Historical Events on Sunday, 2nd November

02/11/2022

A peace agreement is signed between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, ending the Tigray War.

The Ethiopia–Tigray peace agreement, also called the Pretoria Agreement or the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA), is a peace treaty between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) that was signed 2 November 2022, wherein both parties agreed to a "permanent cessation of hostilities" to end the Tigray war. The agreement was made effective the next day on 3 November, marking the second anniversary of the war.

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02/11/2020

In Vienna's Innere Stadt district, an ISIL sympathizer shoots and kills four people and injures 23 more, before being shot and killed by the police.

Vienna is the capital, most populous city, and one of the nine states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. Its larger metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.9 million, representing nearly one-third of the country's population. Vienna is the cultural, economic, and political centre of the country, the fifth-largest city by population in the European Union, and the most populous of the cities on the river Danube.

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02/11/2016

The Chicago Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, ending the longest Major League Baseball championship drought at 108 years.

The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central Division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located on Chicago's North Side. They are one of two major league teams based in Chicago, alongside the American League (AL)’s Chicago White Sox. The Cubs, first known as the White Stockings, were founded in 1870 and are one of two remaining NL charter franchises that debuted in 1876. They have been known as the Chicago Cubs since 1903.

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02/11/2008

Lewis Hamilton secured his maiden Formula One Drivers' Championship Title by one point ahead of Felipe Massa at the Brazilian Grand Prix, after a pass for fifth place against the Toyota of Timo Glock on the final lap of the race.

Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton is a British racing driver who competes in Formula One for Ferrari. Hamilton has won a joint-record seven Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles—tied with Michael Schumacher—and holds the records for most wins (105), pole positions (104), and podium finishes (203), among others.

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02/11/2000

Expedition 1 arrived at the International Space Station for the first long-duration stay onboard. From this day to present, a continuous human presence in space on the station remains uninterrupted.

Expedition 1 was the first long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from 2 November 2000 to 19 March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the station which continues as of 2026.

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02/11/1999

Honolulu shootings: In the worst mass murder in the history of Hawaii, a gunman shoots at eight people in his workplace, killing seven.

The 1999 Honolulu shootings or the Xerox murders were an incident of mass murder that occurred on November 2, 1999, in a Xerox Corporation building in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. Service technician Byran Koji Uyesugi shot eight people, seven fatally. This was the worst workplace shooting in the history of Hawaii.

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02/11/1997

Tropical Storm Linda makes landfall in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, causing more than 3,000 deaths.

Severe Tropical Storm Linda, also known as Typhoon Linda, Cyclonic Storm Linda , or in the Philippines as Tropical Depression Openg, and in Vietnam as Typhoon No. 5 of 1997 was the worst typhoon in southern Vietnam in at least 100 years, killing thousands of people and leaving extensive damage. It formed on October 31, 1997, in the South China Sea, between Indochina and the Philippines. Strengthening as it moved westward, Linda struck extreme southern Vietnam on November 2 with winds of 65 mph (105 km/h), dropping heavy rainfall. Once in the Gulf of Thailand it strengthened further to minimal typhoon status, but weakened to tropical storm strength before crossing the Malay Peninsula into the Bay of Bengal, the first storm to do so in five years. It restrengthened in the Indian Ocean to typhoon status, but increasing wind shear and weakened steering currents caused Linda to dissipate on November 9.

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02/11/1990

British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.

British Satellite Broadcasting plc (BSB) was a short-lived television company, based in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with Sky Television plc on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting.

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02/11/1988

The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.

The Morris worm or Internet worm of November 2, 1988, is one of the oldest computer worms distributed via the Internet, and the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. It resulted in the first felony conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was written by Robert Tappan Morris, a graduate student at Cornell University, and launched on 8:30 p.m. November 2, 1988, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology network.

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LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 crashes in Białobrzegi, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland, killing one person and injuring several more.

On 2 November 1988, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703, an Antonov An-24 operating scheduled domestic passenger flight from Warsaw Okęcie Airport to Rzeszów Airport, Poland, crashed short of the runway after an attempted emergency landing following a dual engine failure. Out of the 25 passengers and 4 crew members, 1 passenger was killed, while 12 people were injured. As of 2026, the accident represents the last crash involving the airline.

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02/11/1986

Lebanon hostage crisis: U.S. hostage David Jacobsen is released in Beirut after 17 months in captivity.

The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of medical attention. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted.

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02/11/1984

Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods.

