On Nov. 22, 2004, in what became known as the Orange Revolution, massive protests erupted across the Ukraine after charges that the Nov. 21 presidential run-off election between candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych was rigged by the authorities in favor of the latter. Ultimately, Ukraine’s highest court annulled the election and a new vote reversed the result.
On Nov. 21, 1911, British suffragettes stormed Parliament in London. Two hundred and twenty women and three men were arrested and received prison sentences.
On Nov. 20 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights. New Jersey’s action was followed by the other states making the first 10 amendments to the Constitution the law of the land and completing the revolutionary reforms begun by the Declaration of Independence.
On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a 272 word speech to dedicate a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His “Gettysburg Address” ended with the hopeful appeal “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
On Nov. 18, 1976, Spain’s parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
On Nov. 17, 1939, following student demonstrations in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Nazis executed nine students and professors, arrested and sent more than 1,000 students to concentration camps, and shut down universities. In 1989, on the 50th anniversary, student protests broke out against Soviet occupiers, touching off national strikes that soon led to the end of Soviet rule.