| | 1851 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York - after it was first published on October 18, 1851 by Richard Bentley, London. |
| | 1862 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg. |
| | 1889 - Pioneer woman journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in seventy-two days. |
| | 1910 - Aviation pioneer Eugene Ely performs the first take-off from a ship in Hampton Roads, VA. He took off from a makeshift deck on the light cruiser USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher. |
| | 1918 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic. |
| | 1921 - The Communist Party of Spain is founded. |
| | 1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom. |
| | 1940 - World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers. Coventry Cathedral is almost completely destroyed. |
| | 1941 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13. |
| | 1952 - First regular UK singles chart published by the New Musical Express. |
| | 1965 - Vietnam War: Battle of the Ia Drang begins - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces. |
| | 1967 - Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., The Monkees' fourth album, is released. |
| | 1969 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon. |
| | 1970 - Southern Airlines Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team. |
| | 1971 - Mariner program: Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. |
| | 1971 - His Holiness Shenouda III was concescrated as the 117th Patriarch of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church. |
| | 1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time. |
| | 1973 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey. |
| | 1975 - Spain abandons Western Sahara. |
| | 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis. |
| | 1982 - Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border. |
| | 1990 - After German reunification, the (extended) Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland. |
| | 1991 - American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103. |
| | 1991 - Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile. |
| | 1991 - In Royal Oak, Michigan, a fired United States Postal Service employee goes on a shooting rampage, killing four and wounding five before committing suicide. |
| | 1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs. |
| | 1997 - 14-year-old Reena Virk is beaten and then murdered by fellow teenagers Kelly Ellard and Warren Glowatski. |
| | 2000 - Netscape Navigator version 6.0 is launched following two years of open source development. |
| | 2001 - Attack on Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters takeover the capital Kabul. |
| | 2002 - Argentina defaults on an $805 million World Bank payment. |
| | 2002 - The US House of Representatives votes to not create an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks. |
| | 2003 - Planetoid 90377 Sedna is discovered. |