November 4 in Military History

A confederacy of Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware warriors led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket annihilated General Arthur St. Clair's army along the Wabash River in present-day Ohio. Of approximately 1,400 soldiers and 200 camp followers, 918 were killed and 276 wounded, proportionally the worst defeat in U.S. Army history, worse than Custer's Last Stand.

Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest positioned artillery across the Tennessee River and shelled the Union supply depot at Johnsonville, Tennessee, destroying 28 boats and barges and over $2 million in supplies. The panicked Federal garrison set fire to their own steamboats, and wind spread the flames to supply warehouses, compounding the devastation.

The armistice took effect at 3:00 PM, ending fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary after the decisive Battle of Vittorio Veneto. The Italian Army captured 300,000 prisoners and entered Trento and Trieste. The collapse of the Italian Front accelerated the complete disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire one week before the general armistice.

British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, a find that would shape colonial-era British military surveying in Egypt and inform later US and British intelligence operations in the Middle East during both world wars.

Field Marshal Rommel ordered the full retreat of the Afrika Korps from El Alamein, defying Hitler's "stand to the last man" order. Montgomery's Eighth Army had broken through after twelve days of fighting. Rommel chose to save his remaining forces rather than obey an impossible command, marking the turning point of the North African campaign.

British Eighth Army armor broke through the final Axis defensive belt at El Alamein during Operation Supercharge, forcing Rommel into a full withdrawal. The armored breakthrough committed over 600 tanks and demonstrated the maturing British combined-arms doctrine that had eluded the Eighth Army in earlier desert campaigns.

At 4:15 AM, 200,000 Soviet troops launched Operation Whirlwind, pouring into Budapest to crush Hungary's revolution. Hungarian freedom fighters, many teenagers armed with Molotov cocktails, fought Soviet T-54 tanks in the streets. Approximately 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet soldiers were killed, and 200,000 Hungarians fled into exile.

Approximately 500 Iranian students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing 66 Americans. Fifty-two hostages would be held for 444 days, transforming U.S. military doctrine and birthing modern special operations.

Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and seized 66 American diplomats and staff, beginning a 444-day hostage crisis that defined the Carter presidency. The subsequent failed rescue attempt, Operation Eagle Claw, reshaped US special operations forces and led to creation of US Special Operations Command.

Barack Obama won the US presidential election, becoming the first African American elected commander-in-chief. As president he would expand the drone campaign, order the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and preside over the withdrawal from Iraq and the surge in Afghanistan.