November 10 - Events

Events

• 1202 – Fourth Crusade: Despite letters from Pope Innocent III forbidding it and threatening excommunication, Catholic crusaders begin a siege of the Catholic city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia).
• 1293 – Raden Wijaya is crowned as the first monarch of Majapahit kingdom of Java, taking throne name Kertarajasa Jayawardhana.
• 1444 – Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Vladislaus III of Varna (aka Ulaszlo I of Hungary and Wladyslaw III of Poland) are crushed by the Turks under Sultan Murad II and Vladislaus is killed.
• 1520 – Danish King Christian II executes dozens of people in the Stockholm Bloodbath after a successful invasion of Sweden.
• 1619 – René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy.
• 1659 – Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Maratha King kills Afzal Khan, Adilshahi in the battle popularly known as Battle of Pratapgarh. This is also recognised as the first defence of Swarajya
• 1674 – Anglo-Dutch War: As provided in the Treaty of Westminster, Netherlands cedes New Netherlands to England.
• 1702 – English colonists under the command of James Moore besiege Spanish St. Augustine in Queen Anne's War.
• 1766 – The last colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).
• 1775 – The United States Marine Corps is founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia by Samuel Nicholas.
• 1793 – A Goddess of Reason is proclaimed by the French Convention at the suggestion of Chaumette.
• 1821 – Cry of Independence by Rufina Alfaro at La Villa de Los Santos, Panama setting into motion a revolt which lead to Panama's independence from Spain and to it immediately becoming part of Colombia
• 1847 – The passenger ship Stephen Whitney is wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster results in the construction of the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.
• 1865 – Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes.
• 1871 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?".
• 1898 – Beginning of the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the only instance of a municipal government being overthrown in US history.
• 1910 – The date of Thomas A. Davis' opening of the San Diego Army and Navy Academy, though the official founding date is November 23, 1910.
• 1918 – The Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia receives a top-secret coded message from Europe (that would be sent to Ottawa, Ontario and Washington, DC) that said on November 11, 1918 all fighting would cease on land, sea and in the air.
• 1919 – The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ending on November 12.
• 1940 – The 1940 Vrancea earthquake strikes Romania killing an estimated 1,000 and injuring approximately 4,000 more.
• 1942 – World War II: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
• 1944 – The ammunition ship USS Mount Hood explodes at Seeadler Harbour, Manus, Admiralty Islands, killing at least 432 and wounding 371.
• 1945 – Heavy fighting in Surabaya between Indonesian nationalists and returning colonialists after World War II, today celebrated as Heroes' Day (Hari Pahlawan).
• 1951 – Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.
• 1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery.
• 1958 – The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.
• 1969 – National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.
• 1970 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – For the first time in five years, an entire week ends with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia.
• 1970 – The Soviet Lunar probe Lunokhod 1 is launched.
• 1971 – In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city of Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine aircraft.
• 1972 – Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham, Alabama is hijacked and, at one point, is threatened with crashing into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.
• 1975 – The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.
• 1975 – United Nations Resolution 3379: United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism (the resolution is repealed in December 1991 by Resolution 4686).
• 1979 – A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history.
• 1984 – The first Breeders' Cup takes place at Hollywood Park Racetrack.
• 1989 – Longtime leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov is removed from office and replaced by Petar Mladenov.
• 1995 – In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), are hanged by government forces.
• 1997 – WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).
• 2006 – Sri Lankan Tamil Parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj is assassinated in Colombo.
• 2006 – The National Museum of the Marine Corps is opened and dedicated by U.S. President George W. Bush and announces that Marine Corporal Jason Dunham will receive the Medal of Honor in Quantico, Virginia.
• 2007 – ¿Por qué no te callas? incident between King Juan Carlos of Spain and Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez.
• 2007 – 10,000–40,000 people march toward the royal palace of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to hand over a memorandum to the King demanding electoral reform.
• 2009 – Ships of the South and North Korean navies skirmish off Daecheong Island in the Yellow Sea.