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02/11/1983

U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

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02/11/1982

Channel 4, the British free-to-air public broadcast television channel funded by its commercial activities, starts broadcasting.

Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded entirely by its commercial activities, including advertising. It began its transmission in 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the licence-funded BBC1 and BBC2, and a single commercial broadcasting network, ITV.

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02/11/1973

Aeroflot Flight 19 is hijacked and diverted to Vnukovo International Airport, where the aircraft is stormed by authorities.

Aeroflot Flight 19 was a scheduled passenger flight from Bykovo Airport, Moscow, to Bryansk Airport, Bryansk. On 2 November 1973, a Yak-40 aircraft operating the flight was hijacked by 4 people 10 minutes before landing. The aircraft was then diverted to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, where the hijackers demanded a buyout and provision of a flight to Sweden. The hostages inside the aircraft were subsequently liberated after the authorities stormed the aeroplane. This is one of the first well-known cases of storming a hijacked aircraft on the territory of the USSR.

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02/11/1967

Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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02/11/1966

The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.

The Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA), Public Law 89-732, is a United States federal law enacted on November 2, 1966. Passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson, the legislation applies to citizens of Cuba admitted into the U.S. after January 1, 1959—the date of the Cuban Communist Revolution—and who have been present in the U.S. for at least two years. Those persons, and their spouses and children, can be granted lawful permanent resident status on an expedited basis.

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02/11/1965

Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.

Norman R. Morrison was an American anti-war activist. On November 2, 1965, Morrison doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire below the office of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War, leading to his death. This action was inspired by photographs of Vietnamese children burned by napalm bombings, and may have been inspired by Thích Quảng Đức and other Buddhist monks, who burned themselves to death to protest the repression committed by the South Vietnam government of Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem.

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02/11/1964

King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.

Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King of Saudi Arabia from 9 November 1953 until his abdication on 2 November 1964. During his reign, he served as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 1953 to 1954 and from 1960 to 1962. Prior to his accession, Saud was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from 11 May 1933 to 9 November 1953. He was the second son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia.

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02/11/1963

South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the communist-controlled Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

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02/11/1960

Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.

Penguin Books Limited is an English publishing house that was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John. Originally an imprint of publishers The Bodley Head, Penguin became a separate company the following year. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s with its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other shops for sixpence, bringing high-quality fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. Its success showed that large audiences existed for serious books. It also affected modern British society through its books concerning politics, the arts and science.

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02/11/1959

Quiz show scandals: Twenty-One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

From 1956 to 1958, numerous quiz shows airing on CBS and NBC, two of the three American TV networks at the time, were revealed to have prearranged outcomes, such as certain contestants winning after being given the answers before filming by producers. These shows had claimed to be objective and fair competitions, and often involved high-stakes money rewards. These revelations shocked the public, and led to numerous changes in television, which was a new and growing medium.

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The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.

The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston Bypass, which later became part of the M6.

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02/11/1956

Hungarian Revolution: Nikita Khrushchev meets with leaders of other Communist countries to seek their advice on the situation in Hungary, selecting János Kádár as the country's next leader on the advice of Josip Broz Tito.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by the government's subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR). The uprising lasted 15 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on 7 November 1956. Thousands were killed or wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians fled the country.

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Suez Crisis: Israel occupies the Gaza Strip.

The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab–Israeli war, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 31 October, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had nationalised earlier in the year.

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02/11/1951

Canada in the Korean War: A platoon of The Royal Canadian Regiment defends a vital area against a full battalion of Chinese troops in the Battle of the Song-gok Spur. The engagement lasts into the early hours the next day.

The Canadian Forces were involved in the 1950–1953 Korean War and its aftermath. 26,791 Canadians participated on the side of the United Nations, and Canada sent eight destroyers. Canadian aircraft provided transport, supply and logistics. 516 Canadians died, 312 of which were from combat. After the war, 7,000 Canadian troops remained until 1957 as military observers.

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02/11/1949

The Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference ends with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.

The Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference was held in The Hague from 23 August to 2 November 1949, between representatives of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Indonesia and the Federal Consultative Assembly, representing various states the Dutch had created in the Indonesian archipelago.

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02/11/1947

In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the "Spruce Goose"), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built until Scaled Composites rolled out their Stratolaunch in May 2017.

Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was an American aviator, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was one of the richest and most influential people in the world during his lifetime. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.

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02/11/1940

World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia–Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.

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. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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02/11/1936

The BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service begins. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.

BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.

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02/11/1920

In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the 1920 United States presidential election.

