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HISTORY & TIMELINE
9 November

A journey through
9 November in history

From Napoleon’s coup of 1799 to the creation of India’s 27th state in 2000, 9 November has ended empires, opened borders and launched rockets. In Germany it is remembered as a day of both catastrophe and joy. This timeline follows the date across two centuries.

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III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1799
General Bonaparte in the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud, painted by François Bouchot.General Bonaparte in the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud, painted by François Bouchot.Image: François Bouchot · Public domain
politics · Europe

Napoleon’s coup of 18 Brumaire

On 18 Brumaire in the Year VIII of the French revolutionary calendar, 9 November 1799, the Council of Ancients in Paris, alarmed by rumours of a Jacobin plot, voted to move both chambers of the legislature to the palace of Saint-Cloud outside the city. It was the first step of a coup planned by the politician Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès with General Napoleon Bonaparte, newly back from Egypt. The next day, surrounded by Bonaparte’s troops, the councils were forced to give way, and the government of the Directory was replaced by three consuls. Within weeks Bonaparte was First Consul and master of France, and the coup is often seen as the end of the French Revolution.

Source: Fondation Napoléon, napoleon.org: The coup d’état of 18 Brumaire An VIII (9 and 10 November 1799) ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1867
The return of power to the emperor at Nijō Castle, painted by Murata Tanryō.The return of power to the emperor at Nijō Castle, painted by Murata Tanryō.Image: 邨田丹陵, Tanryō Murata · Public domain
politics · Asia

Japan’s last shogun hands power back to the emperor

On 9 November 1867, at Nijō Castle in Kyoto, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth Tokugawa shogun, announced that he was returning political authority to the emperor, a step known in Japan as Taisei Hōkan. Yoshinobu hoped to keep a leading role in a new government, but in January 1868 his opponents seized the imperial palace and proclaimed the rule of the young Emperor Meiji, ending more than 260 years of Tokugawa rule and beginning the Meiji Restoration.

Source: Nijō Castle, City of Kyoto: Taisei Hōkan ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1918
Kaiser Wilhelm II, from the studio of Thomas Heinrich Voigt.Kaiser Wilhelm II, from the studio of Thomas Heinrich Voigt.Image: Studio of Thomas Heinrich Voigt · Public domain
politics · Europe

The Kaiser’s abdication and a German republic

At noon on 9 November 1918, with revolution spreading across Germany, Chancellor Prince Max of Baden announced that Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated. That afternoon the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a republic from a window of the Reichstag, and a few hours later Karl Liebknecht proclaimed a ‘free socialist republic’ from the Berlin Palace. Wilhelm crossed into the neutral Netherlands the next day and lived there in exile until his death in 1941.

Source: Imperial War Museums: The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 9 November 1918 ↗
1938
A Jewish-owned shop in Magdeburg wrecked during the pogrom of November 1938.A Jewish-owned shop in Magdeburg wrecked during the pogrom of November 1938.Image: UnknownUnknown Agentur Georg Pahl · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
politics · Europe

Kristallnacht: the November pogrom

On the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 Nazi Party members and stormtroopers attacked Jewish communities across Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. The regime claimed it was a spontaneous response to the killing of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, but the violence was organised by the state. More than 1,400 synagogues were burned and thousands of Jewish shops and homes wrecked. Ninety-one Jews were murdered and some 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. The Jewish community was then made to pay a collective ‘fine’ of one billion Reichsmarks. The pogrom, named for the broken glass that filled the streets, marked a turning point towards the Holocaust.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia: Kristallnacht ↗
1953
The Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, photographed in 2019.The Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, photographed in 2019.Image: PsamatheM · CC BY-SA 4.0
politics · Asia

