Today in History: Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial elected as US President

The following are some of the most significant events which took place on 4 November:

512 – Following Byzantine emperor Anastasius’ deposition of Chalcedonian patriarchs and attempts to make Monophysite changes to liturgy, riots break out in Constantinople with a mob trying to proclaim Areobindus as emperor.

1493 – Christopher Columbus reaches the Leeward Islands.

1677 – The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange; they later jointly reign as William and Mary.

1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a Scottish physician, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.

1890 – City and South London Railway: London’s first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.

1922 – In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1960 – At the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania, Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals.

1970 – Salvador Allende takes office as President of Chile, the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections.

1995 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extremist Israeli.

2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or African-American descent to be elected as President of the United States.