Today in history
Today is Tuesday, Nov. 19, the 323rd day of 2019. There are 42 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon.
On this date:
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
In 1915, labor activist Joe Hill was executed by firing squad in Utah for the murders of Salt Lake City grocer John Morrison and his son, Arling.
In 1919, the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles (vehr-SY’) by a vote of 55 in favor, 39 against, short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.
In 1942, during World War II, Russian forces launched their winter offensive against the Germans along the Don front.
In 1959, Ford Motor Co. announced it was halting production of the unpopular Edsel.
In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel.
In 1984, some 500 people died in a firestorm set off by a series of explosions at a petroleum storage plant on the edge of Mexico City.
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time as they began their summit in Geneva.
In 1995, Polish President Lech Walesa (vah-WEN’sah) was defeated in his bid for re-election.
In 1997, Iowa seamstress Bobbi McCaughey (mihkKOY’) gave birth to the world’s first set of surviving septuplets, four boys and three girls.
In 2006, British authorities said they were investigating the apparent poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko (leet-vee-NYEHN’-koh), a former KGB agent who had been critical of the Russian government (Litvinenko died in London four days later of polonium poisoning).
In 2017, Charles Manson, the hippie cult leader behind the gruesome murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles in 1969, died in a California hospital at the age of 83 after nearly a half-century in prison.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama wrapped up his weeklong Asia trip in South Korea, where he said the United States had begun talking with allies about fresh punishment against Iran for defying efforts to halt its nuclear weapons pursuits.