November 1: In Rwanda, Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa is beaten up by Tutsi forces, leading to a period of violence known as the wind of destruction.

November 2: The first section of the M1 motorway in England opens between Hertfordshire, just north of London, and the border of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire. The motorway is set to be expanded over the next few years to provide an unbroken motorway link with London and Leeds. A full motorway network across Britain is also set to be developed over the coming decade and into the 1970s.

November 12: The Warner Bros. religious epic The Miracle, very loosely based on the 1911 stage pantomime Das Mirakel, is released. It is a critical and financial bomb.

November 15: The Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas is brutally murdered, inspiring Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

November 18: MGM's widescreen, multimillion dollar, Technicolor version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, is released and becomes the studio's greatest hit up to that time. It is critically acclaimed and eventually wins 11 Academy Awards - a record held until 1998, when 1997's Titanic becomes the first film to equal the record. To the present day, the 1959 Ben-Hur remains the last MGM film to win a Best Picture Oscar, though Doctor Zhivago, another MGM film, was nominated in 1965.

November 20: The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations. (source: Wikipedia)