- 1831 – Nat Turner is hanged for inciting a slave rebellion
- 1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia
- 1864 - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south
- 1889 - The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd State of the United States
- 1918 - World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ends at 11:00 a.m., (the eleventh hour in the eleventh month on the eleventh day) and this is annually honoured with a two-minute silence. The war officially ends on the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June, 1919
- 1919 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaims this day as Armistice Day
- 1921 - The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery
- 1926 - The United States Numbered Highway System, including U.S. Route 66, is established
- 1940 - Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U.S. Midwest
- 1942 - World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France
- 1947 – Raymond Weeks, from Birmingham Alabama, led the first national celebration of Veterans Day. President Ronald Reagan honored Weeks at the White House with the Presidential Citizens Medal in 1982 as the driving force for the national holiday. Elizabeth Dole, who prepared the briefing for President Reagan, determined Weeks as the “Father of Veterans Day.”
- 1992 – the General Synod of the Church of England votes to ordain women winning by a two vote margin
- 2004 - New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington
Births
- 1885 - George S. Patton, American general (d. 1945)
- 1901 - Magda Goebbels, German wife of Joseph Goebbels (d. 1945)
- 1992 - Kurt Vonnegut, American author (d. 2007)
- 1960 - Stanley Tucci, American actor and director
- 1962 - Demi Moore, American actress, director, and producer
- 1974 - Leonardo DiCaprio, American actor and producer
Deaths
- 1831 - Nat Turner, American slave rebellion leader (b. 1800)
- 1855 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
- 1880 - Ned Kelly, Australian murderer (b. 1855)
- 1887 - Haymarket affair defendants:
- George Engel, German-American businessman and activist (b. 1836)
- Adolph Fischer, German-American printer and activist (b. 1858)
- Albert Parsons, American editor and activist (b. 1848)
- August Spies, American editor and activist (b. 1855)
- 1938 - Typhoid Mary, Irish-American carrier of typhoid fever (b. 1869)
- 1984 - Martin Luther King, Sr., American pastor, missionary, and activist (b. 1899)
- 2004 - Yasser Arafat, Palestinian engineer and politician, 1st President of the Palestinian National Authority, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1929)