Cambodia becomes independent

In 1953 King Norodom Sihanouk toured the world in what he called a ‘Royal Crusade’, pressing France to give Cambodia full independence. France handed over the police and courts in August and the command of the army in October, and on 9 November 1953 Cambodia celebrated its independence. Sihanouk was hailed as the ‘father of independence’, and 9 November is Cambodia’s national day. The Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, in the form of a lotus-shaped Angkorian tower, stands as its memorial.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia: Commemoration of Independence Day, 9 November 1953 ↗
1967
The first Saturn V lifts off with Apollo 4 from the Kennedy Space Center, 9 November 1967.The first Saturn V lifts off with Apollo 4 from the Kennedy Space Center, 9 November 1967.Image: NASA · Public domain
science · Americas

The first Saturn V Moon rocket flies

At 7 a.m. on 9 November 1967 the five engines of the first Saturn V fired at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, producing 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The uncrewed Apollo 4 mission was the first test of the whole three-stage rocket, and the first launch from the centre’s new Launch Complex 39. Its roar was one of the loudest noises people had ever made. The Apollo spacecraft was sent out on a long loop around Earth and then driven back into the atmosphere at the speed of a craft returning from the Moon, to test its heat shield. It splashed down in the Pacific after 8 hours 37 minutes, having done everything asked of it. Twenty months later a Saturn V carried Apollo 11 to the Moon.

Source: NASA: 55 years ago, Apollo 4, the first flight of the Saturn V ↗
1967
Jann Wenner, the magazine's founder, at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin in 2022.Jann Wenner, the magazine’s founder, at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin in 2022.Image: Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0
culture · Americas

The first issue of Rolling Stone

The first issue of Rolling Stone appeared in San Francisco on 9 November 1967, priced at 25 cents. It had been founded by Jann Wenner, a 21-year-old former Berkeley student, and Ralph Gleason, a jazz critic at the San Francisco Chronicle. The cover showed John Lennon in costume for the film How I Won the War. Wenner meant the magazine to reflect the music, art and politics of his generation. It grew into one of the most influential magazines of rock music and popular culture.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Rolling Stone ↗
1985
Garry Kasparov playing a simultaneous exhibition in Hamburg in 1985.Garry Kasparov playing a simultaneous exhibition in Hamburg in 1985.Image: GFHund · CC BY 3.0
sport · Europe

Kasparov becomes the youngest world chess champion

On 9 November 1985 in Moscow, playing Black with a Sicilian Defence, the 22-year-old Garry Kasparov won the 24th and final game of his world championship match against Anatoly Karpov, taking the title by 13 points to 11. He was the youngest world champion in the history of the game. Kasparov held the title until 2000 and remained the world’s top-rated player for most of two decades.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Garry Kasparov ↗
1989
People climb on to the Berlin Wall as it opens, November 1989.People climb on to the Berlin Wall as it opens, November 1989.Image: Raphaël Thiémard from Belgique · CC BY-SA 2.0
politics · Europe

The Berlin Wall opens

Shortly before 7 p.m. on 9 November 1989, at the end of a long press conference, the East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski read out new rules allowing citizens to travel abroad. Asked when they took effect, he answered: ‘Immediately, without delay.’ Thousands of East Berliners hurried to the border crossings. At Bornholmer Straße the guards, with no orders and facing a growing crowd, let the first people through at about 9.20 p.m. and raised the barrier at 11.30. Within hours every crossing in the city was open and people were dancing on the Wall. Less than a year later, Germany was reunited.

Source: Berlin.de, the official website of Berlin: Opening and fall of the Berlin Wall ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2000
Nanda Devi, the highest mountain wholly within India, in Uttarakhand, 2013.Nanda Devi, the highest mountain wholly within India, in Uttarakhand, 2013.Image: Paul Hamilton · CC BY-SA 2.0
politics · Asia

India creates the state of Uttaranchal

On 9 November 2000 the Himalayan districts of north-western Uttar Pradesh became a new state, Uttaranchal, the 27th state of India, with its capital at Dehradun. Its people had campaigned for years for a state of their own. In January 2007 it took the traditional name of the region, Uttarakhand, and 9 November is kept there as the state’s foundation day.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Uttarakhand ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 9 November, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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