Today in History
November 9
| 1799 | Napoleon Bonaparte participates in a coup and declares himself dictator of France. | |
| 1848 | The first U.S. Post Office in California opens in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets. At the time there are only about 15,000 European settlers living in the state. | |
| 1900 | Russia completes its occupation of Manchuria. | |
| 1906 | President Theodore Roosevelt leaves Washington, D.C., for a 17-day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside of the United States. | |
| 1914 | The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecks the German cruiser Emden, forcing her to beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean. | |
| 1918 | Germany is proclaimed a republic as the kaiser abdicates and flees to the Netherlands. | |
| 1935 | Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China. | |
| 1938 | Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass. | |
| 1965 | Roger Allen LaPorte, a 22-year-old former seminarian and a member of the Catholic worker movement, immolates himself at the United Nations in New York City in protest of the Vietnam War. | |
| 1965 | Nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada go dark in the worst power failure in history, when a switch at a station near Niagara Falls fails. | |
| 1967 | NASA launches Apollo 4 into orbit with the first successful test of a Saturn V rocket. | |
| 1972 | Bones discovered by the Leakeys push human origins back 1 million years. | |
| 1983 | Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, is kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million. | |
| 1989 | The Berlin Wall is opened after dividing the city for 28 years. | |
| 1993 | Stari Most, a 427-year-old bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is destroyed, believed to be caused by artillery fire from Bosnian Croat forces. | |
| 1994 | The chemical element Darmstadtium, a radioactive synthetic element, discovered by scientists in Darmstadt, Germany. | |
| 1998 | Largest civil settlement in US history: 37 brokerage houses are ordered to pay $1.3 billion to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price fixing. | |
| 2007 | German Bundestag passes controversial bill mandating storage of citizens’ telecommunications traffic date for six months without probable cause. | |
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Born on November 9 |
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| 1818 | Ivan Turgenev, Russian author (Fathers and Sons, A Month in the Country). | |
| 1841 | Edward VII, King of England, who succeeded his mother Victoria in 1901. | |
| 1853 | Stanford White, architect whose designs include Madison Square Garden and Washington Arch. | |
| 1886 | Ed Wynn, actor and comedian. | |
| 1918 | Spiro Agnew, vice president to Richard Nixon. | |
| 1923 | James Schuyler, poet, novelist and playwright. | |
| 1924 | Robert Frank, photographer. | |
| 1928 | Anne Sexton, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. | |
| 1934 | Carl Sagan, American astronomer and writer. | |
| 1936 | Mary Travers, singer, songwriter; member of Vocal Group folk group Peter, Paul and Mary ("Puff the Magic Dragon," "If I Had a Hammer"). | |
| 1941 | Tom Fogerty, musician; guitarist with Creedence Clearwater Revival. | |
