November 14 in History

Alexander III of Macedon, most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon from 336 BC until his death. He was the son of Philip II, born to him by his fourth wife, Olympias, and ascended to the throne at the age of 20 after Philip was assassinated. Alexander spent most of his reign conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Asia and Egypt, and by the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.

Gottfried Kirch (German: [ˈkɪʁç]; also Kirche [ˈkɪʁçə], Kirkius; 18 December 1639 – 25 July 1710) was a German astronomer and the first "Astronomer Royal" in Berlin and, as such, director of the nascent Berlin Observatory.

James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the first European to trace and document the course of the Nile by following it upstream from Egypt through Sudan to its origins in the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia. The first stage of the wars broke out when Britain declared war on France on 18 May 1803. After minor campaigns, Britain allied with Austria, Russia, and minor powers, to form the Third Coalition in April 1805. Napoleon defeated the allied Russo-Austrian armies in the subsequent war which climaxed in French victories at Ulm and at Austerlitz, leading to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and Austria being forced to make peace. Britain and Russia remained at war with France. Concerned about increasing French power, Prussia joined Britain and Russia in the Fourth Coalition, which resumed war in October 1806. Napoleon defeated the Prussians at Jena-Auerstedt and the Russians at Friedland, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent by July 1807, and again leaving Britain as France's sole major enemy. Britain was unable to dispute French dominance on the continent but obtained hegemony over the seas after victories including Trafalgar. Russia used the interim peace to resolve wars with the Ottomans, Swedes, and Iranians. Hoping to isolate and weaken Britain economically through his Continental System, Napoleon launched an invasion of Portugal, the only remaining British ally in continental Europe. After occupying Lisbon in November 1807, and with the bulk of French troops present in Spain, Napoleon seized the opportunity to turn against his former ally, depose the reigning Spanish royal family, and declare his brother as Joseph I the King of Spain in 1808, to the disapproval of the Spanish populace. Spain joined Britain and Portugal, with the three powers engaging France in the Peninsular War. The diversion of French armies to the large new Anglo-Spanish front led to Austria reentering the conflict and forming the Fifth Coalition in April 1809, composed of Austria, Spain, and Britain. Austria won the Battle of Aspern-Essling but was defeated at Wagram, forcing the imposition of a harsh peace in October 1809. Britain, Spain, and Portugal remained at war with France. Concurrently Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, violated the Continental System, prompting Napoleon to launch an invasion in June 1812. The resulting campaign was costly for both sides, but ultimately ended in disaster for France and the near-destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée. French forces retreated from Russia by December 1812 and began reconstituting their lost strength. Encouraged by the defeat, Austria, Prussia, and several minor powers joined Russia, Britain, and Spain in a Sixth Coalition and began a campaign against France. The Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813. The allies then invaded France on two fronts: the Russians, Austrians, and Prussians invaded France from the east, while the British, Spanish, and Portuguese invaded France from the west. Coalition troops captured Paris in March 1814, forced Napoleon to abdicate in April, exiled him to the island of Elba, and restored power to the Bourbons. Napoleon escaped exile in February 1815 and reassumed control of France for around one hundred days, igniting the eponymous conflict. The allies formed the Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at Waterloo in June 1815 and exiled him to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The wars had profound consequences on history. New methods of warfare were introduced, including mass conscription and guerrilla warfare. Politically, the wars greatly influenced Europe through the advancements in civil law brought about by the Napoleonic Code, which was largely retained where it was adopted, and the spread of nationalism and liberalism. Independence movements emerged in Spanish America as a direct consequence of the wars, leading to the decline of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. France's defeat led to the rise of Britain as the world's foremost naval and economic power, a status it would hold for the remainder of the century. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders and brought a relative peace to the continent, with no major great power conflicts until the Crimean War in 1853.

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book centers on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous. Melville began writing Moby-Dick in February 1850 and finished 18 months later, a year after he had anticipated. Melville drew on his experience as a common sailor from 1841 to 1844, including on whalers, and on wide reading in whaling literature. The white whale is modeled on a notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale Mocha Dick, and the book's ending is based on the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820. The detailed and realistic descriptions of sailing, whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. The book's literary influences include Shakespeare, Thomas Carlyle, Sir Thomas Browne and the Bible. In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry, and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies, and asides. In August 1850, with the manuscript perhaps half finished, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne and was deeply impressed by his Mosses from an Old Manse, which he compared to Shakespeare in its cosmic ambitions. This encounter may have inspired him to revise and deepen Moby-Dick, which is dedicated to Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius". The book was first published (in three volumes) as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, in a single-volume edition in New York in November. The London publisher, Richard Bentley, censored or changed sensitive passages; Melville made revisions as well, including a last-minute change of the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in the text of both editions as "Moby Dick", without the hyphen. Reviewers in Britain were largely favorable, though some objected that the tale seemed to be told by a narrator who perished with the ship, as the British edition lacked the epilogue recounting Ishmael's survival. American reviewers were more hostile.

