TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Thursday, November 19, the 324th day of 2020. There are 42 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1863 — United States president Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address, calling for ‘‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’’.
1872 — The Auckland Post Office is destroyed by fire.
1893 — The first newspaper colour supplement is published in the Sunday paper
New York World.
1917 — Six people lose their lives in a fire at the Silver Grill in Manchester St, Christchurch.
1943 — The Nazis liquidate the Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg, in western Ukraine, murdering at least 6000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.
1947 — Prince Philip of Greece is given the title of Duke of Edinburgh on the eve of his wedding to Princess Elizabeth.
1952 — The Otago Daily Times becomes the first New Zealand metropolitan morning newspaper to publish news on the front page.
1954 — Tele Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by
Prince Rainier III.
1969 — The US Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the moon, carrying astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean; Brazillian footballer Pele scores his 1000th goal while playing for Santos FC in a match against Vasco da Gama at the Maracana Stadium in front of 80,000 fans. The goal was popularly dubbed O Milesimo (the thousandth), and resulted from a penalty kick.
1978 — Guyanese troops raid the jungle camp of the People’s Temple sect and find the bodies of more than 900 massmurder or masssuicide victims.
1984 — A series of explosions at the Pemex petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City starts a major fire and kills an estimated 500 people.
1990 — Nepal adopts a new constitution, creating a democratic government five months after a popular revolt reduces the allpowerful king to a constitutional monarch; leaders of Nato and the Warsaw Pact declare the end of the Cold War when they sign the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe.
1993 — A UN convoy delivers food to a mental hospital in Sarajevo, where patients suffering frostbite and tuberculosis huddle around wood stoves and sleep in freezing wards.
1996 — Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II meet in a historic first encounter in Rome. The pontiff accepts Castro’s invitation to visit the communist island.
1998 — The impeachment inquiry against US president Bill Clinton opens with testimony by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who accuses the president of perjury and obstructing justice; Vincent van Gogh's Portrait
of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million.
1999 — The rising level of Lake Wakatipu causes flooding of the lower margins of Glenorchy. Record rainfall in the area causes a massive landslip that makes a 200m stretch of the Glenorchy road impassable, and floods many central Queenstown businesses.
2002 — The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing more than 20 million gallons
(76 million litres) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
2004 — Near the end of an NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and defending champion Detroit Pistons at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, an allin brawl erupts between players and fans alike. The confrontation becomes known as the ‘‘Malice at the Palace’’. The NBA suspended nine players for a total of 146 games, leading to the players losing $US11 million in salary. Five players were charged with assault, and sentenced to a year of probation and community service. Five fans faced criminal charges and were banned from attending Pistons home games for life. The fight also led the NBA to increase security between players and fans and limit the sale of alcohol. The Pacers eventually won the match 9782.
2005 — Prince Albert of Monaco’s enthronement is completed, following the death of his father, Prince Rainier, in April.
2010 — An explosion in the Pike River Coal Mine, near Greymouth, leads to the deaths of 29 miners. Initial hopes of rescue turn to despair when a series of explosions and a fire in the days that follow remove all hope of a successful rescue.