Rosa Parks refuses to change her seat
This Day in World History
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move—and became the mother of the civil rights movement.
Haitian leaders declare independence
This Day in World History
On November 29, 1803, Haitian leaders Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, and a General Clerveaux joined together to sign a preliminary proclamation of independence for St. Domingo, the former French colony that soon after took the name Haiti. The proclamation came just ten days after French forces under the Vicomte de Rochambeau had surrendered to the Haitian rebels.
Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species
This Day in World History
On the day it was published, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species sold out—eager readers bought every single copy. This alone is not remarkable: the print run was a mere 1,250 copies. But in presenting to the world his theory of evolution by natural selection, Darwin’s tome made history.
China Clipper makes first trans-Pacific flight
This Day in World History
Holding more than 110,000 pieces of mail, the mammoth plane that weighed more than 52,000 pounds and had a 130-foot wingspan lifted from the waters of San Francisco Bay. The plane, the China Clipper, was beginning the first flight across the Pacific Ocean on November 22, 1935—just eight years after Charles Lindbergh had flown alone across the Atlantic.
Egypt’s President Sadat addresses Israeli Knesset
This Day in World History
On November 20, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat made an historic speech before Israel’s Knesset, or Parliament, becoming the first leader of an Arab nation to speak there. He was also the first of Israel’s Arab neighbors to publicly say anything like these words: “Today I tell you, and I declare it to the whole world, that we accept to live with you in permanent peace based on justice.”
Elizabeth I becomes England’s Queen
This Day in World History
The twenty-five-year-old princess was seated beneath an oak tree on the lawn of her home, Hatfield House. Suddenly, several courtiers hurried across the lawn until they reached her location, stopped, and bowed. The queen has died, they told her. You are now queen of England. Young Elizabeth, it is said, fell to her knees and quoted a line from Psalm 118: “It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Nellie Bly begins record round-the-world trip
This Day in World History
At 9:40:30 in the morning of November 14, 1889, an American woman began a trip abroad. It was not just any trip, though: journalist Nellie Bly was out to best the legendary journey of Phileas Fogg, the British gentleman who was the hero of Victor Hugo’s bestselling novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Bly’s whirlwind world trip was heavily promoted by Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper the New York World.
Augustine of Hippo born
This Day in World History
On November 13, 354, in a small town named Tagaste in Roman Numidia (modern Algeria) near the port of Hippo (now Annaba), Augustine—one of the preeminent early Christian thinkers—was born. Though his mother was a devout Christian, he was not baptized as an infant.
Sesame Street premieres
This Day in World History
November 10, 1969, was a sunny day for children around the world—children of all ages. That was the day that Sesame Street, the groundbreaking brainchild of Children’s Television Workshop, debuted on public television.
Machiavelli dismissed from Florentine office
This Day in World History
From 1507 to 1512, Niccoló Machiavelli led the foreign policy of the Republic of Florence. In September of 1512, however, the republican government was overthrown and the powerful Medici family returned from years in exile to resume control of the city-state. Machiavelli spent the first week in November imploring the Medici to continue with a republican government.
Carter finds King Tut’s tomb
This Day in World History – For years, archeologist Howard Carter had poked and probed in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, hoping to repeat the success he had enjoyed in 1902, when he discovered the tombs of the pharaohs Hapshetsut and Thutmose IV. On November 4, 1922, he discovered his first sign of his greatest success. His crews had been digging among a cluster of ancient stone huts that had housed Egyptian workers thousands of years before. In the morning of Saturday, November 4, Carter found an ancient step.
Haile Selassie I takes throne of Ethiopia
This Day in World History – On Sunday, November 2, 1930, thirty-eight-year old Ras (Prince) Tafari Makonnen was proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia, taking the name Haile Selassie I, which means “Power of the Trinity.” Though taking place in the twentieth century, the ceremony reached back thousands of years, as Ethiopia’s Menelik dynasty claimed descent from Solomon, ancient king of Israel, and the Queen of Sheba, one of his wives. To prepare for the coronation, seven groups of seven priests gathered in the seven corners of the national cathedral and chanted for seven days and seven nights psalms written by King David. The morning of the coronation, priests chanted and drummers drummed.
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling first opens to public
This Day in World History – On November 1, All Saint’s Day, Pope Julius II celebrated a mass in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City for the first time in at least four years. Those who attended were the first people to see one of the most celebrated works of Western art—the magnificent frescoes painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti on the chapel’s ceiling.
Constantine wins control of Roman Empire
This Day in World History – Control of the Roman Empire was in the balance when the armies of Constantine and his brother-in-law Maxentius clashed near the Milvian Bridge, north of Rome. Despite having a smaller army, Constantine triumphed—a victory made secure when Maxentius drowned in the Tiber River while trying to escape. Constantine’s victory left him in command of the western half of the Roman Empire—but it also had more significant consequences.
Margaret Sanger arrested
This Day in World History – Birth-control champion Margaret Sanger and two other women were arrested on October 26, 1916, when police entered the Brooklyn, New York, birth-control clinic that Sanger had started. Sanger began working as an obstetric nurse in New York’s poverty-ridden Lower East Side early in the 1900s. There, she became aware of the connection between poverty, high fertility, and high death rates for infants and mothers. Convinced that something needed to be done, Sanger became a crusader for birth control—and the coiner of that term.
World created (according to Bishop Ussher)
This Day in World History – Ever wonder when the universe began? Bishop James Ussher, a seventeenth-century Anglican cleric and biblical scholar had the answer. God created the world, he said in a 1658 chronology titled The Annals of the World, on October 23, 4004 BCE.