HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Tuesday, November 14, the 318th day of 2017. There are 47 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1965 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Ia Drang begins – the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.

1967 – The Congress of Colombia, in commemoration of the 150 years of the death of Policarpa Salavarrieta, declares this day as “Day of the Colombian Woman”.

1967 – American physicist Theodore Maiman is given a patent

for his ruby laser systems, the world’s first laser.

1969 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to the surface of the Moon.

1970 – Soviet Union enters ICAO, making Russian the fourth official language of organisation.

1971 – Enthronement of Pope Shenouda III as Pope of Alexandria.

1973 – In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.

1975 – Spain abandons Western Sahara.

1979 – Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.

1982 – Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.

1984 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.

1990 – After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder–Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.

1991 – American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.

1991 – Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.

2001 – War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.

2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discover 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian object.

2008 – The first G-20 economic summit opens in Washington, D.C. 2010 – Germany’s Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing wins Formula One’s Drivers Championship to become the sport’s youngest champion.

2012 – Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip, as hostilities with Hamas escalate.