Today in History, 11/4

1501: Catherine of Aragon (later Henry VIII's wife) meets Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII's older brother - they would later marry. When Arthur died, Henry married Cathy (it was a politcal marriage) and Henry felt that the whole icky "marrying your sister-in-law" thing caused his marriage to be cursed to not have a son.1677: The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later be known as William and Mary. In the late 1600's England was getting pretty sick of being run by the Stuarts, but they were willing to wait for James II to die and see who came next (I forget who was next). But when James's wife bore him a son, who went straight to the front of the line and the son was baptized as a Catholic, Parliament said "Enough!" and invited William of Orange to come over and run the place in what was called The Glorious Revolution. The problem was that it was Mary, and not William who had the legitimate claim on the throne so the crown had to descend to him through her. That's why they're frequently referred to as William and Mary and why the College of William and Mary in Virginia is named that way.1791: The Western Confederacy of American Indians win a major victory over the United States in the Battle of the Wabash.
1825: The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Waters ceremony in New York Harbor.1842: Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd in Springfield, IL.
1864: At the Battle of Johnsonville, during the Civil War, Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material.
1879: Will Rogers is born. He said, "The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best." There's a page with more of his quotes here.
1880: The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.
1890: The City & South London Railway, London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell. As I understand it, the bedrock under London is quite deep, necessitating a deep subway system. This oddity would come in handy during the Blitz, when the subways were used as bomb shelters for civilians. Now, Wikipedia says it opened today, but while looking for a picture, I found this site that says it didn't open until December 18th. So maybe it started running today but didn't open to the public for another month.1916: Walter Cronkite is born. Here he is at the 1956 Democratic National Convention:

1918: Art Carney is born.

1918: Cameron Mitchell is born. He went from playing Hap Loman in the original film version of Death of A Salesman at the beginning of his career to playing Commander Alex Jansen in the MST3K episode Space Mutiny.
1919: Another MST3K alumnus, Martin Balsam, is born. He played the wicked drug kingpin harassed by Joe Don Baker in Joel Hodgson's last episode, Mitchell.
1921: The Sturmabteilung or SA is formally formed by Adolf Hitler.
1922: In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.1937: Loretta Swit is born.

1939: The United States modifies its neutrality stance in World War II to allow "cash and carry" purchases of arms by belligerents, a policy favoring Britain and France.
1950: Markie Post is born.

1952: The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.
1956: Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
1961: Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid, is born.

1969: Matthew McConaughey is born.

1979: The Iranian hostage crisis began as militants storm the United States Embassy in Tehran.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.