308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to end the civil wars of the Tetrarchy.
1500 – Treaty of Granada: Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them.
1158 — Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa declares himself ruler of North Italy
1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.
1673 – Second Battle of Khotyn in Ukraine: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets made by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.
1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).
1724 – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking “Thief-Taker General” (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London.
1750 – Riots break out in Lhasa after the murder of the Tibetan regent.
1750 – The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
1778 – Cherry Valley massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein: Eight thousand French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.
1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Crysler’s Farm: British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.
1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta to the ground in preparation for his march to the sea.
1865 – Treaty of Sinchula is signed whereby Bhutan cedes the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
1887 – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed as a result of the Haymarket affair.
1889 – The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd state of the United States.
1911 – Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.
1918 – World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.
1918 – Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland – symbolic first day of Polish independence.
1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power.
1919 – The Industrial Workers of the World attack an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington, ultimately resulting in the deaths of five people.
1919 – Latvian forces defeat the West Russian Volunteer Army at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence.
1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System is established.
1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1940 – World War II: In the Battle of Taranto, the Royal Navy launches the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history.
1940 – World War II: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail from the Automedon, and sends it to Japan.
1942 – World War II: France’s zone libre is occupied by German forces in Case Anton.
1960 – A military coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam is crushed.
1961 – Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force are massacred by a mob in Kindu.
1962 – Kuwait’s National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12.
1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to “new left” antiwar activist Tom Hayden.
1968 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization: The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
1975 – Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.
1975 – Independence of Angola.
1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.
1983 – President Reagan became 1st US president to address Japanese legislature
1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
2000 – Kaprun disaster: One hundred fifty-five skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.
2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
2004 – The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later.
2012 – A strong earthquake with the magnitude 6.8 hits northern Burma, killing at least 26 people.
2014 – Fifty-eight people are killed in a bus crash in the Sukkur District in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province.
2015 – Flawless 12 carat Blue Moon Diamond sells for $48.4 million at auction in Geneva