10 Things in German History that happened on November 9

1. 1522. Birth of German theologian and Refomrer Martin Chemnits (I would have put Martin Luther here but he was born on November 10, 1473).

2. 1518. Pope condemns Luther's writings.

3. 1848. After being arrested in the Vienna revolts, left liberal leader Robert Blum was executed. Many see the execution as symbolic of the ultimate crushing of the German March Revolution in April, May 1849.

4. 1918: Emperor Wilhelm II was dethroned in the November Revolution by Chancellor Max von Baden, who published the news of an abdication before the Emperor had abdicated. Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the German republic from a window of the Reichstag. Two hours later, Karl Liebknecht proclaimed a "Free Socialist Republic" from a balcony of the Berliner Stadtschloss.

5. 1921. Publication of Der 9. November (The 9th of November) a novel by Bernhard Kellermann telling the story of the German insurrection of 1918.

6. 1922: German born Albert Einstein named winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

7. 1923: The failed Beer Hall Putsch, 8 to 9, marking the early emergence and provisional downfall of the Nazis.  During Nazi rule 9 November was a national holiday in Germany in memory of Nazis who died in the Beer Hall Putsch.

8. 1923: Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, chose 9 November for his return to Germany from exile in the Netherlands. It infuriated his father, the former emperor, who felt the anniversary of his abdication ill-chosen.

9. 1938: Kristallnacht. Known today in Germany as the Reichspogromnacht, on 9 to 10, synagogues and Jewish property were burned and destroyed on a large scale, and more than 400 Jews were killed or driven to suicide. The event demonstrated that the antisemitic stance of the Nazi regime was not as 'moderate' as it had appeared in earlier years.

10. 1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall ended German separation and started a series of events that ultimately led to German reunification and the Fall of Communism in eastern Europe.