On This Day - 30th November

1667 - Author of Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift born
1835 - Mark Twain born
1874 - Winston Churchill born
1900 - Poet and playwrite Oscar Wilde dies
1912 - Gordon Parks born
1923 - Efrem Zimbalist born
1924 - Shirley Chisholm born
1926 - Richard Crenna born
1929 - Dick Clark born
1930 - G. Gordon Liddy born
1936 - Abbie Hoffman born
1937 - Robert Guillaume born
1947 - David Mamet born
1952 - Mandy Patinkin born
1953 - Shuggie Otis born
1954 - The Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, celebrates his 80th birthday in a day of ceremonies and tributes to his remarkable career.
1955 - Billy Idol born
1962 - Bo Jackson born
1965 - Ben Stiller born
1968 - The Trade Descriptions Act comes into effect.
1978 - Clay Aiken born
1982 - A letter bomb explodes inside 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister's London residence.
1994 - Almost 1,000 people are forced to abandon the luxury cruise ship 'The Achille Lauro' in the Indian Ocean after it caught fire.
1995 - The people of Northern Ireland give a rapturous welcome to President Bill Clinton, the first serving US president to visit their country.
1999 - The Government announces that the beef-on-the-bone ban will be lifted next month.

On This Day - 29th November

1832 - Louisa May Alcott born
1895 - Busby Berkeley born
1898 - C.S. Lewis born
1908 - Adam Clayton Powell born
1918 - Madeline L'Engle born
1927 - Vin Scully born
1932 - Diane Ladd born
1933 - John Mayall born
1939 - Peter Bergman born
1940 - Chuck Mangione born
1949 - Garry Shandling born
1955 - Howie Mandel born
1956 - The government issues further details of its plans for rationing petrol from next month and Jeff Fahey born
1960 - Cathy Moriarty born
1961 - Kim Delaney born
1963 - A Canadian jet has crashes within minutes of take-off, killing all 118 people on board.
1968 - Jon Knight born
1975 - Former motor racing champion and father of Damon, Graham Hill killed in air crash
1985 - A young family of four are killed in an explosion in a block of flats in Glasgow.
1993 - The Conservative government comes under attack in the Commons over the revelations it has had secret contacts with the IRA.
1999 - Northern Ireland moves a step closer to ending 25 years of direct rule from London after the election of a Northern Ireland Assembly.

On This Day - 28th November

1894 - Brooks Atkinson born
1929 - Berry Gordy born
1943 - Randy Newman born
1946 - Joe Dante born
1949 - Paul Shaffer and Alexander Godunov born
1950 - Ed Harris born
1959 - Judd Nelson born
1965 - Jon Stewart born
1967 - All horse racing in Britain is cancelled indefinitely to help prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and Anna Nicole Smith born
1988 - Scarlett Pomers born
1990 - Margaret Thatcher formally tenders her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time.
1994 - Norway votes to reject membership of the European Union in a referendum, for the second time in its history.
1999 - Eleven people are injured in a sword attack at a church in south London.
2010 - Naked Gun and Airplane actor Leslie Nielsen dies age 84.

On This Day - 27th November

1909 - James Agee born
1940 - Bruce Lee born
1941 - Eddie Rabbit born
1942 - Jimi Hendrix born
1956 - Rick Rockwell born
1957 - Caroline Kennedy born
1961 - The Royal Air Force has begins airlifting to drop food supplies to flood victims in Somalia.
1964 - Robin Givens born
1967 - French President, Charles de Gaulle says he will veto Britain's application to join the Common Market for a second time.
1970 - Brooke Langton born
1975 - Guinness Book of Records co-founder and editor Ross McWhirter has been shot dead outside his North London home.
1976 - Jaleel White born
1990 - John Major becomes leader of Tory party and Prime Minister
2000 - A schoolboy Damilola Taylor dies after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers in Peckham, south London.

