TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, NOV. 13, the 317th day of 2019. There are 48 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1956, the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.

In 1974, Karen Silkwood, a 28-year-old technician and union activist at the KerrMcGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city.

In 2000, lawyers for George W. Bush failed to win a court order barring manual recounts of ballots in Florida. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would end the recounting at 5 p.m. Eastern time the next day — prompting an immediate appeal by lawyers for Al Gore.

In 2015, Islamic State militants carried out a set of coordinated attacks in Paris on the national stadium, restaurants and streets, and a crowded concert hall, killing 130 people in the worst attack on French soil since World War II.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Blues singer John Hammond is 77. Country singersongwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard is 73. Actor Joe Mantegna is 72. Actor Chris Noth is 65. Actress-comedian Whoopi Goldberg is 64. Actress Caroline Goodall is 60. Former NFL quarterback and College Football Hall-of-Famer Vinny Testaverde is 56. Rock musician Walter Kibby (Fishbone) is 55. Comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and actor Steve Zahn are 52. Actor Gerard Butler and writer-activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali are 50.