November 2 is the 306th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 59 days remaining until the end of the year.
619 – A qaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate is assassinated in a Chinese palace by Eastern Turkic rivals after the approval of Tang emperor Gaozu.1410 – The Peace of Bicêtre suspends hostilities in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War.
1675 – Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow leads a colonial militia against the Narragansett during King Philip's War.
1795 – The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created.
1868 – Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time to be observed nationally.
1889 – North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
1899 – The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
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.
1914 – World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles are subsequently closed.
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".
1917 – The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.
1920 – In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the United States presidential election, 1920.
1936 – The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
1940 – World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia–Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.
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.
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.
1951 – 6,000 British Troops flown into Egypt to quell unrest in the Suez Canal zone.[1]
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 of November 3.
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1956 – Hungarian Revolution: Imre Nagy requests UN aid for Hungary. 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.
1956 – Suez Crisis: Israel occupies the Gaza Strip
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.
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.
1960 – Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.
1963 – South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
1964 – King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.
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.
1966 – The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
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.
1983 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
1984 – Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
1986 – US Hostage, David Jacobsen, is released in Beirut after 17 months in captivity.
1988 – The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.
1990 – British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.
2016 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, ending the longest Major League Baseball championship drought at 108 years.