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. She ushered in the era of stunt girl reporting and helped advance a new kind of immersion journalism.

An aircraft pilot is an individual who controls an aircraft's flight by operating its directional controls. Other aircrew members, such as navigators and flight engineers, are also considered aviators because they assist in operating the aircraft’s navigation and engine systems. Aircrew members like drone operators, flight attendants, mechanics, and ground crew are not classified as aviators.

The Joensuu City Hall (Finnish: Joensuun kaupungintalo) is a brick building in the center of Joensuu, Finland, designed by Eliel Saarinen and completed in 1914, combining styles of Romantic Nationalism and late Art Nouveau. It serves as a center of culture and governance for the city. It houses the city's central administration, the city theater (the easternmost professional theater in the European Union) and a restaurant. The city hall is located on the banks of the Pielinen River on the Rantakatu street. After its completion on November 14, 1914, the new city hall corresponded quite closely to Saarinen's drawings, especially from its facades. The facade statues were designed by sculptor Johannes Haapasalo. In March 1966, a fire broke out at the city hall, which almost destroyed the building. The fire originated on the stage of the city theater and spread to the attic and tower of the ballroom. The fire was nonetheless contained so that the office part suffered only water damage. The buildings archives were successfully evacuated, but the seats attached to the floor in the theatre remained in place. The building's structures had to be renovated, and the ventilation system was almost completely rebuilt. The surroundings of the city hall were renewed in the 1990s and 2000s. The promenade has been reduced by about a meter and the lowest floor of the house has become more prominent. The city hall was renovated in 1998. The terrace of the theater restaurant in the city hall is a popular venue for jazz and other club-type concerts. The downstairs theater club regularly hosts smaller live concerts.

Czechoslovakia was a country in Central Europe. The country was bordered by Austria and Hungary to the south, Germany to the west and northwest, Poland to the northeast, and Ukraine to the southeast. Czechoslovakia had a hilly and mostly mountainous landscape that covered an area of 127,906 square kilometers (49,385 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city was Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň, Liberec, Bratislava and Košice.

Pesäpallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other places including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario. It is similar to brännboll, rounders, lapta, and baseball.

The Communist Party of Spain (Spanish: Partido Comunista de España; PCE) is a political party in Spain that is part of the United Left coalition, which is currently also part of the electoral alliance Sumar. Two of its politicians are ministers in the current government of Pedro Sánchez: Yolanda Díaz (Minister of Labour and Social Economy), and Sira Rego (Minister of Youth and Children). The PCE was founded by 1921, after a split in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Spanish: Partido Socialista Obrero Español; PSOE). The PCE was founded by those who opposed the social democratic wing of the PSOE, because the social democrat wing did not support the PSOE's integration in the Communist International founded by Vladimir Lenin two years prior. The PCE was a merger of the Spanish Communist Party and the Spanish Communist Workers' Party. The PCE was first legalized after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931. The republic was the first democratic regime in the history of Spain. The PCE gained much support in the months before the Spanish coup of July 1936, which marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and it was a major force during the war as well. The Republicans lost, and Franco established a military dictatorship, under which the PCE was one of the most heavily repressed parties, with specific laws banning communist parties, among others. Under the dictatorship, the PCE was the main opposition to the Francoist dictatorship. In the early years of the dictatorship, many PCE members joined the Spanish Maquis, a group of guerrillas who fought against the regime. Years later, the Maquis' power declined, and the PCE abandoned the military strategy. Instead, it chose to interfere in the only legal trade union in Spain (which was part of the Francoist apparatus), the Vertical Syndicate. Franco died on 20 November 1975, and two days later, Juan Carlos I was crowned. Juan Carlos I would lead the Spanish transition to liberal democracy, a time when the PCE became also extremely relevant, due to Franco's anti-communist legacy. Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez legalized the PCE on 9 April 1977, a decision which was particularly controversial, but ended peacefully. The PCE largely contributed to the restoration of liberal democracy in Spain during the lead of Secretary-General Santiago Carrillo. Since 1986, it is part of the United Left coalition. The statutes of the PCE state that its goals are to "democratically participate in a revolutionary transformation of society and its political structures, overcoming the capitalist system and constructing socialism in the Spanish State, as a contribution to the transition to socialism worldwide, with our goals set in the realization of the emancipating ideal of communism". It defines itself as revolutionary, internationalist, solidarity, republican, feminist, and secularist, specifically, of the laïcité variety. The youth organization of PCE is the Communist Youth Union of Spain. PCE publishes Mundo Obrero (Workers World) monthly.

