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25th November 1952: Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap opens in London, later to become the longest-running play in the world
Christie stipulated that The Mousetrap should not be adapted into other formats, helping to maintain its appeal as a unique theatrical experience. It holds the world record for the longest continuous run of any play, with more than 29,000 ...
24th November 1873: Joseph Glidden awarded a patent for modern barbed wire
Improved fencing systems were vital to the farmers who had headed west to settle in the Great ...
23rd November 1963: First ever episode of Doctor Who broadcast by on BBC television
An Unearthly Child was the first of a four-part serial that saw actor William Hartnell take the role of the time-travelling Doctor ...
22nd November 1718: The pirate Blackbeard killed by sailors under Robert Maynard
The British pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was killed during a battle with British sailors under the command of Lieutenant Robert ...
21st November 1877: Thomas Edison announced his phonograph, the world’s first practical machine that could record and play sound
Within two decades, Edison's invention of the phonograph had spawned an entire industry built around the recording, distribution and sale of sound ...
20th November 1969: Native Americans begin their occupation of Alcatraz Island
The Occupation of Alcatraz was launched by a group of 89 members of the Indians of All Tribes in an attempt to gain control under the Treaty of Fort Laramie that had been signed in ...
19th November 1985: Reagan and Gorbachev meet for the first time at the Geneva Summit
U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time at the Geneva ...
18th November 1883: The Day of Two Noons sees four standard time zones applied across the continental United States
Railroad companies found it difficult to coordinate train schedules and prevent accidents as trains crossed different regions with varied local times, so adopted a solution to divide the country into four distinct time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, a
17th November 1894: H. H. Holmes, one of America’s earliest serial killers, apprehended in Boston
During Holmes time in Chicago, he owned a multi-story building that later became known as the Murder Castle thanks to sensationalist newspaper reports from the ...
16th November 1793: Mass drownings begin in Nantes as part of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution
The drownings at Nantes began when dozens of refractory priests were loaded onto adapted barges, which were taken to the middle of the Loire River and deliberately sunk, or the prisoners thrown ...