On This Day - 26th November

1912 - Eric Sevareid born
1912 - Eugene Ionesco born
1922 - Charles Schulz born
1933 - Robert Goulet born
1938 - Rich Little born
1939 - Tina Turner born
1953 - Peers back the Conservative Government's proposals for the introduction of commercial television - despite fierce opposition from some rebels.
1968 - The new Race Relations Act comes into force, making it illegal to refuse housing, employment or public services to people because of their ethnic background.
1972 - Eight armed men protesting against the imprisonment of IRA member Sean MacStiofain try to rescue him from a Dublin hospital.
1983 - An armed gang carries out Britain's largest ever robbery at London's Heathrow Airport. Over £25m worth of gold bullion bound for the Far East was stolen from the Brinks Mat warehouse.
1992 - It is announced that a British monarch is to pay income tax for the first time since the 1930s.

On This Day -25th November

1846 - Carry Nation born
1870 - Solanus Casey born
1914 - Joe DiMaggio born
1920 - Ricardo Montalban born
1923 - The first transatlantic wireless broadcast is mde
1924 - Paul Desmond born
1947 - John Larroquette born
1960 - John F. Kennedy Jnr and Amy Grant born
1963 - The funeral of the assassinated President, John F Kennedy, takes place in Washington DC.
1971 - Christina Applegate born
1973 - The Greek Government is toppled by the country's armed forces after weeks of unrest.
1976 - Donovan McNabb born
1981 - Barbara and Jenna Bush born
1991 - The man who was jailed for life in 1987 for killing a police officer is cleared of the crime. Winston Silcott was convicted in 1985 of the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, north London.
1998 - The government of Turkey collapses after losing a no-confidence motion over corruption allegations.

On This Day - 24th November

1784 - The 12th President of the U.S. and opponent of slavery Zachary Taylor is born.
1853 - Bat Masterson born
1868 - Scott Joplin born
1888 - Dale Carnegie born
1925 - William F. Buckley born
1945 - Quisling is executed
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating John F Kennedy, is himself shot dead in a Dallas police station.
1974 - Police charge six men in connection with the Birmingham pub bombings three days ago. Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Robert Hunter, Noel McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker were accused of the murder of the youngest victim of the attacks.
1978 - Katherine Heigl born
1985 - The hijacking of an EgyptAir passenger jet to Malta ends in violence and further bloodshed after the plane was stormed by Egyptian commandoes. Two crew members and 59 of the 90 passengers were killed.
1989 - The entire leadership of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia resigns to make way for democratic changes.
1991 - Freddie Mercury dies aged 45, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.
1998 - The government unveils its plans to abolish the rights of 700 hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
2005 - Round-the-clock drinking in England and Wales is now a reality after new licensing laws came in force at midnight.

On This Day - 23rd November

1804 - Franklin Pierce born
1859 - Billy the Kid born
1887 - Boris Karloff born
1888 - Harpo Marx born
1910 - Dr Crippen is hanged
1925 - Johnny Mandel born
1954 - Bruce Hornsby born
1960 - Phil Wrend born
1963 - Fifty-five year old Lyndon Baines Johnson begins his new job as US president.
He was sworn in yesterday just two hours after an assassin shot President John F Kennedy in the head.
1967 - Salli Richardson born
1978 - Birmingham nightclub 'Pollyanna's' is ordered to open its doors to black and Chinese people after a year long investigation into racism.
1984 - Almost 1,000 passengers are trapped in smoke-filled tunnels for three hours after a fire at London's busiest underground station, Oxford Circus.
1996 - A hijacked passenger jet crashes into the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. Out of the 175 passengers and crew on board at least 100 people were killed when Flight ET961 broke up during an emergency landing 1,640 feet (500 metres) from a holiday beach on the Comoro Islands.
2002 - The Miss World contest is moved to London from Nigeria after riots by Muslim youths opposed to the show left more than 100 people dead and 500 injured in the city of Kaduna.

