Austrian and German forces driving the Italian army to retreat 150 kilometres south to the Piave river. The Italians lose 13,000 killed, 30,000 wounded, around 270,000 taken prisoner (mostly willingly) and 50,000 deserted; the government of Paolo Boselli collapses on November 29. November 20 WWI: Battle of Cambrai – British forces, using tanks, make early progress in an attack on German positions, but are soon beaten back. The Ukraine is declared a republic. November 22 – In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the National Hockey Association suspends operations. November 23 – The Bolsheviks release the full text of the previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 in Izvestia and Pravda; it is printed in the Manchester Guardian on November 26. November 24 – A bomb kills 9 members of the Milwaukee Police Department, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history (until the September 11 attacks in 2001). November 25 – WWI: Battle of Ngomano – German forces defeat a Portuguese army of about 1,200 at Negomano, on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania. November 26 – The National Hockey League is formed in Montreal, as a replacement for the recently disbanded National Hockey Association. November 28 – WWI: The Bolsheviks offer peace terms to the Germans. December December – Annie Besant becomes president of the Indian National Congress. December 3 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic (the bridge partially collapsed on August 29, 1907 and September 11, 1916). December 6 The Senate of Finland officially declares the country's independence from Russia. Halifax Explosion: Two freighters collide in Halifax Harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and cause a huge explosion that kills at least 1,963 people, injures 9,000 and destroys part of the city (the biggest man-made explosion in recorded history until the Trinity nuclear test in 1945). WWI: U.S. Navy destroyer is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by German submarine , killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war. December 9 – WWI – Battle of Jerusalem: The British Egyptian Expeditionary Force accepts the surrender of Jerusalem by the mayor, Hussein al-Husayni, following the effective defeat of the Ottoman Empire's Yildirim Army Group. December 11 – WWI: General Edmund Allenby leads units of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force into Jerusalem on foot through, the Jaffa Gate. December 17 – The Raad van Vlaanderen