The British Broadcasting Company Limited (BBC) was the commercial forerunner to the public British Broadcasting Corporation and formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Licensed by the UK's General Post Office, its original office was located on the second floor of Magnet House, a GEC building in London, and consisted of a room and a small antechamber. On 14 December 1922, John Reith was hired to become the managing director of the company at that address. The company later moved its offices to the premises of the Marconi Company. The BBC as a commercial broadcasting company did not sell air time but it did carry a number of sponsored programmes paid for by British newspapers. On 31 December 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the non-commercial and crown-chartered British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The Lions Gate Bridge, opened in 1938 and officially known as the First Narrows Bridge, is a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows of Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipalities of the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. The term "Lions Gate" refers to the Lions, a pair of mountain peaks north of Vancouver. Northbound traffic on the bridge heads in their general direction. A pair of cast concrete lions, designed by sculptor Charles Marega, were placed on either side of the south approach to the bridge in January 1939. The total length of the bridge including the north viaduct is 1,823 metres (5,981 ft). The length including approach spans is 1,517.3 metres (4,978 ft), the main span alone is 473 metres (1,552 ft), the tower height is 111 metres (364 ft), and it has a ship's clearance of 61 metres (200 ft). Prospect Point in Stanley Park offered a good high south end to the bridge, but the low flat delta land to the north required construction of the extensive North Viaduct. The bridge has three lanes, with the middle being a reversible lane indicated by signals. The centre lane changes direction to accommodate for traffic patterns. The traffic volume on the bridge is 60,000–70,000 vehicles per day. Trucks exceeding 13 tonnes (12.8 long tons; 14.3 short tons) are prohibited, as are vehicles using studded tires. The bridge forms part of Highways 99 and 1A. On March 24, 2005, the Lions Gate Bridge was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.

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, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. 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.

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed to carry, launch, recover and support aircraft at sea, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities that allow it to serve as a mobile, seagoing airbase. Typically it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project seaborne air power far from national territory without depending on local airfields for the staging of aircraft operations. Since their inception in the early 20th century, aircraft carriers have evolved from wooden vessels used to deploy individual tethered reconnaissance balloons, to nuclear-powered supercarriers that carry dozens of fighters, strike aircraft, military helicopters, AEW&Cs and other types of aircraft such as UCAVs. While heavier fixed-wing aircraft such as airlifters, gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft do not often land on a carrier due to flight deck limitations.

The Słonim Ghetto (Polish: getto w Słonimiu; Belarusian: Слонімскае гета; German: Ghetto von Slonim; Yiddish: סלאָנים) was a Nazi German ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Slonim, Western Belarus, German-occupied Poland during World War II. Prior to 1939, the town (Słonim) was part of the Second Polish Republic. The town was captured in late June 1941 by the Wehrmacht in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. Anti-Jewish measures were promptly put into place, and a barb-wire surrounded ghetto had been created by 12 July. The killings of Jews by mobile extermination squads began almost immediately. Mass killings took place in July and November. The survivors were used as slave labor. After each killing, significant looting by the Nazis occurred. A Judenrat was established to pay a large ransom; after paying out 2 million roubles of gold, its members were then executed. In March 1942, ghettos in the surrounding areas were merged into the Słonim ghetto. On 29 June 1942, the ghetto revolted, families went into hiding underground, and armed struggle broke out. Five Germans were killed; they retaliated by killing between 8,000 and 55,000 Jews (based on figures by Nazis). By August the ghetto was nearly empty, and the last few hundred inhabitants were killed. Some Jews had escaped to a nearby Catholic Church, which was revealed by the collaborationist local government. The Nazis raided the church and killed the priest and two nuns, all who would later be beatified. Słonim was recaptured by the Soviets in 1944, and would eventually become part of Belarus. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, some 22,000 people died in the Słonim ghetto.

Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African American child to attend formerly whites-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. She is the subject of a 1964 painting, The Problem We All Live With, by Norman Rockwell.

The Vietnam War (c. 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of 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. 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. The civil and colonial conflicts in Vietnam became internationalized in 1950. After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War, Vietnam's independence was affirmed at the 1954 Geneva Conference, but the country was divided at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while Ngo Dinh Diem led South Vietnam, which the US assumed financial and military support for. The North Vietnamese supplied and eventually directed the Viet Cong (VC), a communist front in the south that intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the VC insurgency. By 1961, North Vietnam was covertly sending soldiers of its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to assist the southern insurgents. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement in the early 1960s, including military advisors and aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed ARVN military coup, which added to South Vietnam's growing instability. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without declaring war. Johnson launched a bombing campaign of the north and deployed combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by 1966, and 536,000 by 1969. US forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations in rural areas. Communist forces relied on guerrilla tactics, using the countryside and jungle as concealed base areas. In 1968, the communists under Lê Duẩn launched the Tet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but contributed to growing American opposition to the war. Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, began "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. The 1970 Cambodian coup d'état resulted in a PAVN invasion and US–ARVN counter-invasion, escalating its civil war. With its ranks degraded by widespread drug abuse and plummeting morale, US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972. However, American forces provided crucial air support to ARVN against North Vietnam's massive Easter Offensive with the Linebacker Operations. Following the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the last American forces left. The accords were subsequently violated by North Vietnam, and bloody fighting continued until the 1975 Spring Offensive. Weakened by years of corruption and the economic troubles of South Vietnam's Thiệu regime, Saigon fell to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were officially reunified in 1976. The war exacted an enormous cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. The war was also marked by brutal atrocities, including large-scale massacres (such as Huế and Mỹ Lai), terrorism, indiscriminate bombings, rape, torture, and persecution of ethnic minorities. 20% of South Vietnam's jungle was sprayed with toxic herbicides, which led to significant health problems. Political repression and flawed economic policies following the war would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, of which about 250,000 perished at sea. The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War began in 1978. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, an aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected the United States throughout the 1970s.

The Congress of the Republic of Colombia is the name given to Colombia's bicameral national legislature.

Theodore Harold Maiman (July 11, 1927 – May 5, 2007) was an American engineer and physicist who is widely credited with the invention of the laser. Maiman's laser led to the subsequent development of many other types of lasers. The laser was successfully fired on May 16, 1960. In a July 7, 1960, press conference in Manhattan, Maiman and his employer, Hughes Aircraft Company, announced the laser to the world. Maiman was granted a patent for his invention, and he received many awards and honors for his work. His experiences in developing the first laser and subsequent related events are recounted in his book, The Laser Odyssey, later being republished in 2018 under a new title, The Laser Inventor: Memoirs of Theodore H. Maiman.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. The Apollo program was conceived in 1960 in the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. The Apollo program was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in his address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. Approximately 650 million people worldwide watched this first landing on television. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last, Apollo 17, in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve people walked on the Moon. Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968. It encountered a major setback in 1967 when the Apollo 1 cabin fire killed the entire crew during a ground test. After the first Moon landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions achieved landings; but the Apollo 13 landing had to be aborted after an oxygen tank exploded en route to the Moon, crippling the CSM. The crew barely managed a safe return to Earth by using the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat" on the return journey. Apollo used the Saturn family of rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program, which consisted of Skylab, a space station that supported three crewed missions in 1973–1974, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint United States-Soviet Union low Earth orbit mission in 1975. Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending humans to the lunar surface. Apollo 8 was the first crewed mission to leave low Earth orbit and to orbit another celestial body, and Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land humans on one. Overall, the Apollo program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability and funded construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and human spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The only other time humans have left low Earth orbit has been the Artemis II flyby of the Moon in 2026, as part of the Artemis program, established as a successor to Apollo in 2017. Artemis intends to return humans to the Moon's surface no earlier than 2028.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered Southern Airways twin engine McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 domestic United States commercial jet flight from Stallings Field (ISO) in Kinston, North Carolina, to Huntington Tri-State Airport/Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS) near Kenova and Ceredo, West Virginia. At 7:36 pm on November 14, 1970, the aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the Tri-State Airport, killing all 75 people on board – 37 members of the Marshall University football team, 5 coaches, 7 staff members, 21 boosters, 2 pilots, 2 flight attendants, and a charter coordinator. The team was returning home after a 17–14 loss to the East Carolina Pirates at Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, North Carolina. The accident is the deadliest tragedy for any sports team in US history. It was the second college football team plane crash in a little over a month, after a crash on October 2nd that killed 14 Wichita State players, head coach Ben Wilson, and 16 others.

Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a robotic spacecraft that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the NASA Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971, from LC-36B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and reached the planet on November 14 of the same year, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet – only narrowly beating the Soviet probes Mars 2 (launched May 19) and Mars 3 (launched May 28), both of which arrived at Mars only weeks later. After the occurrence of dust storms on the planet for several months following its arrival, the orbiter managed to send back clear pictures of the surface. Mariner 9 successfully returned 7,329 images, covering 85% of Mars's surface, over the course of its mission, which concluded in October 1972.

Anne, Princess Royal, is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the sister of King Charles III. Born third in the line of succession to the British throne, she is 19th in line as of 2026. She has held the title of Princess Royal since 1987.

The Athens Polytechnic uprising occurred in November 1973 as a massive student demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. It began on 14 November 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta revolt, and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of 17 November after a series of events starting with a tank crashing through the gates of the Athens Polytechnic. According to a detailed 2004 research published by the National Hellenic Research Foundation, at least 24 people died on that day due to direct or indirect actions by the Greek army and police. This was the first event in a series of political crises that ultimately led to the fall of the junta in the summer of 1974, just a few months later. The uprising had a lasting impact on Greek politics; it marked a break between the Greek youth and traditional leftist parties (KKE), and it also saw the beginning of the revival of anarchism in Greece. The repression faced by students gave rise to the terrorist organization 17N.

The Madrid Accords, formally the Declaration of Principles on Western Sahara, was a treaty between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania setting out six principles which would end the Spanish presence in the territory of Spanish Sahara and arrange a temporary administration in the area pending a referendum. The territory had been a Spanish province and former colony. The agreement was signed in Madrid on November 14, 1975, six days before Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died, although it was never published on the Boletin Oficial del Estado. This agreement conflicted with the Law on decolonization of Sahara, ratified by the Spanish Parliament (Cortes) on November 18. Under the Madrid agreement, the territory would then be divided between Morocco and Mauritania, with no role for either the Polisario Front or the Sahrawi people generally. Following the accords, the Polisario relocated from the Mauritanian border to Algeria.

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved. The House of Commons of England began to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1801 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the body became the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State. Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The government is solely responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as they retain the confidence of a majority of the Commons.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country primarily located in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its 18 integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq mi), with a total population estimated at over 69.1 million in 2026. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Paris, with a metropolitan population of over 13 million.

Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, anticommunist dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1922 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. An electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the opposition Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.

Bread of Life Ministries International is a Filipino Evangelical megachurch founded by Rev. Caesar "Butch" L. Conde. It was founded in Quezon City in 1982.

Zamboanga City, officially the City of Zamboanga, is a highly urbanized city in the Zamboanga Peninsula region of the Philippines, with a total population of 1.02 million inhabitants. It is the third-largest city by land area in the Philippines, and is also the sixth-most populous city in the archipelago; additionally, it is the second most populous in Mindanao after Davao City. It is the commercial and industrial center of the Zamboanga Peninsula Region.

German reunification, also known as the expansion of the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD), was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of its re-established constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany to form present-day Germany. This date was chosen as the customary German Unity Day, and has thereafter been celebrated each year as a national holiday. On the same date, East and West Berlin were also reunified into a single city, which eventually became the capital of Germany.

Zurich Airport is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, and, with its surface transport links, much of the rest of the country. The airport is located nine kilometres north of central Zurich, in the municipalities of Kloten, Rümlang, Oberglatt, Winkel, and Opfikon, all of which are within the canton of Zurich.

Norodom Sihanouk was King, Chief of State and Prime Minister of Cambodia. He is known as Samdech Euv or by his nickname The Pink Prince. During his lifetime, Cambodia was under various regimes, from French colonial rule, a Japanese puppet state (1945), an independent kingdom (1953–1970), a military republic (1970–1975), the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), a Vietnamese-backed communist regime (1979–1989), a transitional communist regime (1989–1993) to eventually another kingdom.

Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Forrest, also referred to as Tropical Storm Forrest while in the western Pacific basin before its Thai crossover, was a powerful tropical cyclone that prompted the evacuation of 600,000 people in Bangladesh in late November 1992. Originating from an area of disturbed weather near the Caroline Islands on November 9, Forrest was classified as a tropical depression three days later over the South China Sea. Tracking generally west, the system steadily organized into a tropical storm, passing Vietnam to the south, before striking Thailand along the Malay Peninsula on November 15. Once over the Bay of Bengal, Forrest turned northward on November 17 and significantly intensified. It reached its peak intensity on November 20 as a Category 4-equivalent cyclone on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale with winds of 230 km/h (140 mph). Hostile environmental conditions soon affected the cyclone as it turned abruptly east-northeastward. Forrest made landfall in northwestern Myanmar as a weakening system on November 21 before dissipating early the next day.

The war in Afghanistan was a prolonged armed conflict from 2001 to 2021. It began with an invasion by a United States–led coalition under the name Operation Enduring Freedom in response to the September 11 attacks (9/11) carried out by the Taliban-allied and Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda. The Taliban were expelled from major population centers by American-led forces supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, thus toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. In 2004, the U.S.-backed Islamic Republic was established, but by then, the Taliban, led by founder Mullah Omar, had reorganized and begun an insurgency against the Afghan government and coalition forces. The conflict ended as the 2021 Taliban offensive reestablished the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in United States military history, surpassing the Vietnam War by six months.

An earthquake occurred in China on 14 November 2001 at 09:26 UTC, with an epicenter near Kokoxili, close to the border between Qinghai and Xinjiang in a remote mountainous region. With a magnitude of 7.8 Mw, it was the most powerful earthquake in China in 5 decades. No casualties were reported, presumably due to the very low population density and the lack of high-rise buildings. This earthquake was associated with the longest surface rupture ever recorded on land at the time, ~450 km.

Sedna is a dwarf planet in the outermost reaches of the Solar System, orbiting the Sun far beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered in 2003, and is roughly 1,000 km in diameter. Spectroscopic analysis has revealed its surface to be a mixture of the solid ices of water, carbon dioxide, and ethane, along with sedimentary deposits of methane-derived, reddish-colored tholins, a chemical makeup similar to the surfaces of other trans-Neptunian objects. Sedna is not expected to have a substantial atmosphere. Within the range of uncertainty, it is tied with Ceres in the asteroid belt as the largest dwarf planet not known to have a moon. Owing to its lack of known moons, Sedna's mass and density remain unknown.

The 2008 G20 Washington Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy was the first meeting, held in Washington, D.C., United States. It achieved general agreement amongst the G20 on how to cooperate in key areas so as to strengthen economic growth, deal with the 2008 financial crisis, and lay the foundation for reform to avoid similar crises in the future. The Summit resulted from an initiative by the French and European Union President, Nicolas Sarkozy, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. In connection with the G7 finance ministers on October 11, 2008, United States President George W. Bush stated that the next meeting of the G20 would be important in finding solutions to the 2008 financial crisis. Since many economists and politicians called for a new Bretton Woods system to overhaul the world's financial structure, the meeting has sometimes been described by the media as Bretton Woods II.

Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135 by the United States Congress, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly.

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. Israel's western coast lies on the Mediterranean Sea, its southern tip reaches the Red Sea, and to the east is Earth's lowest point near the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is the government seat and proclaimed capital, while Tel Aviv is Israel's largest urban area and economic centre.

The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake was a Mw 7.8 earthquake in the South Island of New Zealand that occurred two minutes after midnight on 14 November 2016 NZDT. Ruptures occurred on multiple faults and the earthquake has been described as the "most complex earthquake ever studied". It has been subsequently modelled as having a megathrust component set off by an adjacent rupture on the Humps Fault. It was the second largest earthquake in New Zealand since European settlement.

On November 13–14, 2017, a series of shootings occurred in Rancho Tehama, an unincorporated community in Tehama County, California, United States. The gunman, 44-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, died by suicide after a Corning police officer rammed and stopped his stolen vehicle. During the shooting spree, five people were killed and eighteen others were injured at eight separate crime scenes, including an elementary school. Ten people suffered bullet wounds and eight were cut by flying glass caused by the gunfire. The injured victims were transported to several area clinics and hospitals.

On November 14, 2019, at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, United States, a school shooting occurred when a student with a pistol, identified as 16-year-old Nathaniel Berhow, shot five schoolmates, killing two, before killing himself.