4 November

1429 – Joan of Arc liberates Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.
1501 – Catherine of Aragon (later Henry VIII's first wife) meets Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII's older brother – they would later marry.
1576 – Eighty Years' War: In Flanders, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city is nearly destroyed).
1677 – The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later jointly reign as William and Mary.
1737 – The Teatro di San Carlo is inaugurated.
1783 – W.A. Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria.
1791 – The Western Confederacy of American Indians wins a major victory over the United States in the Battle of the Wabash.
1839 – The Newport Rising: the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain.
1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.
1852 – Count Camillo Benso di Cavour becomes the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expands to become Italy.
1861 – The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville – Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material.
1890 – City & South London Railway: London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.
1918 – World War I: Austria-Hungary surrenders to Italy.
1921 – The Sturmabteilung or SA, whose members were known as "brownshirts", physically assault Adolf Hitler's opposition after his speech in Munich.
1921 – Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo.
1921 – The Italian unknown soldier is buried in the Altare della Patria (Fatherland Altar) in Rome.
1922 – In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
1924 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected the first female governor in the United States.
1939 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.
1942 – World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein – Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
1944 – World War II: Bitola Liberation Day
1952 – The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.
1955 – After being destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio.
1956 – Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
1960 – At the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania, Dr. Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals.
1962 – In a test of the Nike-Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Island. It would also be the last atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States.
1966 – The Arno River flooded Florence, Italy, to a maximum depth of 6.7 m (22 ft), leaving thousands homeless and destroying millions of masterpieces of art and rare books.
1970 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States turns control of the Binh Thuy Air Base in the Mekong Delta over to South Vietnam.
1970 – Genie, a 13-year-old feral child is found in Los Angeles, California having been locked in her bedroom for most of her life.
1973 – The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are deserted and are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis begins: a group of Iranians, mostly students, invades the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
1993 – A China Airlines Boeing 747 overruns Runway 13 at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport while landing during a typhoon, injuring 22 people.
1994 – San Francisco: First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.
1995 – Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extremist Orthodox Israeli.
2002 – Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing a pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress.
2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.
2008 – Proposition 8 passes in California, revoking state recognition of LGBT marriages.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Charles Borromeo (Roman Catholic Church)
Emeric of Hungary
Vitalis and Agricola (Roman Catholic Church)
Our Lady of Kazan (Russian Orthodox Church)
November 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Love (1970s Egypt)
Earliest day on which Return Day can fall, while November 10 is the latest; celebrated on Thursday following the first Monday of November of every even numbered year. (Georgetown, Delaware)
Feast of Qudrat (Power), first day of the month of Qudrat of the Bahá'í calendar (Bahá'í Faith)
Flag Day (Panama)
National Unity and Armed Forces Day or Giorno dell'Unità Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate (Italy)
The first day of the Ludi Plebeii, celebrated until November 17 (Roman Empire)
Unity Day (Russia)
Yitzhak Rabin Memorial (unofficial, but widely commemorated)