15 November 577

Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, succeeding as the paramount leader of China.

Edoardo Agnelli, son of the industrialist patriarch Gianni Agnelli, was found dead under a bridge on the outskirts of Turin, Italy.

The Soviet spacecraft Buran, a reusable vehicle built in response to NASA's Space Shuttle program, was launched, uncrewed, on its only flight.

Two men murdered a family in Holcomb, Kansas; the events became the subject of Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, a pioneering work of the true crime genre.

The Holocaust: In the Romani Holocaust, Nazi official Heinrich Himmler ordered that the Romani were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".

During a general strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador, police and military fired into a crowd, killing at least 300 people.

Fountain of Time, in Chicago's Washington Park, was dedicated as a tribute to 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain following the Treaty of Ghent.

As a result of numerous atrocities in the territory, the Congo Free State was annexed to Belgium to form the Belgian Congo.

Brazilian emperor Pedro II was overthrown in a coup led by Deodoro da Fonseca (pictured), while the country was proclaimed a republic.

American Civil War: Union army general William Tecumseh Sherman (pictured) began his March to the Sea, inflicting significant damage to property and infrastructure using scorched-earth tactics on his way from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia.

Sponsored by Greek businessman Evangelos Zappas, the first modern revival of the Olympic Games took place in Athens.

The chapel of the newly constructed Castellania in Valletta, Malta, was consecrated.

Penda of Mercia and Æthelhere of East Anglia were defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria at the Battle of the Winwaed in Yorkshire, England.

The world population reached eight billion.

Lewis Hamilton wins the Turkish Grand Prix and secures his seventh drivers' title, equalling the all-time record held by Michael Schumacher.

A flood a few miles outside of Athens results in the death of 25 people.

Hong Kong's High Court bans elected politicians Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung from the city's Parliament.

Xi Jinping becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new seven-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.

A fire in a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai, China kills 58 people.

Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Al Jazeera English launches worldwide.

The first day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, kill 25 people and wound 300 more.

Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.

Microsoft launches the Xbox game console in North America.