On This Day — 2 November

2000s

2022

A peace agreement is signed between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, ending the Tigray War.

Ethiopia–Tigray peace agreement

2020

In Vienna's Innere Stadt district, an ISIL sympathizer shoots and kills four people and injures 23 more, before being shot and killed by the police.

Vienna

2016

The Chicago Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, ending the longest Major League Baseball championship drought at 108 years.

Chicago Cubs

2008

Lewis Hamilton secured his maiden Formula One Drivers' Championship Title by one point ahead of Felipe Massa at the Brazilian Grand Prix, after a pass for fifth place against the Toyota of Timo Glock on the final lap of the race.

Lewis Hamilton

2000

Expedition 1 arrived at the International Space Station for the first long-duration stay onboard. From this day to present, a continuous human presence in space on the station remains uninterrupted.

Expedition 1

1900s

1999

Honolulu shootings: In the worst mass murder in the history of Hawaii, a gunman shoots at eight people in his workplace, killing seven.

1999 Honolulu shootings

1997

Tropical Storm Linda makes landfall in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, causing more than 3,000 deaths.

Tropical Storm Linda (1997)

1990

British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.

British Satellite Broadcasting

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1988

The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.

Morris worm

1988

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 crashes in Białobrzegi, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland, killing one person and injuring several more.

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703

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1986

Lebanon hostage crisis: U.S. hostage David Jacobsen is released in Beirut after 17 months in captivity.

Lebanon hostage crisis

1984

Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

Capital punishment

1983

U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Ronald Reagan

1982

Channel 4, the British free-to-air public broadcast television channel funded by its commercial activities, starts broadcasting.

Channel 4

1973

Aeroflot Flight 19 is hijacked and diverted to Vnukovo International Airport, where the aircraft is stormed by authorities.

Aeroflot Flight 19

1967

Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.

Vietnam War

1966

The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.

Cuban Adjustment Act

1965

Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.

Norman Morrison

1964

King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.

Saud of Saudi Arabia

1963

South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.

South Vietnam

1960

Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.

Penguin Books

1959

Quiz show scandals: Twenty-One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

1950s quiz show scandals

1959

The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.

M1 motorway

1956

Hungarian Revolution: Nikita Khrushchev meets with leaders of other Communist countries to seek their advice on the situation in Hungary, selecting János Kádár as the country's next leader on the advice of Josip Broz Tito.

Hungarian Revolution of 1956

1956

Suez Crisis: Israel occupies the Gaza Strip.

Suez Crisis

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1951

Canada in the Korean War: A platoon of The Royal Canadian Regiment defends a vital area against a full battalion of Chinese troops in the Battle of the Song-gok Spur. The engagement lasts into the early hours the next day.

Canada in the Korean War

1949

The Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference ends with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.

Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference

1947

In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the "Spruce Goose"), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built until Scaled Composites rolled out their Stratolaunch in May 2017.

Howard Hughes

1940

World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia–Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.

World War II

1936

The BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service begins. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.

BBC Television

1920

In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the 1920 United States presidential election.

KDKA (AM)

1917

The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".

Balfour Declaration

1917

The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.

Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee

1914

World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles is subsequently closed.

World War I

1912

Bulgaria defeats the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lule Burgas, the bloodiest battle of the First Balkan War, which opens her way to Constantinople.

Kingdom of Bulgaria