November 20 in Military History

The Nantucket whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean, setting its crew adrift in three open boats for 89 days. The survivors' ordeal, which included cannibalism, inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The Navy studied the Essex disaster to improve survival protocols for shipwrecked sailors.

The U.S. Army's 18th Infantry Regiment completed the palisade and fortification of Fort Phil Kearny in present-day Wyoming, establishing the centerpiece of the three-post chain guarding the Bozeman Trail through Powder River country. The fort became the focal point of Red Cloud's War and the site of the Fetterman Fight three weeks later.

Francisco Madero issued the Plan of San Luis Potosi from his exile in San Antonio, Texas, calling on Mexicans to rise up against the 34-year dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz at 6 p.m. on November 20. The uprising that followed became the Mexican Revolution, a decade of warfare that produced modern Mexican military institutions and reshaped the entire U.S.-Mexico strategic relationship.

The British Army launched 476 tanks in the first mass armored assault in history at Cambrai, France, achieving a six-mile breakthrough that demonstrated the tank's revolutionary potential. Church bells rang in England for the first time since 1914. However, a German counterattack recaptured most of the ground within days.

The Ukrainian Central Rada proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic in Kyiv, asserting autonomy within a federated Russian state even as the Bolshevik Revolution reshaped the former empire. The proclamation initiated a four-year struggle for Ukrainian independence that involved military conflict with Bolshevik, White, and Polish forces, and established precedents that would resurface a century later.

The Soviet Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a massive pincer offensive against the thinly held Axis flanks guarding the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. Within 72 hours the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies were shattered and Soviet armor had driven deep into the German rear, setting up the encirclement that would destroy a complete field army.

The 2nd Marine Division's assault on Betio reached its bloodiest phase as Marines fought to expand their toehold against fanatical Japanese resistance. Amphibious tractors that had survived the crossing disgorged Marines directly onto the beach, but many had to wade hundreds of yards through chest-deep water under withering fire when their landing craft grounded on the reef.

The International Military Tribunal opened proceedings against 22 major Nazi war criminals, establishing that individuals could be held criminally responsible for crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

President Kennedy ordered the lifting of the naval quarantine around Cuba after the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its nuclear missiles. The resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis marked the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war and led directly to the Moscow-Washington hotline and the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Approximately 500 armed militants seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, declaring their leader the Mahdi. Saudi Arabian security forces, assisted by French GIGN commandos, fought a two-week battle to retake the mosque. The siege killed over 250 people and profoundly influenced Saudi Arabia's subsequent support for Wahhabist Islam.