7 November 1917: the Bolsheviks take Petrograd, and the world that fortnight
On 7 November 1917, which was 25 October by Russia's own calendar, Bolshevik-led Red Guards took Petrograd from the Provisional Government. In the same fortnight Britain backed a Jewish national home in Palestine and its armies pushed north towards Jerusalem.
How sure we are: events with no label are high confidence. A grey label such as Exact day uncertain says why one detail is less certain; a yellow label such as Sources differ on the date marks a low-confidence event where the sources disagree or are thin. The notes say where. Dates are in the Gregorian calendar; where a country still used another calendar, the notes give the original. How events are checked
The night in Petrograd
Russia still kept the Julian calendar, so there it was 25 October: hence the October Revolution.
Politics & diplomacyWidely known
October Revolution: Bolsheviks seize power in Petrograd
· Petrograd, Russian Republic (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) · Europe
On 7 November
Some details uncertain.
Bolshevik-led forces rose against the Provisional Government in Petrograd after it closed newspapers and the city. A full-scale uprising followed, and Red Guards occupied government buildings, then captured the Winter Palace, seat of the government, in the early hours of 8 November.
Why it is interesting. The initial assault on Petrograd happened largely without casualties, and the event set off the Russian Civil War.
Notes and dating details
The infobox gives 7 November 1917 (25 October Old Style); the body gives Old Style dates (newspapers closed 24 October, i.e. 6 November Gregorian, and the full-scale uprising the next day). Winter Palace captured 26 October Old Style (8 November Gregorian). Wikidata also gives 7-8 November.
Within two weeks the Bolsheviks had a government, the Church had restored its patriarchate and Ukraine had gone its own way.
Politics & diplomacy
Council of People's Commissars is established as Russia's government
· Europe
2 days after 7 November
The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets set up the Council of People's Commissars as an interim workers' and peasants' government. Vladimir Lenin was its first chairman.
Notes and dating details
Source also dates the decree 27 October 1917 (O.S.); 9 November is the Gregorian equivalent given as the formation date. Merged duplicate row 1917-council-of-people-s-commissars-is-founded-in-russia (Council of People's Commissars is founded in Russia). Its notes: calendar not stated in source. The first council was elected in late 1917.
The All-Russian Local Council restored the office of patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in November 1917. Peter the Great had abolished it in 1721, replacing it with the Most Holy Synod.
Notes and dating details
Lead gives 10 November 1917 (O.S. 28 October); the history section gives 11 November 1917 with the same O.S. 28 October. 10 November matches the O.S. date and Wikidata. Wikidata also gives 5 February 1589 (original foundation, not used).
· Kyiv, Ukrainian People's Republic (now Ukraine) · Europe
13 days after 7 November
The Central Council of Ukraine rejected the Bolshevik seizure of power and announced a new state, the Ukrainian People's Republic. The republic declared full independence from Russia on 22 January 1918.
Why it is interesting. The short-lived republic was drawn into a long war against a Soviet-backed rival government, the White movement, Poland and others.
Notes and dating details
The infobox start date of 20 November is tied to the Third Universal. The full article places the Third Universal, which proclaimed the republic, on 7 November 1917 in the Julian calendar, i.e. 20 November Gregorian, so the stored date is Gregorian. Wikidata gives 1917-11-20 and also 1918-12-14, a later stage shown in the infobox (not used). Place: the Central Rada, seated in Kyiv, held the city after the Kyiv Military District's command left in November 1917, so the Russian Republic (or Soviet Russia) did not hold it on 20 November.
· Moscow, Russian Soviet Republic (now Russia) · Europe
During November 1917
Date may use an older calendar.
In November 1917, 240 pro-Bolsheviks who died in the Moscow Bolshevik Uprising were laid in mass graves next to the Kremlin Wall on Red Square. The site grew into the Soviet Union's national cemetery.
Notes and dating details
The article's text puts the first mass funeral on 10 November 1917 without naming the calendar; either way it falls in November, so only the month is given. The infobox gives 'established: 1917'.
The same fortnight: Palestine and the Balfour Declaration
While London backed a Jewish national home, British Empire troops broke the Ottoman line and closed on Jerusalem.
Politics & diplomacyWidely known
Britain issues the Balfour Declaration
· United Kingdom · Europe
5 days before 7 November
In a letter to Lord Rothschild, British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour announced British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The text was published in the press on 9 November.
