Schroeder wins confidence vote
2001 - Germany narrowly avoided a government collapse when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (above, centre) won a key vote on the mobilisation of troops for Afghanistan, but doubts remain whether his coalition will survive. Schroeder won a parliamentary confidence vote with 336 votes, just two more than the minimum of 334 he needed, after a number of pacifist rebels from his junior coalition partner, the Greens, backed down and reluctantly supported him. Schroeder had called the vote to ensure he got majority backing from his own coalition to support the United States with up to 3,900 troops — a central plank of his policy to give Germany a bigger world role. The crisis was sparked by Germany’s constitutional obligation to request parliament’s approval for troop deployments.
November 16
1632 - King Gustavus II of Sweden is killed in the Battle of Luetzen.
1824 - Australian explorer Hamilton Hume discovers the Murray River, the longest in Australia.
1848 - A liberal insurrection breaks out in Rome, eventually forcing the pope to flee.
1918 - Hungary declares independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is proclaimed a republic.
1920 - The Russian Civil War ends with victory for the Bolsheviks.
1941 - Nazi Germany launches second failed assault on Moscow in the Second World War.
1959 - The Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music opens on Broadway in New York.
1967 - Twenty-three Turkish Cypriots die fighting on the island of Cyprus.
1973 - Skylab 3, carrying a crew of three astronauts, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an 84-day mission.
1980 - Thailand ammunition plant explosions kill 38.
1988 - Estonian parliament declares the tiny Baltic republic sovereign with right to veto Soviet laws.
1994 - Ukrainian parliament approves Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
1995 - More than 10 million Algerians vote under massive security in their first contested presidential election.
1996 - A building housing Russian military personnel and their families near Chechnya collapses after an explosion, killing 13 people.
1997 - The Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Hospital at Jurf in Ajman opens.
2002 - Pervez Musharraf becomes President of Pakistan.
2004 - Australia’s fastest train crashes near Bundaberg in Southeast Queensland. No casualties reported.
2007 - North and South Korea agree to launch cross-border rail service for the first time in more than half a century.
2011 - A spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American docks safely with the International Space Station after a spate of technical failures.
2013 - Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar retires after his 200th and last Test match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
