Historical Events on Sunday, 30th November

30/11/2022

The AI chatbot ChatGPT is launched by OpenAI.

ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It was released in November 2022. It uses large language models—specifically generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs)—to generate text, speech, and images in response to user prompts. It is credited with accelerating the AI boom, an ongoing period marked by rapid investment and public attention toward the field of artificial intelligence (AI). OpenAI operates the service on a freemium model. Users can interact with ChatGPT through text, audio, and image prompts.

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30/11/2021

Barbados becomes a republic.

Barbados is an island country in the Caribbean located in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American and Caribbean plates. Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown.

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A 15-year-old gunman murders four students and injures seven people, including a teacher, in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan.

On November 30, 2021, a school shooting occurred at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, United States. Ethan Robert Crumbley, a 15-year-old, opened fire with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, killing four students and injuring seven people, including a teacher. Authorities arrested and charged Crumbley as an adult for 24 crimes, including murder and terrorism. Crumbley pleaded guilty to all of the charges in October 2022 and was sentenced in December 2023 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 24 years.

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30/11/2018

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake with its epicenter only 24 km from Anchorage, Alaska causes significant property damage but no deaths.

On November 30, 2018, at 8:29 a.m. AKST (17:29 UTC), a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Anchorage in Southcentral Alaska. The earthquake's epicenter was near Point Mackenzie, about 10 miles (16 km) north of Anchorage, and occurred at a depth of 29 miles (47 km). It was followed six minutes later by a magnitude 5.7 aftershock centered 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north-northwest of the municipality. The earthquake could be felt as far away as Fairbanks.

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30/11/2007

Atlasjet Flight 4203 crashes in Keçiborlu while on approach to Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport, killing 57.

Atlasjet Flight 4203 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Istanbul to Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport in Isparta Province, Turkey. On 30 November 2007, the aircraft operating the flight – a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 which Atlasjet had leased from World Focus Airlines just five months before – crashed in the vicinity of Keçiborlu between the villages of Yenitepe and Çukurören while on approach, approximately 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of the destination airport. The flight had taken off from Istanbul at 00:51 EET with 50 passengers and 7 crew members on board. All 57 occupants perished in the accident.

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30/11/2005

John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York.

John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, Baron Sentamu, is a retired Anglican bishop and life peer. He was Archbishop of York and Primate of England from 2005 to 2020. In retirement he was subject to investigation over his handling of child sexual abuse allegations and was asked to step back from ministry because of his mishandling of safeguarding cases.

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30/11/2004

A McDonnell Douglas MD-82, operating as Lion Air Flight 538, overran the runway at Adisoemarmo Airport and crashed, killing 25 people.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 is a series of five-abreast single-aisle airliners developed by McDonnell Douglas. It was produced by the developer company until August 1997 and then by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The MD-80 was the second generation of the DC-9 family, originally designated as the DC-9-80 and later stylized as the DC-9 Super 80 . With a stretched, enlarged wing and powered by higher bypass Pratt & Whitney JT8D-200 engines, the aircraft program was launched in October 1977. The MD-80 made its first flight on October 18, 1979, and was certified on August 25, 1980. The first airliner was delivered to launch customer Swissair on September 13, 1980, which introduced it into service on October 10, 1980.

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30/11/2000

NASA launches STS-97, the 101st Space Shuttle mission.

STS-97 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour. The crew installed the first set of solar arrays to the ISS, prepared a docking port for arrival of the Destiny Laboratory Module, and delivered supplies for the station's crew. It was the last human spaceflight of the 20th century.

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30/11/1999

Exxon and Mobil sign a US$73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating ExxonMobil, the world's largest company.

Exxon Mobil Corporation is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the largest direct successor of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the company was formed in 1999, with the merger of Exxon and Mobil. It is vertically integrated across the entire oil and gas industry, as well as within its chemicals division, which produces plastic, synthetic rubber, and other chemical products. As the largest U.S.-based oil and gas company, ExxonMobil is the eighth-largest company by revenue in the U.S. and 13th-largest in the world. It is also the largest investor-owned oil company in the world. Approximately 55.56% of the company's shares are held by institutions, the largest of which, as of 2019, were The Vanguard Group (8.15%), BlackRock (6.61%), and State Street Corporation (4.83%).