On This Day - 22nd November

1890 - Charles de Gaulle born
1899 - Hoagy Carmichael born
1900 - Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame dies
1913 - Benjamin Britten born
1921 - Rodney Dangerfield born
1932 - Robert Vaughn born
1943 - Billie Jean King born
1958 - Jamie Lee Curtis born
1961 - Mariel Hemingway born
1963 - The President of the United States has been assassinated by a gunman in Dallas, Texas. John F Kennedy was hit in the head and throat when three shots were fired at his open-topped car.
1971 - Five teenagers and their female instructor die in one of Scotland's worst mountaineering accidents.
1979 - Scott Robinson born
1984 - Scarlett Johansson born
1990 - It is announced that Margaret Thatcher is to stand down as prime minister after her Cabinet refused to back her in a second round of leadership elections.
1995 - Rosemary West is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 10 young women and girls.
1997 - Michael Hutchence, the Australian rock star and front man of INXS, the country's most successful band, is found dead in an hotel room in Sydney aged 37.
2003 - England win the Rugby World Cup, beating Australia 20-17 in the final.
2005 - Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), is sworn in as Germany's first woman chancellor at a ceremony in the country's parliament.

On This Day - 21st November

1694 - French writer and philospher Voltaire born.
1785 - William Beaumont born
1898 - Rene Magritte born
1920 - Stan Musial born
1922 - Ramsey MacDonald becomes leader of the Labour Party
1927 - Joseph Campanella born
1938 - Marlo Thomas born
1941 - Juliet Mills born
1944 - Harold Ramis born
1945 - Goldie Hawn born
1965 - Björk born
1966 - Troy Aikman born
1967 - The number of animals slaughtered in the latest epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease reaches a record high of 134,000.
1969 - Ken Griffey born
1974 - Bombs devastate two central Birmingham pubs, killing 19 people and injuring over 180.
1985 - The Geneva summit ends in optimism but with no agreement on the "Star Wars" space defence system.
1979 - A mob in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, burns the US Embassy to the ground, killing a US marine.
1995 - A peace settlement for war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina is brokered in the United States.

On This Day - 20th November

1908 - Alistair Cooke born
1925 - Robert F. Kennedy born
1926 - Kaye Ballard born
1927 - Estelle Parsons born
1932 - Richard Dawson born
1939 - Dick Smothers born
1943 - Veronica Hamel born
1945 - Twenty of Germany's Nazi leaders go on trial in the German city of Nuremberg charged with war crimes.
1946 - Duane Allman born
1951 - More than 1,000 families of British servicemen begin moving out of the Suez Canal Zone town of Ismailia.
1956 - Bo Derek born
1965 - Mike Diamond born
1975 - General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain with an authoritarian hand for 39 years, dies at the age of 82.
1978 - MP Jeremy Thorpe is accused in court of plotting to kill his former homosexual lover and dispose of the body.
1986 - Police have begin a search for more victims of the Moors murderers, after receiving new information from Myra Hindley.
1990 - The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, fails to win outright victory in her battle against former Defence Minister Michael Heseltine for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
1992 - A fierce fire rages through Windsor Castle in Berkshire, threatening one of the world's greatest collections of art.
1995 - Diana, Princess of Wales, speakes openly for the first time about her separation from the Prince of Wales in a frank interview for the BBC's Panorama programme.
2003 - 32 people are killed and more than 400 injured in twin bomb attacks in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

On This Day - 19th November

1828 - Composer Franz Schubert dies
1905 - Tommy Dorsey born
1917 - Indira Gandhi born
1933 - Larry King born
1936 - Dick Cavett born
1938 - Ted Turner born
1942 - Calvin Klein born
1961 - Meg Ryan born
1962 - Jodie Foster born
1967 - The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, defends his decision to devalue the pound saying it will tackle the "root cause" of Britain's economic problems.
1969 - A second crew of astronauts lands on the Moon with the Apollo 12 mission to the Ocean of Storms.
1977 - The president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, begins his trip to Israel, the first Arab leader ever to visit the Jewish state and Kerri Strug born.
1985 - The first meeting in six years between the world's superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union), begins in Switzerland.
1992 - Doctors treating Hillsborough victim Tony Bland are told by High Court in London, they can disconnect feeding tubes keeping him alive.
1994 - An estimated jackpot of £7m is up for grabs in Britain's first ever National Lottery draw.

