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Ficus aurea is a tree in the family Moraceae that is native to Florida, the northern and western Caribbean, southern Mexico and Central America south to Panama. The specific epithet aurea was coined by English botanist Thomas Nuttall who described the species in 1846; older names applied to this species have been ruled invalid. Ficus aurea is a strangler fig; seed germination usually takes place in the canopy of a host tree and the seedling lives as an epiphyte until its roots establish contact with the ground. It then enlarges and strangles its host, eventually becoming a freestanding tree in its own right. Individuals may reach 30 m (100 ft) in height. Like all figs, it has an obligate mutualism with fig wasps; figs are only pollinated by fig wasps, and fig wasps can only reproduce in fig flowers. The tree provides habitat, food and shelter for a host of tropical lifeforms including epiphytes in cloud forests and birds, mammals, reptiles and invertebrates. F. aurea is used in traditional medicine, for live fencing, as an ornamental and as a bonsai. (more...)

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• In the United States midterm elections, the Democratic Party retains a majority in the Senate, while the Republican Party wins a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.
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November 3: Independence Day in Panama (1903), Dominica (1978) and the Federated States of Micronesia (1986); Culture Day in Japan

• 1793 – French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe de Gouges (pictured) was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas.
• 1838 – The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper, was founded as the The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.
• 1942 – World War II: The Allies defeated the Axis at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Egypt, turning the tide in the North African Campaign by ending Axis hopes of taking control of the Suez Canal and thus gaining access east to the Middle Eastern oil fields.
• 1957 – The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, carrying Laika the Russian space dog as the first living creature from Earth to enter orbit.
• 1996 – Abdullah Çatlı, a drug trafficker, a contract killer, and a leader of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party, was killed in a car crash near Susurluk, Balıkesir Province, Turkey, sparking the Susurluk scandal which exposed the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime.

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