Why it is interesting. Its opening words were the first public support for Zionism from a major political power.
Notes and dating details
Letter dated 2 November 1917; text published 9 November 1917; release authorised 31 October.
British Empire forces attacked and took the Ottoman garrison at Beersheba, starting the Southern Palestine Offensive. Late in the day, Australian light horse regiments charged the town with bayonets in hand.
Why it is interesting. Light horsemen charged into the town gripping bayonets, the only weapon they had for a mounted attack, with rifles carried on their backs.
Notes and dating details
Beersheba was in the Ottoman Empire; calendar not stated in source, date stored as given.
British forces attacked the Ottoman defences at Gaza on the night of 1 to 2 November. The Ottomans were later forced to leave Gaza during the night of 6 to 7 November.
Why it is interesting. It helped break the Gaza to Beersheba line the Ottomans had held since March 1917.
Notes and dating details
Gaza was Ottoman-held; calendar not stated in source, date stored as given.
On 8 November 1917 units of the 5th Mounted Brigade charged a rearguard position held by German, Austrian and Turkish gunners and machine-gun infantry. They captured the position, seventy prisoners, eleven guns and four machine guns. Of 170 men, 26 were killed and 40 wounded.
Notes and dating details
Huj was in Ottoman-held southern Palestine; calendar not stated in source, date stored as given.
· Junction Station, Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem · Middle East
6 days after 7 November
Date may use an older calendar.
On 13 November 1917 a cavalry charge helped by infantry took two fortified villages in the centre of the Ottoman line. The fighting was part of the British pursuit after Beersheba, and Junction Station was captured, cutting the rail link with Jerusalem.
Notes and dating details
Lead describes operations from 10 to 14 November; 13 November is the date given for the battle. Ottoman-held area: calendar not stated in source, date stored as given.
On 14 November 1917 the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade fought an Ottoman rearguard near Rishon LeZion, and by that night the Turkish force was in full retreat.
Notes and dating details
Casualty figures are not used: the infobox gives 44 New Zealanders dead and 141 wounded and 182 Turkish dead (possibly 400), the lead gives 81 wounded, and no outside check was available. Ottoman-held area: calendar not stated in source, date stored as given.
British Empire forces began the fighting that ended in the capture of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire. Allenby entered the Old City on foot on 11 December, and the fighting continued until 30 December 1917.
Why it is interesting. Allenby walked into the Old City, and Lloyd George called the capture a Christmas present.
Notes and dating details
Infobox and lead give 17 November to 30 December 1917. Ottoman Empire: calendar not stated in source, dates stored as given.
Italy routed, Passchendaele and Cambrai fought over, a U-boat sunk at sea; and France lost a sculptor and a sociologist.
War & conflictWidely known
The Battle of Caporetto begins
· Kobarid, Austria-Hungary · Europe
14 days before 7 November
Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, broke into the Italian front near Kobarid and routed the opposing troops. The rest of the Italian army fell back to the Piave.
Why it is interesting. The defeat forced the Italian army to retreat about 150 kilometres to the Piave and brought down Prime Minister Paolo Boselli's government.
Canadian Corps troops took over from the exhausted II Anzac Corps and attacked in a series of limited steps. They ultimately captured Passchendaele village and the high ground along the ridge.
Allied leaders approve the Supreme War Council at Rapallo
· Rapallo, Italy · Europe
2 days before 7 November
Some details uncertain.
At a conference in Rapallo, Italy, the Allied war leaders approved a joint council to coordinate military strategy, with its headquarters at Versailles. The idea had come from the British, after the Italian defeat at Caporetto.
Notes and dating details
The Rapallo Conference ran 5-7 November 1917 and the article does not say on which day the Supreme War Council was approved, so the conference dates are stored. The British War Cabinet approved the idea on 2 November 1917. Lead dates the founding to 1917.
Émile Durkheim died in Paris. He was a French sociologist who formally established sociology as an academic discipline and wrote Le Suicide and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.
Why it is interesting. He founded the journal L'Année sociologique in 1898, around which a school of French sociologists formed.
Two United States Navy destroyers fought the German U-boat U-58 in the North Atlantic. The submarine was sunk, with two of its men killed and thirty-nine captured, while the US side had no casualties.
