accords, was reached by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, ending the Bosnian War. 2002 – A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit meeting in Prague extended an official invitation to become new alliance members to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 2017 – Robert Mugabe’s resignation after 37 years in power is read out in Zimbabwe’s parliaments during impeachment proceedings.
Sport: 1905 1st match ever played in the Australian National Tennis Championships.
Music: 1937 Dmitri Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony premieres in Lenningrad, with the ovation lasting over an hour.
TV & Film: 1976 “Rocky” directed by John G. Avildsen and starring Sylvester Stallone premieres in New York (Best Picture 1977).
