November 6, 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of United States.
November 7, 1941: The Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by a German torpedo bomber —despite the overcrowded vessel having clear Red Cross markings. Of the almost 7000 people aboard, only 8 survive. This is the worst maritime disaster in Russian history.
November 8, 1888: The SS *Vaitarna, * “India’s Titanic,” sinks in a violent storm. Somewhere between 700 and 1300 people die.
November 9, 1932: The Santa Cruz del Sur hurricane strikes Cuba killing nearly 3000. This storm is the only category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic in November.
November 9, 1965: Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast blackout of 1965.
November 10, 1810: The Paisley Canal Disaster.
The Countess of Elington was a pleasure passenger boat and the first of its kind on the Paisley Canal in Scotland. It had only been operating for 4 days when the disaster occurred. November 10 was the day of the Martinmass Fair, and many holiday-celebrating passengers were eager to board the new craft for the first time. The rush of people trying to get on, and others trying to get off from an earlier trip, caused the boat to capsize. 85 people, many of them children, drowned and another 115 were injured.
November 10, 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?”.
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November 12, 1944: After many previous tries, the German battleship *Tirpitz *is sunk by Allied bombers. Approximately 1000 on board are killed.
November 14, 1927: The Pittsburgh Gasometer Explosionkills 28, injures over 800, and destroys most buildings up to a mile away. Workers had been attempting to repair a gas leak at one of the world’s largest gasometers. The decision to use blowtorches to repair this gas leak led to a deadly result.
November 15, 1944: The Japanese aircraft carrier Akitsu Maru is sunk by the United States submarine Queenfish. Over 2000 are killed.
November 16, 1797: The HMS *Tribune * strikes Thrum Cap shoal near Nova Scotia and sinks. Over 200 die. Many people hung onto the rigging of the ship for several hours in the cold. Because the weather was so bad and the sea so rough, rescuers on the shore were unable to help despite the wreck being so close to shore that conversation between those clinging to the boat and those on shore occurred. Later a 13-year old boy managed to pilot out a tiny skiff and rescue 2 people. When the bad weather broke another 4 were also saved.
November 17, 1927: A rare November tornadotouches down in Alexandria, Virginia. The funnel crosses the Potomac and enters Washington DC. One person dies in the storm, 49 are injured and hundreds of buildings are damaged.
November 17, 1968: Viewers of the Raiders–Jets football game are denied the opportunity to watch its exciting finish when NBC broadcasts the movie Heidi instead, prompting changes to sports broadcasting in the U.S.
November 18, 1928: While on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, newlyweds Glen and Bessie Hyde disappear.
Their boat is later found upright with all their possessions intact. But the couple is never seen again.
November 19, 1941: The HMAS *Sydney *is sunk after a battle with the German ship Kormoran. All 645 aboard die. The German vessel is also lost in the fight, but 318 out of 399 aboard her are subsequently rescued.
November 20, 1968: 78 die in the Farmington Coal Mine Disaster in West Virginia. 19 bodies are never recovered. The disaster leads to the 1969 Coal Mine Safety and Health Act to help improve safety conditions in United States mines.
November 21, 1980: The MGM Grand Hotel firein Las Vegas kills 87 and injures over 700. This is the second deadliest hotel fires ever in the United States.
Nov 21st, 1783: French physician Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent, the marquis d’ Arlandes, make the first untethered hot-air balloon flight, flying 5.5 miles over Paris in about 25 minutes. Their cloth balloon was crafted by French papermaking brothers Jacques-Étienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, inventors of the world’s first successful hot-air balloons.
November 22, 1873: The passenger ship SS Ville du Havrecollides with the Scottish clipper *Loch Earn *in the Atlantic. 226 are lost in the sinking.