KDKA is a class A, clear channel, AM radio station, licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. Its radio studios are located at the combined Audacy Pittsburgh facility in the Foster Plaza on Holiday Drive in Green Tree, and its transmitter site is at Allison Park. The station's programming is also carried over 93.7 KDKA-FM's HD2 digital subchannel, and is simulcast on FM translator W261AX at 100.1 MHz.

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02/11/1917

The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.

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The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.

The Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (PMRC) (Russian: Петроградский военно-революционный комитет, romanized: Petrogradskiy voyenno-revolyutsionnyy komitet) was a militant group of the Petrograd Soviet and one of several military revolutionary committees that were created in the Russian Republic. Initially the committee was created on 25 October 1917 after the German army secured the city of Riga and the West Estonian Archipelago (see Operation Albion). The committee's resolution was adopted by the Petrograd Soviet on October 29, 1917.

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02/11/1914

World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles is subsequently closed.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as The Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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02/11/1912

Bulgaria defeats the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lule Burgas, the bloodiest battle of the First Balkan War, which opens her way to Constantinople.

The Tsardom of Bulgaria, also known as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, usually known in English as the Kingdom of Bulgaria, or simply Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy in Southeastern Europe, which was established on 5 October [O.S. 22 September] 1908, when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a tsardom.

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02/11/1899

The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.

Boers are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch Cape Colony, which the United Kingdom incorporated into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekbœr then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.

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02/11/1889

North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.

North Dakota is a landlocked U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. North Dakota is part of the Great Plains region, characterized by broad prairies, steppe, temperate savanna, badlands, and farmland. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area, but with a population of just under 800,000, the fourth-least populous and fourth-least densely populated. The state capital is Bismarck and the most populous city is Fargo, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the state's population; both cities are among the fastest-growing in the U.S., although half of North Dakotans live in rural areas.

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02/11/1882

The great fire destroys a large part of Oulu's city center in Oulu Province, Finland.

The great Oulu fire of 1882 was a conflagration that started in the basement of the pharmacy on the corner of Kirkkokatu and Pakkahuoneenkatu on the evening of 2 November, destroying 27 buildings along Hallituskatu and Pakkahuoneenkatu in downtown Oulu, Finland, amongst them the city-owned Seurahuone. The basement was used to store gasoline and other flammable materials, which led to the fire quickly raging out of control. It headed towards the Oulu River and destroyed the salt and grain warehouses along its shoreline. The fire brigade, however, managed to keep the fire from spreading to the packhouse.

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02/11/1868

Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time to be observed nationally.

A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it is convenient for areas in frequent communication to keep the same time.

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02/11/1795

The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created.

The Directory was the system of government established by the French Constitution of 1795. It takes its name from the committee of five men vested with executive power. The Directory governed the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate.

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02/11/1707

Four British naval vessels run aground on the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. In response, the first Longitude Act is enacted in 1714.

The Scilly naval disaster of 1707 was the loss of four warships of a Royal Navy fleet off the Isles of Scilly near the British mainland when they struck rocks on 22 October 1707. Between 1,400 and 2,000 sailors lost their lives aboard the wrecked vessels, making the incident one of the worst maritime disasters in British naval history. The disaster has been attributed to a combination of factors, including navigators' inability to accurately calculate their positions, errors in the available charts and pilot books, and inadequate compasses.

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02/11/1675

Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow leads a colonial militia against the Narragansett during King Philip's War.

Plymouth Colony was the first permanent English colony in New England, founded in 1620, and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on the Mayflower at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of what is now the southeastern portion of Massachusetts; it was approximately coterminous with the combined territories of Plymouth, Barnstable, and Bristol Counties, all of which were originally established by the General Court of the Plymouth Colony. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.

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02/11/1410

The Peace of Bicêtre suspends hostilities in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War.

The Bicêtre Hospital is located in Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It lies 4.5 km from the center of Paris. The Bicêtre Hospital was originally planned as a military hospital, with construction begun in 1634. With the help of Vincent de Paul, it was finally opened as an orphanage in 1642. It was incorporated into the Hôpital Général de Paris in 1656. In 1823, it was called the Hospice de la Vieillesse Hommes. In 1885, it was renamed the Hospice de Bicêtre.

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02/11/0619

A qaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate is assassinated in a Chinese palace by Eastern Turkic rivals after the approval of Tang emperor Gaozu.

Khagan or Qaghan is a title of imperial rank in Turkic, Mongolic, and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate (empire). The female equivalent is Khatun.

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