On This Day - 18th November

1836 - William Gilbert born
1899 - Eugene Ormandy born
1908 - Imogene Coca born
1923 - The first American in space Alan B Shepard born
1939 - Brenda Vaccaro born
1942 - Linda Evans born
1960 - Elizabeth Perkins born
1962 - Kirk Lee Hammett born
1967 - A ban on the movement of farm animals is imposed across the whole of England and Wales in an attempt to curb the spread of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
1968 - Owen Wilson born
1978 - The bodies of 914 people, including 276 children, are found in Guyana in South America, following the mass suicide of members of the People's Temple Christian Church.
1987 - 31 people die after a fire at King's Cross station in central London.
1989 - More than 50,000 people take to the streets of Sofia in Bulgaria demanding political reform.
1991 - Church envoy Terry Waite is freed by the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him in Beirut in 1987.
2000 - The film world celebrates the celebrity wedding of the year in New York, as Hollywood leading man Michael Douglas married Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones.
2003 - The United States President, George Bush, arrives in Britain for the first full state visit by an American president amid some of the tightest security London has ever seen.

On This Day - 17th November

1869 - The Suez Canal opens
1901 - Lee Strasberg born
1917 - Sculpter Auguste Rodin dies
1925 - Rock Hudson born
1938 - Gordon Lightfoot born
1942 - Martin Scorsese born
1943 - Lauren Hutton born
1944 - Lorne Michaels, Danny DeVito and Tom Sever born
1953 - Twenty Italian sailors die following a collision between two boats in the English Channel.
1960 - RuPaul born
1966 - Daisy Fuentes born
1977 - Laura Wilkinson born
1980 - Isaac Hanson born
1986 - The head of the Renault car company, Georges Besse, is assassinated in Paris.
1989 - Riot police in Prague, Czechoslovakia arrest hundreds of people taking part in a protest march.
1997 - 68 people are killed after an attack on a group of foreign tourists visiting a temple in Luxor, southern Egypt.
2003 - An ex-soldier who served in the Gulf War is found guilty of at least one of the Washington sniper killings in October last year.

On This Day - 16th November

1908 - Burgess Meredith born
1916 - Daws Butler born
1922 - Andrew Bonar Law becomes Prime Minister and Shigeru Miyamoto born
1960 - British TV personality Gilbert Harding, who achieved fame through his outspoken and often rude behaviour, dies of a heart attack.
1964 - Dwight Gooden born
1967 - Lisa Bonet born
1976 - Seven men who took part in an £8m 'Bank of America' robbery receive jail terms totalling nearly 100 years.
1977 - Oksana Baiul born
1979 - The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, names Sir Anthony Blunt, a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen as the "fourth man" in the Cambridge spy ring and Trevor Penick born
1983 - 50 English football supporters are arrested in Luxembourg after a night of violence.
1995 - The Queen Mother has her right hip replaced in an operation in London.
2010 - The engagement of Prince William and Catherine Middleton is announced by Clarence House.

On This Day - 15th November

1887 - Georgia O'Keeffe born
1919 - Judge Joseph Wapner born
1928 - Bill "C.W. McCall" Fries born
1929 - Ed Asner born
1932 - Petula Clark born
1940 - The German Luftwaffe bombs Coventry in a massive raid which lasted more than 10 hours and left much of the city devastated. Also Sam Waterston born
1945 - Frida Lyngstad born
1951 - Anti-government rebels ambush and kill 11 people in an attack on a rubber plantation in Malaya.
1977 - Princess Anne gives birth to a boy (Peter Mark Andrew Phillips), the first royal baby to be born a commoner for more than 500 years.
1983 - John Le Mesurier and Yom Horn Die
1985 - Britain and the Republic of Ireland sign a deal giving Dublin a role in Northern Ireland for the first time in more than 60 years - unionists accuse Mrs Thatcher or treachery.
1998 - Britain and America have pulled back from the brink of war with Iraq after an offer to let UN weapons inspectors back into the country.

