Today’s highlight in history
On Nov. 13, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.
On this date In 1789,
Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
In 1956,
the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.
In 1969,
speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew accused network TV news departments of bias and distortion, and urged viewers to lodge complaints.
In 1974,
Karen Silkwood, a 28-yearold technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., 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 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.
Ten years ago:
A wind-driven fire erupted in Southern California, destroying more than 200 homes in Santa Barbara and Montecito.
Five years ago:
The Obama administration revealed that just 26,794 people had enrolled for health insurance during the first month of operations for the federal “Obamacare” website.
One year ago:
A second woman accused Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexually assaulting her as a teen in the late 1970s; he called the charge “absolutely false.” (Moore lost the special election to Democrat Doug Jones.)