On This Day: Piltdown Man, Supposed “Missing Link,” Exposed as Hoax

On Nov. 20, 1945, the International Military Tribunal began proceedings against 22 high-ranking Nazis indicted for war crimes; the Nuremberg Trials set a precedent in international human rights law.

On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, a speech that redefined the meaning of the Civil War.

Nov. 18, 1883, railways in the United States and Canada adopted Standard Railway Time, creating four standardized time zones in the U.S. and five in Canada.

On Nov. 18, 1978, more than 900 followers of the Rev. Jim Jones participated in a mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.

On Nov. 17, 1558, Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England, succeeding her sister Mary.

On Nov. 16, 1988, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party was the winner of Pakistan’s national elections, clearing the way for Bhutto to become the first female leader of a Muslim-majority nation.

On Nov. 15, 1940, German bombers completed a 10-hour blitz on Coventry, which killed over 500 people and destroyed the city’s cathedral.

On Nov. 14, 1889, journalist Nellie Bly set out to circle the globe, seeking to beat the fictional record set by Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days.”

On Nov. 14, 1851, Herman Melville’s epic narrative of the great white whale debuted on the American literary scene, meeting mixed reviews and tepid sales.

On Nov. 13, 1956, the Supreme Court affirmed a ruling that found the segregated bus laws in Montgomery, Ala., to be unconstitutional.

On Nov. 13, 1985, a massive mudslide devastated entire towns and killed thousands in Colombia following the volcanic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz.

On Nov. 12, 1927, Josef Stalin ousted Leon Trotsky from the Communist Party, effectively ending the career of his greatest political rival. Stalin would later force Trotsky into exile and order his assassination.

On Nov. 11, 1918, representatives from Germany and the Allied forces signed an armistice that brought an end to fighting in World War I.

On Nov. 11, 2000, a cable car in Austria’s Kitzsteinhorn tunnel caught fire, killing 155 of the 167 people on board.

On Nov. 10, 1871, reporter Henry Stanley located missing British explorer David Livingstone in a small Tanzanian village, and asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

On Nov. 9, 1989, jubilant East and West Berliners began tearing down the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Iron Curtain for 28 years.

On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi storm troopers launched a coordinated attack against Jewish communities, destroying property and shipping thousands to concentration camps.

On Nov. 8, 1895, German scientist Wilhelm Roentgen’s experiments with cathode rays led him to discover X-rays, a feat that earned him the first-ever Nobel Prize for Physics.