The British attacked southwest of Cambrai in France, using several hundred tanks along with new artillery and infantry methods. The first day brought a large British success.
Why it is interesting. Tanks were used in large numbers, though mechanical unreliability limited the gains after the first day.
Notes and dating details
Infobox gives 20 November - 7 December 1917; Wikidata end date is 8 December. The infobox gives 476 tanks, of which 378 were combat tanks, so no exact tank total is used.
Two future leaders born in Asia, two anti-apartheid lives begun in South Africa, and Hawaii's last queen dead.
Lives
Oliver Tambo is born
· Nkantolo, South Africa
11 days before 7 November
Oliver Tambo was born in the village of Nkantolo in eastern Pondoland, about 20 kilometres from Bizana. He became a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.
Helen Suzman was born Helen Gavronsky to Lithuanian-Jewish emigre parents. She went on to be an activist against apartheid and a politician, spending 36 years in the South African House of Assembly.
Liliʻuokalani died in Honolulu, in the Territory of Hawaii. She had been Queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1891 until the monarchy was overthrown in 1893, and she composed 'Aloha ʻOe'.
Why it is interesting. She was the Hawaiian Kingdom's last reigning monarch, and she wrote a memoir setting out her own view of her country's history and of the overthrow.
Notes and dating details
Merged duplicate row 1917-11-11-liliuokalani-last-monarch-of-hawaii-dies (Liliʻuokalani, last monarch of Hawaii, dies). Its notes: State funeral followed on 18 November 1917; kept in the summary rather than as an end date because the row marks the death. Merged duplicate row 1917-main-line-of-the-house-of-kalakaua-ends-with-queen-liliuokal (Main line of the House of Kalākaua ends with Queen Liliʻuokalani's death). Its notes: Infobox gives dissolution 1917 and deposition 1893. Only the year of her death is given.
Park Chung Hee was born in Gumi, Korea, then under the Empire of Japan. He became an army officer who took power in the May 1961 coup and led South Korea as president until his assassination in 1979.
Magnitude 7.5 earthquake south of the Kermadec Islands
· Kermadec Islands (south of), New Zealand · Oceania
9 days after 7 November
Some details uncertain.
A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck south of New Zealand's Kermadec Islands.
Notes and dating details
NOAA UTC date 1917-11-16 03:19:28. The pipeline's approximate local solar date is 15 November, but the Kermadec Islands keep New Zealand's date west of the date line, which puts the local time on the afternoon of 16 November; 16 November stored. Wikipedia's List of earthquakes in 1917 also lists a magnitude 7.5 Kermadec Islands earthquake on 16 November, but with a depth of 35 km against NOAA's 60 km, so no depth is given. Linked NOAA tsunami record 1450 has eventValidity 2, maxWaterHeight 2.5 m, 1 run-up (not rechecked; NOAA is not an approved site). NOAA lists no death or damage figures here. The attached Wikipedia article concerns the Guatemala earthquakes and was not used.
Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was born in Allahabad, then under the British Raj. She became Prime Minister of India, serving from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.
A deal over China signed in Washington, mob violence in Oklahoma and an animated first in Buenos Aires.
Politics & diplomacy
United States and Japan sign the Lansing-Ishii Agreement
· Washington, United States · North America
5 days before 7 November
In a diplomatic note signed in Washington, both countries agreed to respect China's independence and territorial integrity. The United States also recognised Japan's special interests, especially in Manchuria.
On 9 November 1917 Industrial Workers of the World members were driven to the edge of Tulsa and tarred and feathered by men linked to the Knights of Liberty, W. Tate Brady among them. Local media praised it; national media mostly condemned it.
Notes and dating details
Infobox lists 12 IWW members as victims, lead says 11 men were arrested; no number used.
Animated film El Apóstol is released in Buenos Aires
· Buenos Aires, Argentina · South America
2 days after 7 November
El Apóstol, directed by Quirino Cristiani, opened at the Cine Select-Suipacha on 9 November 1917. The silent film satirised Argentina's president Hipólito Yrigoyen and is considered by historians to be the first animated feature film.
Notes and dating details
Date stored is the opening in Buenos Aires at the Cine Select-Suipacha, 9 November 1917; Silent Era also gives release on 9 November 1917 and Wikidata's dated statement is sourced to a book.
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