Obscure Historical Anniversaries in November: 12 Weird Events Worth Celebrating

🕐7 min read

What if I told you that November isn’t just about turkey, tinsel, and the annual guilt trip over not having finished your Christmas shopping? Buried under the leaves of history are anniversaries so strange, so delightfully offbeat, that they make the typical holiday calendar look like a boring spreadsheet. We’re talking about the day a would-be assassin nearly took out a president with a gun that jammed, the moment a wooden behemoth flew for exactly one minute, and the time a newspaper convinced half of America that the moon was inhabited by bat-people. These are the weird events that deserve a toast—or at least a confused Google search. So grab a cup of something strong, cancel your plans for a normal November, and let’s dig into twelve obscure historical anniversaries that are begging to be celebrated.

November 1, 1950: The Day a President’s Life Was Saved by a Stuck Door

On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at Blair House, where he was staying while the White House was being renovated. The plan was audacious: storm the residence, shoot the president, and spark a revolution. But history had a different script. Torresola managed to wound a White House police officer, but his gun jammed after firing just a few rounds. Collazo’s weapon also malfunctioned, and a quick-thinking guard, Private Leslie Coffelt, killed Torresola with a single shot from his Thompson submachine gun—despite being mortally wounded himself. The entire firefight lasted less than forty seconds.

What’s truly weird? Truman was napping upstairs and didn’t even hear the gunfire. The assassination attempt failed not because of heroics alone, but because of a stuck door and a jammed pistol—mundane mechanical failures that saved a presidency. To celebrate this anniversary, you could host a “near-miss” party where guests share stories of their own close calls. Serve “Truman’s Nap” cocktails (bourbon, ginger ale, and a dash of irony) and toast to the beauty of malfunctioning hardware. Modern parallel: think of how many political plots today are foiled by social media slip-ups—same drama, different century.

November 2, 1947: The Spruce Goose’s One and Only Flight

Howard Hughes’s H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose, was the largest flying boat ever built—and it flew exactly once. On November 2, 1947, Hughes piloted the wooden behemoth over Long Beach Harbor for about a mile at an altitude of 70 feet. The flight lasted just 26 seconds. Why? Because the aircraft was a prototype designed to carry troops across the Atlantic during World War II, but the war ended before it was finished. Hughes poured his own fortune into it, spending an estimated $23 million (over $300 million today) to build a plane that critics called a “flying lumberyard.”

The Spruce Goose was made almost entirely of birch—not spruce—because of wartime aluminum shortages. It had a wingspan of 320 feet, longer than a football field, and was powered by eight Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engines. After that single flight, it was kept in a climate-controlled hangar for decades, never to fly again. To celebrate, host a “one-hit wonder” movie night featuring films that were massive flops or had only one release. Serve “Goose Juice” (cranberry juice and vodka) and discuss the hubris of mega-projects. The modern lesson? Sometimes the biggest achievements are the ones that never get a second chance.

November 3–4, 1903 & 1842: Panama’s Independence and the Great Moon Hoax

November 3, 1903, marks Panama’s declaration of independence from Colombia—a move heavily orchestrated by the United States to secure the Panama Canal Zone. The U.S. Navy sent the USS Nashville to block Colombian troops, and within hours, Panama was a new nation. The price? $10 million up front and an annual payment of $250,000. It’s a textbook example of gunboat diplomacy, and it set the stage for one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century.

Just one day earlier, on November 4, 1842, the New York Sun published the first installment of the “Great Moon Hoax.” The paper claimed that Sir John Herschel, using a powerful new telescope, had discovered bat-like humanoids and unicorns living on the moon. The articles ran for six days, and readers were captivated. Circulation soared from 8,000 to 19,000 copies per day. It wasn’t until later that month that the hoax was exposed—but by then, the Sun had made a fortune. To celebrate these two events, throw a “double feature” party: one room for geopolitical intrigue (serve canal-themed snacks like “Panama Punch”), another for fake news (play a game of “Fact or Fiction” with historical hoaxes). The parallel to modern clickbait is almost too easy—we still love a good moon-man story.

November 5–6, 1872 & 1869: Voting Rights and the First College Football Game

On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York, and voted for Ulysses S. Grant. It was illegal—women didn’t have the right to vote—and she was arrested two weeks later. Her trial became a national sensation. The judge, Ward Hunt, ordered the jury to deliver a guilty verdict without deliberation, and Anthony was fined $100, which she never paid. That single act of civil disobedience helped galvanize the women’s suffrage movement, which wouldn’t succeed until 1920.

Exactly three years earlier, on November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game. But this wasn’t the football you know. The rules were closer to soccer: a round ball, no forward passes, and players could use their hands only to stop the ball. Rutgers won 6–4, and the game featured 25 players per side. The field was 120 yards long, and the “goalposts” were simply two sticks driven into the ground. To celebrate, host a “retro sports day” where guests play a version of 1869 football (no pads, no passing, and lots of confusion). Serve “Suffrage Sangria” and discuss how progress often comes in small, illegal steps. The irony: Anthony’s vote was for a man who couldn’t even vote himself at the time (Grant was ineligible under New York law for a technical reason).

November 7–8, 1893 & 1858: Women Vote in Colorado and the First Solar Eclipse Photo

On November 7, 1893, Colorado became the first state to grant women the right to vote by popular referendum. The measure passed with 55% of the vote, and it was a massive victory for suffragists. But here’s the weird part: the law only applied to state and local elections—women still couldn’t vote for president. It took another 27 years for the 19th Amendment to make that possible. Colorado’s move was partly driven by the state’s frontier pragmatism: women had been essential to homesteading and needed a political voice.

The next day, November 8, 1858, a British photographer named Warren De la Rue captured the first photograph of a total solar eclipse. Using a daguerreotype process and a telescope,