On November 3, 2004, President George W. Bush is re-elected as Senator John Kerry concedes in a close presidential election, which boils down to a battle for votes in the state of Ohio. 

A game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons finds Indiana's Steven Jackson, Ron Artest and Jermaine O'Neal rushing into the stands for fisticuffs with rowdy Pistons fans, who had thrown numerous objects at Indiana players. The game, which Indiana won, 97-82, is cut short due to the outburst.

Palestinian leader Afafat dies in France at age 75 on November 11th. His body is taken from France to Cairo, where the Egyptian government hosts a state funeral for him, and he's buried outside the Palestinian Authority headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Arafat's family wanted him buried in Jerusalem, but the Israeli government forbade the burial.

Veterans Day, which has always been celebrated on November 11th, originated from the final day of World War I. The day became an official holiday in 1938, but it was called Armistice Day. In 1954, in the wake of World War I and the Korean Conflict, congress struck the word Armistice and renamed the holiday Veterans Day.

Thanksgiving Day Thursday, November 25th.  The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in 1621 to commemorate the bountiful harvest reaped by Plymouth colonists after the harsh winter. It was celebrated as a traditional English harvest feast, and the Wampanoag Indians were invited to the party. However, George Washington would be the American president who would declare the day a holiday in 1789. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, seeking to lengthen the holiday shopping season, declared the day should fall on the third Thursday of October, but it was later decided that the fourth Thursday in November would become the official home for Thanksgiving Day.

Here are some links for November: 

• InfoPlease: Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation  - Read Lincoln's speech, which was delivered to the nation during the Civil War in Washington, D.C., on October 3, 1863. 

• Scholastic.com: The First Thanksgiving - Features informative lesson plans, games, pictures and more based on historical accounts of the first Thanksgiving Day celebration. 

• BBC: Bush Re-Elected - Read about the election and examine multimedia clips from the campaigns. Includes quizzes, archived stories, quotes and more. 

• MSNBC: NBA Suspends Artest - Presents the details about NBA Commissioner David Stern's stern penalties for the melee between Indiana's Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Jermaine O'Neal and Detroit Pistons fans in the stands during a game.