Events on November 2 31
Year 619
A qaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate is assassinated in a Chinese palace by Eastern Turkic rivals after the approval of Tang emperor Gaozu.
Year 1675
Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow leads a colonial militia against the Narragansett during King Philip's War.
Year 1868
Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time to be observed nationally.
Year 1899
The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
Year 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.
Year 1914
World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles are subsequently closed.
Year 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".
Year 1917
The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.
Year 1920
In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the United States presidential election, 1920.
Year 1936
The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
Year 1940
World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia-Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 1951
6,000 British Troops flown into Egypt to quell unrest in the Suez Canal zone.[1]
Year 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 of November 3.
Year 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.
Year 1959
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.
Year 1960
Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.
Year 1963
South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
Year 1964
King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.
Year 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.
Year 1966
The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
Year 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.
Year 1984
Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
Year 1986
US Hostage, David Jacobsen, is released in Beirut after 17 months in captivity.[2]
Year 1988
The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.
Year 1990
British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.