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The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms. Spanning over four centuries, the period of the Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history. The Han Empire was divided into areas directly controlled by the central government, known as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms. The Han Dynasty was an age of economic prosperity, and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou Dynasty. The coinage issued by the central government mint in 119 BCE remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang Dynasty. The emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government, but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the scholarly gentry class. From the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics. Science and technology during Han saw significant advances, including papermaking, the rudder, the use of negative numbers in mathematics, the raised-relief map, the hydraulic-powered armillary sphere for astronomy, and a seismometer employing an inverted pendulum. (more...)

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• Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy (pictured) is chosen as the first permanent President of the European Council and British politician Catherine Ashton is selected as the first High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
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November 20: Black Awareness Day in Brazil; Revolution Day in Mexico; Teacher's Day in Vietnam

• 284 – Diocletian (head statue pictured) became Roman Emperor, eventually establishing reforms that brought an end to the Crisis of the Third Century.
• 1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, was executed.
• 1820 – The American whaleship Essex sank 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) west of the western coast of South America after it was attacked by a sperm whale.
• 1902 – While discussing how to promote the newspaper L'Auto during a lunch meeting in Paris, sports journalists Henri Desgrange and Géo Lefèvre came up with the idea of holding a cycling race that later became known as the Tour de France.
• 1979 – A group of armed insurgents attacked and took over the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, declaring that one of their leaders, Muhammad bin abd Allah al-Qahtani, was the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam.

More anniversaries: November 19 – November 20 – November 21