On This Day - 14th November

1765 - Robert Fulton born
1840 - Claude Monet born
1889 - Jawaharlal Nehru born
1900 - Aaron Copland born
1904 - Dick Powell born
1909 - Senator Joseph McCarthy born
1910 - Rosemary DeCamp born
1919 - Veronica Lake born
1921 - Brian Keith born
1929 - McLean Stevenson born
1935 - King Hussein of Jordan born
1948 - Prince Charles born
1954 - Condoleezza Rice and Yanni born
1973 - The wedding of the Queen's only daughter, Princess Anne to lieutenant Mark Phillips, takes place at Westminster Abbey. Also Six men and two women are convicted of exploding two IRA car bombs in London in March this year.
1975 - Travis Barker born
1977 - Firefighters claim widespread support for their first national strike, over a 30% pay demand.
1991 - Two Libyan intelligence officers are accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing.
2000 - Convoys of lorries and tractors converge on the capitals of England and Scotland to mark the 60-day deadline for government action to cut fuel tax.
2010 - Paul and Rachel Chandler are released in Somalia 13 months after being kindnapped by pirates. Sebastian Vettel became Formula One's youngest ever world champion after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix aged 23 years and 106 days.

On This Day - 13th November

1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson born
1856 - Louis Brandeis born
1871 - Henry Stanley finds Dr Livingstone
1911 - Andrew Bonar Law becomes leader of the Tory Party
1915 - Nathaniel Benchley born
1920 - The first session of the League of Nations is convened
1922 - Oskar Werner born
1938 - Jean Seberg born
1945 - Charles de Gaulle elected president of France
1954 - Chris Noth born
1955 - Whoopi Goldberg born
1969 - Britain's first live quintuplets born this century are said to be making satisfactory progress at Queen Charlotte's maternity hospital in London.
1971 - The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, swinging into its planned trajectory around Mars without a hitch.
1979 - The Times newspaper is published for the first time in nearly a year.
1981 - Rachel Bilson born
1985 - Nevado del Ruiz erupts in Colombia killing 23,000 people
1995 - An 18-year-old student is placed on a life-support machine after taking an ecstasy tablet at her 18th birthday party.
2010 - Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is freed by the country's military rulers after being under house arrest for seven years.

On This Day - 12th November

1840 - Auguste Rodin born
1918 - Jo Stafford born
1923 - The Munich Beerhall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler
1929 - Grace Kelly born
1943 - Wallace Shawn born
1944 - Al Michaels born
1945 - Marshal Tito wins Yugoslavian election
1945 - Neil Young born
1954 - New York's main immigration control centre, Ellis Island, is shut down after 62 years.
1961 - Nadia Comaneci born
1966 - David Schwimmer born
1967 - Michael Moorer born
1968 - Sammy Sosa born
1970 - Tonya Harding born
1980 - The Voyager 1 space probe has reached the ringed planet, Saturn and sent back the first vivid photographs of the planet and Ryan Gosling born
1982 - The Polish Government has freed the leader of the outlawed Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, after 11 months of internment.
1984 - It is announced that the English pound note is to disappear after more than 150 years.
1997 - The so-called 'Great Train Robber', Ronnie Biggs, celebrates after Brazil's Supreme Court rejected a British request to extradite him.
2001 - The Greek authorities carry out further inquiries in the case of 12 British plane-spotters being held on spying charges.

On This Day - 11th November

1880 - Australian bushwacker Ned Kelly is hanged
1885 - General George Patton born
1889 - Washington, Montana and the Dakotas achieve statehood
1899 - Pat O'Brien born
1904 - Alger Hiss born
1919 - The Armistice begins
1922 - Kurt Vonnegut born
1925 - Jonathan Winters born
1935 - Bibi Andersson born
1942 - Germans invade Vichy France
1951 - Marc Summers born
1954 - Thousands of elderly people take part in a rally in London calling for an increase in their pensions.
1962 - Demi Moore born
1964 - Calista Flockhart born
1965 - The Rhodesian Government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, illegally severs its links with the British Crown.
1970 - Peta Wilson born
1974 - Leonardo DiCaprio born
1975 - The southern African state of Angola gains its independence from former colonial power Portugal.
1987 - A painting by Vincent Van Gogh is sold for $49m (£27m) - a world record for a work of art.
1991 - Church of England allows female priests to be ordained
1992 - The Church of England votes for women priests
2000 - 155 people die in an intense fire on board a funicular railway in the Austrian Alps, only 12 people survived.
2004 - Veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies in hospital in Paris, France, aged 75.