| 4 November 1168 | Kingdom of Jerusalem, Egypt, Fatimid Caliphate [Crusades (1095–1272)] | King Amalric I of Jerusalem invades Egypt and takes the town of Bilbeis, near Cairo, from the Fatimids (Shiite Muslims). |
| 4 November 1209 | England, Italy [political events] | King John of England's continued refusal to accept Stephen Langton, the Pope's choice, as archbishop of Canterbury leads to his excommunication by Pope Innocent III. |
| 4 November 1576 | Spanish Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire [Dutch Revolt (1598–1609)] | The renegade Spanish Habsburg army in Brabant storms and sacks Antwerp in the brutal massacre known as ‘the Spanish Fury’. Some 8,000 people die; the unity of the Netherlands in opposition to the Spanish Habsburgs is assured. |
| 4 November 1605 | UK [political events] | The Catholic Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during King James I of England's state opening of Parliament is discovered; Guy Fawkes is arrested in the cellars. Robert Catesby and other conspirators are caught at Holbeche House, Staffordshire, where Catesby dies in the affray (8 November). |
| 4 November 1751 | Ireland, UK [births and deaths] | Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish-born British playwright, orator, and Whig politician, baptized in Dublin, Ireland (–1816). |
| 4 November 1847 | Germany [births and deaths] | Felix Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy), German composer, dies in Leipzig, Germany (38). |
| 4 November 1911 | Morocco, Germany, France [diplomacy] | A convention ends the ‘Agadir crisis’ in Morocco, when Germany allows France a free hand in Morocco in return for territory in the Congo. |
| 4 November 1918 | [births and deaths] | Wilfred Owen, English poet noted for his war poems, is killed in action in France (25). |
| 4 November 1924 | USA [elections] | The Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge wins the US presidential election with 382 electoral votes over John W Davis, Democrat, with 136 votes, and Robert M LaFollette, Progressive, with 13; the popular vote is Coolidge 15,725,016, Davis 8,386,503, and LaFollette, 4,822,856. Republicans maintain majorities in the House (247–183) and Senate (56–39). |
| 4 November 1924 | United Kingdom [political events] | Ramsay MacDonald resigns as British prime minister following Labour's electoral defeat; a week later Stanley Baldwin forms a Conservative government with Austen Chamberlain as foreign secretary and Winston Churchill as chancellor of the Exchequer. |
| 4 November 1939 | USA, UK, France [legislation] | US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs a bill enabling belligerents in the war in Europe to buy arms in the USA on a ‘cash and carry’ basis, provided that such arms are carried in their own ships. Britain's naval blockade of German trade ensures that only Britain and France are able to take advantage of this provision. |
| 4 November 1956 | Hungary, USSR [wars] | Soviet forces attack Budapest, Hungary, and the Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy takes refuge in the Yugoslavian embassy. János Kádár, the leader of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party, cooperates with the USSR and forms a ‘revolutionary peasant-worker’ government. |
| 4 November 1977 | South Africa [political events] | The United Nations (UN) imposes a strict arms embargo on South Africa. |
| 4 November 1979 | Iran, USA [political events] | Iranian students seize the US embassy in Tehran, taking 63 US citizens and 40 others hostage. They demand the return of the Shah from the USA for trial. |
| 4 November 1980 | USA [elections] | In the US presidential election, the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan wins a sweeping victory over President Jimmy Carter, with 489 electoral votes against Carter's 49. The Republicans win control of the Senate and gain 33 seats in the House of Representatives. |
