Revolution seems to have been a feature of the fourth of November over the years. Since I was born on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes night was a special childhood celebration. Fawkes was discovered in the undercroft of the House of Lords on the night of 4th November with 36 barrels of gunpowder, and the Catholic revolution was averted.
On 4th November 1956 Soviet troops entered Budapest to crush a nationwide uprising against Soviet imposed policies. The Soviet military intervention was brutal and overwhelming, with street fighting that resulted in thousands of deaths and extensive devastation. By November 10, Soviet forces had taken control, and the revolution was quashed. The seeds of the Soviet oppression were sown twelve years to the day earlier, when discussions began that would lead to the Yalta conference in February 1945. The Yalta Conference was a meeting between Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. They convened in Yalta, Crimea, to discuss post-war Europe’s reorganisation and the strategy for Germany’s unconditional surrender. Key agreements included dividing Germany into occupation zones, establishing the United Nations, and ensuring free elections in liberated Eastern European nations, though Soviet influence would later dominate these areas.
It was on the 4th November 1979 that Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage. This event marked a major turning point in U.S.-Iran relations and became a prolonged international crisis lasting 444 days. The hostages’ plight and failed rescue missions dominated news and impacted American politics, particularly the 1980 U.S. presidential election, which denied Jimmy Carter a second term.
Some revolutions are peaceful, and on 4th November 2008 Barack Obama was elected as the first, and so far only, African-American president of the United States. I have my fingers crossed for another such milestone in American history. It’s high time the US had a female president.