Following are some of the major events to have occurred on November 9:
1937 – Ramsay MacDonald, who became Britain’s first Labour prime minister in 1924, died at age 70.
1938 – Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish riots took place across Germany after the murder of a German official in Paris. Jewish businesses were ransacked, synagogues torched and many Jews sent to concentration camps. The night became known as “Kristallnacht” (Crystal Night).
1953 – Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and prose writer, died in New York after succumbing to whisky and drugs on a reading tour of the U.S.
1970 – Charles De Gaulle, French soldier and statesman, died aged 79.
1985 – Princess Diana dances with actor John Travolta at White House dinner.
1989 – East Germans on foot and in cars began arriving in West Germany and West Berlin only hours after the East German government threw open its border to the West.
1993 – The Ottoman bridge at Mostar in southwestern Bosnia, which endured scores of wars and invading armies over four centuries, collapsed into the Neretva River.
2002 – Iyad Sawalha, head of Islamic Jihad’s military wing and the top of an Israeli wanted list, was shot dead in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli forces.
2005 – Three suicide bombers blew themselves up at three international hotels in Jordan’s capital Amman, killing 60.
2012 – World’s first pink fluorescent angelfish go on public display in Taipei.
2012 – Ten people killed during gunfight in Colombo’s biggest jail as prisoners clash with Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force.
(Reuters)