November 30
2004
Lion Air Flight 538 crash
On November 30, 2004, a Lion Air Boeing 737‑200 landing at Adisumarmo International Airport near Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, touched down in heavy rain, landed long on a wet runway, and overran the runway end. The aircraft left the prepared surface, sustained severe damage, and evacuation and rescue operations followed; contemporary reports recorded several fatalities and dozens injured. The accident became one of several incidents that intensified scrutiny of Indonesian civil aviation in the 2000s. Read more
1942
Battle of Tassafaronga
On the night of November 30, 1942, off Tassafaronga Point on Guadalcanal, a small Japanese destroyer force using Type 93 "Long Lance" torpedoes ambushed a U.S. cruiser-destroyer interception group; the clash left one heavy cruiser sunk, several others badly damaged, and lessons about radar, torpedoes, and night tactics painfully reforged. Read more
1941
Rumbula massacre
In late autumn 1941, thousands of Jews from the Riga ghetto — long-time residents and deportees from Germany, Austria and the Protectorate — were marched into the nearby Rumbula forest and systematically murdered by German SS, SD and police units with the assistance of Latvian auxiliary forces. The largest executions occurred on November 30, 1941 and December 8, 1941; historians estimate roughly 24,000–27,000 people were killed on those two days, with additional victims murdered at Rumbula in surrounding weeks. The massacre destroyed the historic Jewish community of Riga and became one of the largest single-site mass shootings of the Holocaust. Read more
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1939
Winter War (Soviet invasion of Finland; 1939–1940)
On November 30, 1939, after a manufactured border incident at Mainila, the Soviet Union launched a full-scale invasion of Finland. Over the next three months Finnish troops—small, mobile, and expert in winter warfare—slowed and at times shattered much larger Soviet formations before a Moscow peace treaty on March 12, 1940 forced Finland to cede territory and resettle hundreds of thousands.
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1936
The Crystal Palace fire
On the evening of November 30, 1936, the vast iron-and-glass exhibition building known as the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill was engulfed in a blaze that swept through its combustible interior. By dawn the iconic structure lay ruined. No one died, but the cultural loss and the image of a skeletonized palace changed a landscape and a national conversation about large public buildings.
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