November

On the afternoon of November 5, 2015, the Fundão iron-ore tailings dam above the village of Bento Rodrigues ruptured, sending a fast-moving slurry of mining waste down the valley and into the Doce River. Nineteen people died, entire communities were buried or displaced, and a toxic plume traveled hundreds of kilometers to the Atlantic coast. The collapse exposed weaknesses in tailings-dam design and oversight, launched years of rescue, cleanup, litigation and remediation, and left a watershed altered for decades.

On November 4, 2015, an Antonov An-12 cargo transport crashed minutes after takeoff from Juba International Airport, striking a busy market area near the airport perimeter. At least 37 people were reported killed and dozens injured. Local responders, UN peacekeepers and hospital staff rushed to the scene; no widely disseminated final accident report identifying a definitive cause had been published as of mid‑2024.

On November 4, 2010, AeroCaribbean Flight 883, an ATR 72-212 flying from Santiago de Cuba to Havana with 68 people aboard, entered severe convective weather near central Cuba. The crew reported technical problems and requested a descent as they encountered icing and turbulence; soon after, radar and radio contact were lost and the aircraft crashed near the village of Guasimal in Sancti Spíritus Province. The Cuban investigation concluded that severe airframe icing, including ice accumulation on the horizontal tail, led to a loss of control. The accident reinforced international concerns about supercooled large droplet (SLD) icing and prompted renewed emphasis on training, procedures and weather information for regional turboprops.

A devastating earthquake struck Alor Island, Indonesia, on November 11, 2004, revealing vulnerabilities and sparking a call for better disaster preparedness.

On November 6, 2002, a Luxair Fokker 50 on final approach to Luxembourg–Findel Airport suffered a catastrophic loss of control when the right‑hand propeller entered a ground‑range pitch while airborne. The sudden, extreme asymmetric drag led the aircraft to stall and strike the ground short of the runway; most people aboard were killed and a small number survived. The accident prompted criminal inquiries, procedural and design reviews, and industrywide attention to human‑machine interfaces on turboprops.

On November 2, 1996, Aeroperú Flight 603, a Boeing 757 departing Lima for Santiago, plunged into the Pacific after maintenance-applied adhesive tape blocked its static ports. The tape rendered critical air‑data instruments unreliable, plunged the cockpit into conflicting warnings at night over open water, and set off a chain of errors and confusion that ended in the deaths of all 70 people on board.

On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot and killed after a Peace Now rally in Kings of Israel Square (now Rabin Square) in Tel Aviv. Rabin, a key architect of the Oslo peace process, was struck by an Israeli ultranationalist opposed to the accords. The killing stunned the nation, prompted official inquiries into security and incitement, and changed the course of Israeli politics and the peace process.

On November 6, 1988, a pair of strong, closely spaced earthquakes struck Lancang and Gengma counties in southwestern Yunnan Province, near the China–Myanmar border. The doublet produced intense shaking, widespread collapse of traditional masonry and adobe houses, landslides that cut roads and terraces, and a relief effort that stretched from village lanes to provincial command centers. Hundreds died, thousands were injured or displaced, and the sequence reshaped how seismologists and planners viewed fault behavior in the region.

On November 6, 1985, members of the M-19 guerrilla group stormed Colombia’s Palace of Justice in Bogotá, taking hostages including magistrates of the Supreme Court. The building was retaken by the military in the early hours of November 7 after a ferocious assault that left the Palace gutted, eleven magistrates dead, and roughly a hundred people killed or missing amid contested accounts of what occurred inside. The siege became a long-running national trauma, spawning investigations, human rights rulings, and an unfinished search for truth and accountability.

On November 4, 1979, a group calling itself the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized American diplomatic staff. Sixty‑six people were taken at first; after early releases and staggered exceptions, 52 Americans remained captives for 444 days until their release on January 20, 1981. The seizure, a failed U.S. rescue attempt in April 1980, and months of negotiations reshaped U.S.–Iran relations, American diplomacy, and special‑operations policy for decades to come.

