On Nov. 2, 1783, Gen. George Washington delivered his farewell address to the Continental Army near Rocky Hill, N.J.
In 1917 British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, in what became known as the Balfour Declaration, expressed support for a "national home" for the Jews of Palestine.
In 1920 Pittsburgh station KDKA began the first regularly scheduled radio broadcasts.
In 1930 Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
In 1947 the Spruce Goose, a 200-ton, eight-engine wooden flying boat built by millionaire recluse Howard Hughes, went on its only flight, with Hughes at the controls, as the plane flew for about a minute over Long Beach (Calif.) Harbor.
In 1948 President Harry Truman made pollsters eat their words as he narrowly defeated Republican challenger Thomas Dewey.
In 1954 Strom Thurmond of South Carolina became the first person elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate.
In 1959 Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the popular NBC-TV game show "Twenty-One."
In 1962 President John F. Kennedy went on radio and television to announce that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
In 1963 South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem, was assassinated during an army coup.
In 1964 King Saud of Saudi Arabia was deposed and succeeded by King Faisal.
In 1972 American Indian activists seized the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington and demanded reforms of the bureau.
In 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing a national holiday for slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.