Almanac for Tuesday, Nov. 13

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.”

1844 The Monongahela River was formally opened for navigation as far as Brownsville, Fayette County; seven dams and 11 locks were in operation.

1923 The first unit traffic-light system was installed as an experiment at all corners intersecting the Boulevard of the Allies in the Downtown area.

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

1956 The U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

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

1999 The University of Pittsburgh Panthers played their last football game at Pitt

Stadium. They defeated Notre Dame, 3727.

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.

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. Some items are from Stefan Lorant’s “Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City” (digital.library.pitt.edu/chronology).

— Compiled by Alyssa Brown Today’s birthdays:Journalist-author Peter Arnett, 84. Actor Jimmy Hawkins, 77. Country singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard, 72. Actor Joe Mantegna, 71. Actress Sheila Frazier, 70. Musician Andrew Ranken (The Pogues), 65. Actress Tracy Scoggins, 65. Actor Chris Noth, 64. Actress-comedian Whoopi Goldberg, 63. Actor Rex Linn, 62. Actress Caroline Goodall, 59. Actor Neil Flynn, 58. Former NFL quarterback and College Football Hall of Famer Vinny Testaverde, 55. Rock musician Walter Kibby (Fishbone), 54. Comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, 51. Actor Steve Zahn, 51. Actor Gerard Butler, 49. Writeractivist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 49. Actor Jordan Bridges, 45. Actress Aisha Hinds, 43. Rock musician Nikolai Fraiture, 40. Former NBA All-Star Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest), 39. Actress Monique Coleman, 38. Actor Rahul Kohli, 33. Actor Devon Bostick, 27.

Thought for today: “If we like a man’s dream, we call him a reformer; if we don’t like his dream, we call him a crank.”