The American whaler Essex, which hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, is attacked by an 80-ton sperm whale 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. The 238-ton Essex was in pursuit of sperm whales, specifically the precious oil and bone that could be derived from them, when an enraged bull whale rammed the ship twice […]

On November 20, 1866, a Frenchman named Pierre Lallement receives a U.S. patent for the nation’s first pedal bicycle. Lallement had arrived in the United States the year before, carrying the plans and components for his invention. Lallement constructed and patented the first bicycle in the United States, but received no significant reward or recognition […]

At dawn on the morning of November 20, 1917, six infantry and two cavalry divisions of the British Expeditionary Force—with additional support from 14 squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps—join the British Tank Corps in a surprise attack on the German lines near Cambrai, France. After the British debuted the first armored tanks during the […]

On November 20, 1923, the U.S. Patent Office grants Patent No. 1,475,074 to 46-year-old inventor and newspaperman Garrett Morgan for his three-position traffic signal. Though Morgan’s was not the first traffic signal (that one had been installed in London in 1868), it was an important innovation nonetheless: By having a third position besides just “Stop” […]

On November 20, 1982, the UC Berkeley football team, referred to as Cal, wins an improbable last-second victory over Stanford when they complete five lateral passes around members of the Cardinal marching band, who had wandered onto the field a bit early to celebrate the upset they were sure their team had won, and score […]

November 20, 1999 marks the first Transgender Day of Remembrance, honoring the victims of transphobic violence. Now an annual observance, the first TDoR is a vigil commemorating Rita Hester, a 34-year-old African American trans woman murdered in Boston the previous year. Hester had been openly trans for nearly her whole life and was well-known in […]

On November 20, 2003, Phil Spector, the influential, eccentric music producer who worked with a long list of performers including The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes, Ike and Tina Turner, John Lennon and the Ramones, is charged in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Spector pleaded not guilty to the charges. The 40-year-old Clarkson was found […]