The last day of November β Cyber Monday in 2026, St Andrew's Day in Scotland, Independence Day in Barbados and the birthday of Mark Twain.
Next: Monday, November 30, 2026.
Cyber Monday is the Monday after U.S. Thanksgiving. With Thanksgiving on November 26 and Black Friday on November 27 in 2026, Cyber Monday falls on Monday, November 30, 2026. It will not land on November 30 again until 2037; in 2027 Cyber Monday is November 29, and in 2025 it was December 1.
November 30 is the feast of Saint Andrew, the apostle who is Scotland's patron saint. According to tradition he was martyred on an X-shaped cross, the origin of the saltire on Scotland's flag, which flies on Scottish Government buildings on this day. Under the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 it is a bank holiday, though banks, schools and employers are not required to close; when November 30 falls on a weekend, the following Monday is the holiday. Celebrations include ceilidhs, Scottish music and traditional food.
Barbados became independent from the United Kingdom on November 30, 1966, under its first prime minister, Errol Barrow. Exactly 55 years later, on November 30, 2021, the country became a parliamentary republic, replacing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state with its first president, Sandra Mason. The date is a national holiday.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri, shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet. In 1909 he predicted he would "go out with it," and he died on April 21, 1910, one day after the returning comet's closest approach to the Sun. His pen name came from his years as a Mississippi riverboat pilot: "mark twain" was the leadsman's call for a depth of two fathoms (12 feet), safe water for a steamboat. His books include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Scotland and England played the first official international association football match at Hamilton Crescent, the West of Scotland Cricket Club's ground in Partick, Glasgow, on St Andrew's Day. The game ended in a 0β0 draw in front of a crowd of about 4,000.
Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. He served twice as British prime minister, leading the country through the Second World War from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, and he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. The Canadian author L. M. Montgomery, creator of Anne of Green Gables, was born on the same day.
Irish writer Oscar Wilde died in Paris at age 46. Celebrated for The Picture of Dorian Gray and comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest, he had been convicted of "gross indecency" in 1895 and served two years' hard labor. He spent his last years in exile in France in poor health and reduced circumstances, and he is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.