12th November 1990: The World Wide Web formally proposed by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee

11th November 1918: WW1 Armistice of Compiègne is signed

10th November 1898: Wilmington Massacre sees an armed white mob overthrow the elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina

9th November 1989: Berlin Wall opened by the East German government after Günter Schabowski mistakenly announced that GDR citizens could cross to West Berlin with immediate effect

8th November 1923: Adolf Hitler leads the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, alongside General Ludendorff

7th November 1874: Elephant first appears as a symbol of the Republican Party in Thomas Nast’s political cartoon Third Term Panic

6th November 1975: The Sex Pistols play their first gig at St Martin’s College of Art in London

5th November 1940: President Roosevelt elected for an unprecedented third term

4th November 1852: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour appointed Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia

3rd November 1957: Laika the dog becomes the first animal to enter orbit around the Earth

2nd November 1795: The Directory established in France following the Thermidorian Reaction

1st November 1938: American racehorse Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral in a direct contest between the two horses

31st October 1517: Martin Luther reputedly nails his Ninety-five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, laying the foundations of the Protestant Reformation

30th October 1961: The Tsar Bomba detonated by the USSR

29th October 1923: Republic of Turkey formally proclaimed under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

28th October 1971: Prospero, the only British satellite launched with a British rocket

27th October 1960: American singer Ben E. King records the renowned song ‘Stand By Me’

26th October 1861: Pony Express officially ends, only nineteen months after its first service began

25th October 1415: English king Henry V defeats the numerically superior French army at the Battle of Agincourt

24th October 1926: Harry Houdini performs his final show despite suffering from acute appendicitis