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The Balfour Declaration (2 November 1917) was a public statement issued by the British government during World War I announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population. It represented the first expression of public support for Zionism by a major political power. The term "national home" had no precedent in international law, and was intentionally vague as to whether a Jewish state was contemplated. The second half of the declaration was added to satisfy opponents, who had claimed that it would otherwise prejudice the position of the local population of Palestine and encourage antisemitism against Jews worldwide. While the declaration called for political rights in Palestine for Jews, rights for the vast majority of the local population, the Palestinian Arabs, were limited to the civil and religious spheres. The declaration greatly increased popular support for Zionism, and led to the creation of Mandatory Palestine, which later became Israel and the Palestinian territories. Historians consider it one of the causes of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. (Full article...)

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Underside of vermilion sea star

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... that Rudyerd Boulton and his wife, Laura, made the first-ever recordings of the calls of African tropical birds?
... that the Immigration Museum of the State of São Paulo is located in the Immigrant Inn, which received more than 2.5 million immigrants to Brazil between 1887 and 1978?
... that Eleanor Nathan was a member of the London County Council representing two different parties and two different districts for a total of 16 years?
... that a political scandal erupted in 2014 after operatives of the Liberian National Security Agency illegally seized US$247,500 from a group of South Korean businessmen in a hotel room in Monrovia?
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In the news

Truck used in the ramming attack in New York City

In baseball, the Houston Astros defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series.
In New York City, a ramming attack (vehicle pictured) kills eight people and injures at least eleven others.
Catalonia issues a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain, whose government imposes direct rule under Article 155 of its constitution.
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev announces that the Kazakh language will begin using a Latin script, rather than the current Cyrillic script.
The High Court of Australia finds that five parliamentarians are ineligible to serve.

On this day...

November 2

An emu

619 – Emperor Gaozu allowed the assassination of a khagan of the Western Turkic Khaganate by Eastern Turkic rivals, one of the earliest events in the Tang campaigns against the Western Turks.
1932 – The Australian military began a "war against emus", a flightless native bird (specimen pictured) blamed for widespread damage to crops in Western Australia.
1949 – The Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference ended with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.
1957 – A large number of people witnessed a fiery object in the sky near Levelland, Texas, which the United States Air Force said was ball lightning.
2007 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, up to 100,000 people demonstrated against the allegedly corrupt government of president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Daniel Boone (b. 1734) · Alfred Domett (d. 1887) · Harriet Bosse (d. 1961)

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James K. Polk (1795–1849) was the 11th President of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. He had previously served as the 13th Speaker of the House of Representatives and as Governor of Tennessee. A protege of Andrew Jackson, Polk was a member of the Democratic Party and an adherent of Jacksonian democracy and manifest destiny. During his presidency, the United States expanded significantly with the annexation of Texas, the Oregon Treaty, and the conclusion of the Mexican–American War.

Engraving: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restoration: Andrew Shiva

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