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In Seattle, United States, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.

Seattle is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It is the 18th-most populous city in the United States with a population of 780,995 in 2024, while the Seattle metropolitan area at over 4.15 million residents is the 15th-most populous metropolitan area in the nation. The city is the county seat of King County, the most populous county in Washington. Seattle's growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities.

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British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.

British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer that was formed in 1977. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. It purchased Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company, in 1999 to form BAE Systems.

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30/11/1995

Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the United States. The coalition's efforts were in two phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, from the bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January until the American-led liberation of Kuwait on 28 February.

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U.S. President Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland and speaks in favor of the "Northern Ireland peace process" to a huge rally at Belfast City Hall; he calls IRA fighters "yesterday's men".

William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. His centrist "Third Way" political philosophy became known as Clintonism, which dominated his presidency and the succeeding decades of Democratic Party history.

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30/11/1981

Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe. (The meetings end inconclusively on December 17.)

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It 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.

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30/11/1972

Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam because troop levels are now down to 27,000.

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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30/11/1971

Iran seizes the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from the Emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah.

The Pahlavi dynasty is an Iranian royal dynasty that was the last to rule Iran before the country's monarchy was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979. It was founded in 1925 by Reza Shah Pahlavi, born Reza Khan, a non-aristocratic Iranian soldier of Mazanderani origin, who took on the name of the Pahlavi scripts of the Middle Persian language from the Sasanian Empire of pre-Islamic Iran. The dynasty largely espoused this form of Iranian nationalism rooted in the pre-Islamic era during its time in power, especially under its last Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

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30/11/1967

The People's Republic of Southern Yemen gains its independence from the United Kingdom

South Yemen, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), abbreviated to Democratic Yemen, was a country in South Arabia that existed in what is now southeast Yemen from 1967 until its unification with the Yemen Arab Republic in 1990. The sole communist state in the Middle East and the Arab world, it comprised the southern and eastern governorates of the present-day Republic of Yemen, including the islands of Perim, Kamaran, and the Socotra Archipelago. It bordered the Yemen Arab Republic to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Arabian Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Aden to the south. Its capital and largest city was Aden.

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The Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who becomes its first chairman.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is a social democratic political party in Pakistan. It is one of the three major mainstream political parties alongside the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. It currently holds the most seats in the Senate, and second-most in the National Assembly; alongside leading a majoritarian government in Sindh and a coalition government in Balochistan.

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Pro-Soviet communists in the Philippines establish Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataan Pilipino as its new youth wing.

The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 (PKP-1930), also known as the Philippine Communist Party, is a communist party in the Philippines that was established on November 7, 1930. It uses the aforementioned appellation in order to distinguish itself from its better known splinter group, the Communist Party of the Philippines.

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30/11/1966

Decolonization: Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

Decolonization is the ending of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence movements in the colonies and the collapse of global colonial empires.

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30/11/1962

Eastern Air Lines Flight 512 crashes at Idlewild Airport, killing 25 people.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 512 was a scheduled American domestic passenger flight operated by Eastern Air Lines from Charlotte Municipal Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Idlewild Airport in New York City. On November 30, 1962, while attempting to abort an attempted landing at its destination, the Douglas DC-7B operating the flight crashed after it failed to gain altitude and struck the ground. 25 of the 51 occupants of the plane died in the accident. Emergency crews responded, but rescuers were delayed by the thick fog and the soft terrain. An investigation launched after the crash found that the probable cause of the accident was that the pilots had made critical mistakes during the go-around that prevented the aircraft from gaining altitude.

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30/11/1954

In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.

Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,578.

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30/11/1953

Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.

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.

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30/11/1947

Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins, leading up to the creation of the State of Israel and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.

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30/11/1942

World War II: Battle of Tassafaronga; A smaller squadron of Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers led by Raizō Tanaka defeats a U.S. Navy cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.

The Battle of Tassafaronga, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Battle of Savo Island or in Japanese sources as the Battle of Lunga Point , was a nighttime naval battle that took place on 30 November 1942 between United States Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy warships during the Guadalcanal campaign. The battle took place in Ironbottom Sound near Tassafaronga Point on Guadalcanal.

