TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, Nov. 18, the 322nd day of 2021. There are 43 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY
On Nov. 18, 1991, Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland, the American dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut.
1883 — The United States and Canada adopted a system of Standard Time zones.
1963 — The Bell System introduced the first commercial touch-tone telephone system in Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
1966 — US Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays outside of Lent.
1976 — Spain’s parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
1978 — US Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-California, and four others were killed in Jonestown, Guyana, by members of the Peoples Temple; the killings were followed by a night of mass murder and suicide by more than 900 cult members.
1987 — The congressional Iran-Contra committees issued their final report, saying President Ronald Reagan bore “ultimate responsibility” for wrongdoing by his aides. A fire at London King’s Cross railway station claimed 31 lives.
2003 — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-to-3 that the state constitution guaranteed gay couples the right to marry.
2005 — Eight months after Robert Blake was acquitted at a criminal trial of murdering his wife, a civil jury decided the actor was behind the slaying and ordered him to pay Bonny Lee Bakley’s children $30 million.
2009 — Two days before turning 92, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-West Virginia, set a record for longest-serving lawmaker in congressional history at 56 years, 320 days. (That record was broken in 2013 by US Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan.)
Five years ago — President-elect Donald Trump signaled a sharp policy shift to the right by picking Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA and Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.
One year ago — President Donald Trump filed for a recount of Wisconsin’s two largest Democratic counties, paying the required $3 million cost and alleging that they were the sites of the “worst irregularities” although no evidence of illegal activity had been presented.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Actor Brenda Vaccaro is 82. Author-poet Margaret Atwood is 82. Actor Linda Evans is 79. Actor Susan Sullivan is 79. Country singer Jacky Ward is 75. Actor Jameson Parker is 74. Actor-singer Andrea Marcovicci is 73. Rock musician Herman Rarebell is 72. Singer Graham Parker is 71. Actor Delroy Lindo is 69. Comedian Kevin Nealon is 68. Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon is 65. Actor Oscar Nunez is 63. Actor Elizabeth Perkins is 61. Singer Kim Wilde is 61. Actor Tim Guinee is 59. Rock musician Kirk Hammett (Metallica) is 59.
— The Associated Press