| 1 November 1141 | England [wars] | King Stephen of England is released in exchange for Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the leader of the rival claimant Matilda's party, whom his partisans have captured; the civil war continues with neither party able to establish ascendancy. |
| 1 November 1270 | Sicily, North Africa [treaties] | Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, now leader of the Eighth Crusade to the Holy Land after the death of King Louis IX of France, makes a peace treaty with the emir of Tunis, intending to direct the crusade fleet towards Constantinople. The emir resumes payment of the tribute formerly paid to the Hohenstaufen kings of Sicily. |
| 1 November 1420 | Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire [wars] | The Hussites again defeat the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, King of Hungary and Bohemia, under the Heights of Vyšehrad, near Prague, Bohemia: the first anti-Hussite crusade fails. Four further unsuccessful crusades follow. |
| 1 November 1500 | Florence [births and deaths] | Benvenuto Cellini, Florentine sculptor, goldsmith and author, a leading Mannerist artist, whose best-known sculpture is Perseus, born in Florence, Italy (–1571). |
| 1 November 1503 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | Giuliano della Rovere is elected Pope Julius II, succeeding Pius III who died on 18 October. He imprisons Cesare Borgia, former captain general of the papal army, to force him to surrender his duchy of Romagna, releasing him upon Borgia's compliance. |
| 1 November 1601 | Japan [political events] | Tokugawa Ieyasu, the leader of the ruling regency council in Japan, enters Osaka Castle on the island of Honshu, Japan, and carries out a redistribution of fiefs to ensure that no other daimyo (warlord) can challenge his hegemony. He decides to make Edo (modern Tokyo) his capital. |
| 1 November 1700 | Spain [War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)] | After a long period of failing health, King Charles II of Spain dies. His death brings to a head the developing crisis over the Spanish succession. |
| 1 November 1755 | Portugal [natural disasters] | A massive earthquake, the largest ever known in Europe, destroys Lisbon, Portugal, and over 30,000 people are killed in the quake itself, and the tidal wave and fire which follow it. |
| 1 November 1772 | France [chemistry] | French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier disproves the phlogiston theory by demonstrating that combustion is caused by a reaction with a component of air. |
| 1 November 1793 | England [births and deaths] | Lord George Gordon, English lord who in 1780 instigated the Gordon riots against the Catholic Relief Act, dies in Newgate prison, London, England (41). |
| 1 November 1856 | UK, Persia, Afghanistan [wars] | War breaks out between Britain and Persia after the latter occupies the city of Herat in Afghanistan (known as ‘the key of India’). |
| 1 November 1871 | USA [births and deaths] | Stephen Crane, US novelist known for his book The Red Badge of Courage (1895), born in Newark, New Jersey (–1900). |
| 1 November 1917 | Germany [law and government] | Count Georg von Hertling succeeds George Michaelis as German chancellor when the latter fails to quell the pro-peace lobby. |
| 1 November 1952 | Pacific, USA [weapons] | The USA explodes the first thermonuclear fusion device, or hydrogen bomb, at Eniwetok island in the Marshall Islands, although this is not revealed until February 1954. |
| 1 November 1971 | USA [computing] | US firm Intel introduces the 4-bit 0.1MHz 4004 microprocessor; devised by Ted Hoff, and containing 2,250 transistors, it is labelled a ‘micro-programmable computer on a chip’. It can only process 4 bits (binary digits) of information at a time, but has about the same calculating power as ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator, Analyser, and Calculator) and allows the development of microcomputers. |
| 1 November 1977 | USA [law and government] | The USA quits the International Labour Organization, which formulates standards for labour conditions, but President Jimmy Carter raises the minimum wage to $2.65 an hour. |
| 1 November 1981 | West Indies [decolonization] | The Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda become independent states within the Commonwealth. |
| 1 November 1983 | UK [television] | The Nottingham Building Society and the Bank of Scotland jointly launch Homelink, the first telephone banking system in Britain. Operating through the television, using Prestel technology, it also offers teleshopping. |
| 1 November 1992 | France [health and medicine] | Smoking is banned in all public places in France. The ban is generally ignored. |
| 1 November 1993 | Europe [treaties] | The Maastricht Treaty on European union comes into force; the European Community becomes the European Union (EU). |
| 1 November 1995 | Cameroon [political events] | The former French colony of Cameroon is admitted to the British Commonwealth. |
| 1 November 2001 | England [archaeology] | Archaeologists announce the discovery near Thirsk in North Yorkshire, England, of one of the largest prehistoric hill forts in Britain. |
