November 19

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November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 42 days remaining.

Events

461 - St. Hilarius becomes Pope.
1493 - Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to go ashore on an island he only saw for the first time the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).
1794 - The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.
1863 - American Civil War: Union President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
1916 - Samuel Goldfish (later renamed Samuel Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Company (the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers).
1924 - In Los Angeles, California, famous silent film director Thomas Ince ("The Father of the Western") dies of a heart attack in his bed (rumors soon surface that he was shot dead by publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst).
1941 - World War II: The Australian war cruiser HMAS Sydney sinks off the coast of Western Australia, killing 645 sailors.
1942 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgi Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
1944 - World War II: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
1946 - Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
1959 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
1967 - Vietnam War: Chaplain Charles Watters is posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery exhibited rescuing wounded men in the Battle of Dak To. Father Watters was killed at the battle in a friendly fire incident when a 500-pound bomb was dropped on American paratroopers near the triage area he was working at.
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he meets with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement (much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit).
1984 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.
1985 - Cold War: In Geneva, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1985 - Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion verdict from Texaco in the largest civil verdict in US history (Texaco established a singed contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty).
1997 - In Carlisle, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive.
1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United State House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against US President Bill Clinton.
1998 - Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of the Artist Without Beard" sells at auction for US$71.5 million.
1999 - In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.