Today in History: November 4 – A Day of Groundbreaking Moments
Today is Monday, November 4, the 309th day of 2024. There are 57 days until the end of the year.
1307 – The Swiss Confederation declares independence from Austria.
1650 – The king of England William the Third was born – from Orange, who during his reign from 1689 to 1702 consolidated the order under the dominance of the bourgeois-landlord parliament. Under his rule, England recaptured Ireland.
1847 – German composer and conductor Felix Mendelssohn, founder of the Leipzig Conservatory, prominent representative of Romanticism, died. He made his debut as a pianist at the age of nine, at the age of 15 he wrote his first symphony, and at the age of 16 he wrote his masterpiece – the stage music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. He was successful in all musical fields, except opera, and his works are characterized by a classical treatment of form and harmony. Works: symphonies “Scottish”, “Italian”, overture “Hebrides” or “Fingal’s Cave”, piano composition “Songs without words”, oratorios “Paulus”, “Elijah”, “Concerto for violin and orchestra in E minor”, solo songs, chamber music.
1890 – The world’s first underground electric railway opened in London.
1908 – Milan Milićević, Serbian historian, writer, folklorist, pedagogue and translator, member of the Royal Serbian Academy, died. Work: historical – “Principality of Serbia”, “Prince Miloš in stories”, “Karađorđe orally and ferret”, “Monument of famous Serbian people of recent times”, short stories: “Winter nights”, “Summer” with the night”, “Međudnevica”.
1918 – The English writer Wilfred Owen died in the First World War, and his poetry is the strongest condemnation of the horrors of war. He had a significant influence on modern English poets, particularly Visten Hugh Odenne and Steve Spender.
1918 – The Entente powers in World War I agreed to the terms of Germany’s enslavement, based on US President Woodrow Wilson’s “14 Points”.
1921 – Japanese Prime Minister Takashi Haru is assassinated by a right-wing fanatic.
1922 – In the Valley of the Kings near Luxor in Egypt, the English archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
1931 – The League of Nations accuses Japan of aggression in Manchuria. Condemned by the world public, Japan left the League of Nations in March 1933.
1939 – At the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, Congress passed a law on the sale of war materials based on the “pay, carry” principle, which was the first step for the United States to enter World War II. In March 1941, that law was replaced by a new one – on loan and lease – with even more privileges for countries that fought against fascism.
1942 – General Bernard Law Montgomery’s British Eighth Army defeats General Erwin Rommel’s German-Italian Afrika Korps in the Egyptian desert near the town of El Alamein in World War II, nearly destroying it after 12 days of bitter fighting. Four days later, the Allied landings in North Africa followed, after which the Axis powers in Africa were completely crushed in May 1943.
1946 – UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was established to solve education problems in countries affected by the Second World War. Later, UNESCO’s tasks were expanded, especially in the protection of cultural and historical treasures and the exchange of scientific workers and publications.
1952 – Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the US presidential election, but then did not particularly stand out during two four-year terms. The former general talked a lot about peace, but invested much more energy in the arms race during the Cold War competition between the West and the East.
1956 – The Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić, one of the founders of archeology in Serbia, professor at the University of Belgrade, member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, died. His life’s work was the excavation of the prehistoric settlement of Vinča. Based on this, the thesis presented that the culture of the Danube originates from the culture of the Mediterranean / Aegean / and East Asia, and not from the Nordic countries. He published more than a hundred scientific papers. Works: “Prehistoric Vinča, 1-2”, “Architecture and Sculpture in Dalmatia”, “Žiča and Lazarica”, “Ionian Colony of Vinča”.
1956 – The Soviet army put down a rebellion in Hungary, and Janos Kadar became prime minister instead of Imra Nađa, who sought refuge in the Yugoslav embassy.
1966 – The biggest flood in Italy’s history hit a third of its territory, and the cultural treasures of Florence were significantly damaged, including many frescoes on the walls of palaces and churches.
1976 – Great Britain offered the independence of Southern Rhodesia under black majority rule from March 1, 1978.
1979 – Islamic students in Tehran occupy the US Embassy, and then hold its 52 employees hostage for 444 days, demanding the extradition of deposed Shah Reza Pahlavi.
1980 – The Republican Ronald Reagan was elected president of the USA, and he remained in office for two terms, having also won the elections in 1984.
1983 – In Lebanon, more than 40 Israeli soldiers were killed by the detonation of a truck full of explosives, caused by an Islamic suicide terrorist.
1984 – The first free elections in Nicaragua ended with the victory of the Sandinista Front, which won 68 percent of the vote.
1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. He was head of government from 1974 to 1977 and from June 1992 until that day – when he was shot dead by Jewish student Jigal Amir. From 1940, as a member of the illegal Jewish organization Palmach, he fought against the British colonial administration in Palestine and the French Quisling troops in 1941 in Syria. Since the formation of Israel in 1948, when he commanded a brigade in the war against the Arabs, he was in the army. He became a general and chief of the general staff in 1964 and had a leading role in the heavy defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 war, but after regaining power in 1992, he became the architect of the peace process in the Middle East and reconciliation with the Arabs. This caused the anger of Israeli nationalists, especially the transfer of the territories captured in the 1967 war to the Palestinians.
2008 – Barack Obama, the candidate of the Democratic Party, was elected president of the USA, the first African-American to hold that office.
2019 – The USA officially notified the United Nations that they are beginning the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to Srna.
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