Events
November
19
461
– Libius Severus is declared emperor of
the Western Roman Empire. The real power
is in the hands of the magister militum
Ricimer.
1095 – The Council of Clermont, called
by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the
First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.
1493 – Christopher Columbus goes ashore
on an island he first saw the day before.
He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed
Puerto Rico).
1794 – The United States and the Kingdom
of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which
attempts to resolve some of the lingering
problems left over from the American Revolutionary
War.
1816 – Warsaw University is established.
1847 – The second Canadian railway line,
the Montreal and Lachine Railway, is opened.
1863 – American Civil War: U.S. President
Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg
Address at the dedication of the military
cemetery ceremony at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
1881 – A meteorite lands near the village
of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa,
Ukraine.
1885 – Serbo-Bulgarian War: Bulgarian
victory in the Battle of Slivnitsa solidifies
the unification between the Kingdom of
Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.
1911 – The Doom Bar in Cornwall claimed
two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the
latter killing the entire crew except
the captain.
1912 – First Balkan War: The Serbian Army
captures Bitola, ending the five-century-long
Ottoman rule of Macedonia.
1916 – Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn
establish Goldwyn Pictures.
1941 – World War II: Battle between HMAS
Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships
sink each other off the coast of Western
Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians
and about 77 German seamen.
1942 – World War II: Battle of Stalingrad
– Soviet Union forces under General Georgy
Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks
at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the
battle in the USSR's favor.
1942 – Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and
last Kabaka (king) of Buganda.
1943 – Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska
concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv),
western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000
Jews after a failed uprising and mass
escape attempt.
1944 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin
D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan
Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion
in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
1944 – World War II: Thirty members of
the Luxembourgish resistance defend the
town of Vianden against a larger Waffen-SS
attack in the Battle of Vianden.
1946 – Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden
join the United Nations.
1947 – George VI of the United Kingdom
creates Philip Mountbatten the Duke of
Edinburgh in preparation for his wedding
to George's elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth,
the next day.
1950 – US General Dwight D. Eisenhower
becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe
1952 – Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos
becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.
1954 – Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest
private television channel, is launched
by Prince Rainier III.
1955 – National Review publishes its first
issue.
1959 – The Ford Motor Company announces
the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
1967 – The establishment of TVB, the first
wireless commercial television station
in Hong Kong.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts
Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus
Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms")
and become the third and fourth humans
to walk on the Moon.
1969 – Association football player Pelé
scores his 1,000th goal.
1977 – TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashes
in the Madeira Islands, killing 130.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the
release of 13 female and black American
hostages being held at the US Embassy
in Tehran.
1984 – San Juanico Disaster: A series
of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage
facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico
City starts a major fire and kills about
500 people.
1985 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader
Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1985 – Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion
judgment against Texaco, in the largest
civil verdict in the history of the United
States, stemming from Texaco executing
a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil
had entered into an unsigned, yet still
binding, buyout contract with Getty.
1985 – Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay
siege to houses occupied by an Islamic
sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim
Mahmud.
1988 – Serbian communist representative
and future Serbian and Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic publicly declares that
Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists
in Kosovo as well as internal treachery
within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy
to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.
1990 – Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped
of their Grammy Award because the duo
did not sing at all on the Girl You Know
It's True album. Session musicians had
provided all the vocals.
1994 – In the United Kingdom, the first
National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket
gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly
guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.
1996 – Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada
arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national
policing force in Zaire.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: The United States
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
begins impeachment hearings against U.S.
President Bill Clinton.
1998 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of
the Artist Without Beard sells at auction
for US$71.5 million.
1999 – Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic
of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
2002 – The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits
in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia,
releasing over 20 million US gallons (76,000
m³) of oil in the largest environmental
disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
2010 – The first of four explosions takes
place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand;
29 people are killed in the nation's worst
mining disaster since 1914.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Obadiah (Eastern Catholic Church)
Raphael Kalinowski
Severinus, Exuperius, and Felician
November 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Missile Forces and Artillery (Russia,
Belorussia)
Discovery of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico)
Flag Day (Brazil)
International Men's Day (Australia, Canada,
Ghana, Hungary, India, Ireland, Jamaica,
Malta, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad
and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States)
Liberation Day (Mali)
International Journalist's remembrance
Day
International gun owner day (19/11)
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