In the early hours of November 6, 1977, the earthen embankment holding Kelly Barnes Lake above Toccoa Falls College overtopped and breached after an intense night of rain. A sudden surge of water, mud, and debris raced down a narrow valley onto the campus and into the creek below, killing 39 people and injuring 14, destroying buildings, and prompting investigations that reshaped how small dams are regulated and inspected.

On November 6, 1971, the United States detonated Cannikin — a roughly five‑megaton underground thermonuclear device — deep beneath Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. The test, tied to anti‑ballistic missile warhead development, followed years of surveys and smaller tests, and unfolded amid bitter legal battles and environmental protests. Cannikin produced one of the largest man‑made seismic events to that date, intensified public debate about nuclear testing, and left a complex legacy for scientists, indigenous communities, and environmental activists.

On November 4, 1967, Iberia Flight 062, a Sud Aviation Caravelle on a scheduled service from Spain to London Heathrow, descended in instrument conditions and struck the wooded slopes of Blackdown in West Sussex. All aboard were killed when the aircraft impacted rising terrain; investigators later classified the accident as a controlled flight into terrain and cited descent below the safe altitude in poor visibility as the principal cause.

On the morning of November 4, 1966, an exceptional series of storms overwhelmed the Arno River and sent a surge of mud, oil and sewage through Florence’s low-lying historic center. The inundation killed 101 people across the affected basin and damaged an estimated 14,000 works of art and roughly 1,000,000 books and manuscripts. In the weeks and years that followed, thousands of volunteers — the “mud angels” — and international conservators mounted a salvage and restoration effort that altered conservation practice worldwide.

On November 8, 1965, American Airlines Flight 383 descended through low clouds and struck terrain short of the runway while on final approach to the Greater Cincinnati airport. In instrument meteorological conditions, the aircraft descended below published approach minima without having the required visual references, resulting in a controlled-flight-into-terrain accident that killed many onboard and left survivors and responders to confront a charred wreckage and a long investigation.

Operation Hump was a search-and-destroy sweep launched by the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade on November 8, 1965, into War Zone D — the dense rubber and jungle country north‑northwest of Saigon around the Cu Chi and Song Be areas. What began as a routine airmobile sweep ended in fierce, close-range fighting with Viet Cong main‑force elements, leaving American soldiers bloodied, exhausted, and a battleground full of contested claims about losses and victories.

On November 8, 1963, Aero O/Y Flight 217, a scheduled domestic service from Helsinki to the Åland Islands, flew an instrument approach to Mariehamn in thick fog and low clouds. During the final descent the aircraft struck terrain short of the runway, killing everyone on board. The accident — a classic controlled flight into terrain in marginal weather — helped focus Finnish aviation on safer approach procedures and better navigational aids for island airfields.

On November 22, 1963, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, sent shockwaves throughout the nation. This tragic event, marked by a series of quick, deadly moments, altered the course of American history. The background, the timeline, and the subsequent investigation reveal a story of political tension, sudden violence, and enduring mystery.

On November 8, 1957, a Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser carrying 52 people vanished over the North Pacific while en route from San Francisco to Honolulu. Wreckage and human remains were later found on the ocean surface, but no intact fuselage or flight‑recorders were recovered, and the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that a definite cause could not be established.

On November 3, 1943, occupying German mountain troops carried out a reprisal against the mountain village of Lingiades near Ioannina in Epirus, Greece. Soldiers surrounded the settlement, set homes alight and shot civilians as they fled; 92 villagers — many women and children — were killed and the village was left in ruins. The massacre entered local memory through survivors’ testimony and yearly commemorations, even as formal justice and reparations proved elusive.

In the early hours of 7 November 1917 (then 25 October in the Russian calendar), armed detachments of Red Guards, sailors and sympathetic soldiers moved through Petrograd and seized the instruments of state. What followed was at once a carefully organized seizure by a disciplined minority and the opening act of a broader social rupture that would precipitate civil war, famine and the creation of a one‑party Soviet state.