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30/11/1941

The Holocaust: The SS-Einsatzgruppen round up roughly 25,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto and kill them in the Rumbula massacre.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

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30/11/1940

World War II: Signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1940 between the Empire of Japan and the newly formed Wang Jingwei-led Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. This treaty was considered so unfair to China that it was compared to the Twenty-One Demands.

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the period of Japanese history spanning 79 years, starting from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on 3 May 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on 2 September 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago, excluding Okinawa until the handover in 1972.

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30/11/1939

World War II: The Soviet Red Army crosses the Finnish border in several places, bombing Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War.

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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30/11/1936

In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.

The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000-square-foot (92,000 m2) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m), and was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral.

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30/11/1916

Costa Rica signs the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty.

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, sharing a maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of nearly 51,180 km2 (19,760 sq mi); the capital and largest city is San José, home to around 350,000 residents and two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.

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30/11/1872

The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.

The 1872 association football match between the national teams of Scotland and England is officially recognised by FIFA as the first international. It took place on 30 November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, the West of Scotland Cricket Club's ground in Partick, Glasgow. The match was watched by 4,000 spectators and finished as a 0–0 draw.

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30/11/1864

American Civil War: The Confederate Army of Tennessee led by General John Bell Hood suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio under General John Schofield in the Battle of Franklin.

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 slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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30/11/1853

Crimean War: Battle of Sinop: The Imperial Russian Navy under Pavel Nakhimov destroys the Ottoman fleet under Osman Pasha at Sinop, a sea port in northern Turkey.

The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont from October 1853 to February 1856. Geopolitical causes of the war included the Eastern question, expansion of Imperial Russia in the preceding Russo-Turkish wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe.

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30/11/1803

The Balmis Expedition starts in Spain with the aim of vaccinating millions against smallpox in Spanish America and Philippines.

The Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, commonly referred to as the Balmis Expedition, was a Spanish healthcare mission that lasted from 1803 to 1806, led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis, which vaccinated hundreds of thousands against smallpox in Spanish America, the Philippines, and China. The vaccine was transported through children: orphaned boys who sailed with the expedition and, for part of the journey, three enslaved girls from Cuba.

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In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to the French First Republic.

The Louisiana Territory, officially the Territory of Louisiana, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1805, until June 4, 1812, when it was renamed the Missouri Territory. The territory was formed out of the District of Louisiana, which consisted of the portion of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 33rd parallel.

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30/11/1786

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day).

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was an Italian monarchy located in Central Italy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1860, replacing the Republic of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. In the 19th century the population of the Grand Duchy was about 1,815,000 inhabitants.

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30/11/1782

American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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30/11/1718

Great Northern War: King Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten in Norway.

In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by Russia successfully contested the supremacy of Sweden in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706, respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia joined it in 1715.

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30/11/1707

Queen Anne's War: The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British Empire and their Creek allies to capture Pensacola, Spanish Florida.

Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In the United States, it is regarded as a standalone conflict under this name. Elsewhere it is usually viewed as the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession. It is also known as the Third Indian War. In France it was known as the Second Intercolonial War.

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30/11/0978

Franco-German war of 978–980: Holy Roman Emperor Otto II lifts the siege of Paris and withdraws.

The Franco-German war of 978–980 was fought over possession of Lotharingia and over personal honour. In the summer of 978, King Lothair of West Francia (France) launched a surprise attack on Aachen, almost capturing the Emperor Otto II, king of East Francia (Germany) and of Italy. By autumn Lothair had returned to West Francia, while Otto had convoked a diet and assembled an army. To avenge his honour, Otto invaded West Francia. Unable to take Paris after a brief siege, he returned to Lotharingia. During his retreat, after the bulk of his army had crossed the river Aisne, the West Franks caught up to his baggage train and slaughtered it. In 980, the kings made peace. Lothair renounced his claim to Lotharingia.

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30/11/0883

Abu al Abbas celebrates a victory parade in Bagdhad following the surpression of the Zanj Rebellion, the largest slave revolt in the Arab world.

Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn, better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaḍid bi-llāh, was the caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 892 until his death in 902.

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