What Happened on November 19th in History
30 historical events on this date
Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the...
US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.
Dwight David Eisenhower, also known as Ike, was the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He led the Allied Expeditionary Force during the Second World War, launching decisive...
Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.
Alexandros Papagos was a Greek military officer who led the Hellenic Army in World War II and in the later stages of the subsequent Greek Civil War. Afterwards, he served as Prime Minister of Greece...
Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.
TMC is a FrancoâMonĂ©gasque entertainment television channel owned by the French media holding company Groupe TF1.
National Review publishes its first issue.
National Review is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by William F. Buckley Jr....
The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
TVB Limited is a Hong Kong television network that began broadcasting on 19 November 1967. It operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese service,...
Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...
Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
Association football, more commonly known as just football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a ball around a pitch.
TAP Air Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.
TAP Flight 425 was a regular scheduled flight from Brussels, Belgium, to Santa Catarina Airport, Portugal, with an intermediate scheduled stop in Lisbon. On 19 November 1977, the Boeing 727...
Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of...
San Juanico disaster: A series of explosions at the Pemex petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City starts a major fire and kills about 500 people.
The San Juanico disaster involved a series of fires and explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in the settlement of San Juan Ixhuatepec, a municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz, State...
Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist...
Pennzoil wins a US$10.53Â billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.
Pennzoil is an American motor oil brand currently owned by Shell plc. The former Pennzoil Company had been established in 1913 in Pennsylvania, being active in business as an independent firm until...
Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.
The Baling District is an administrative district in southeastern Kedah, Malaysia. Located about 110Â km from Alor Setar, it borders Perak and Betong, the southernmost town of Thailand.
Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan MiloĆĄeviÄ publicly declares that Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeast and Central Europe. Located in the Balkans, it is bordered by Hungary in the north, Romania in the northeast, Bulgaria...
A factory fire killed 87 and injured 51 in Shenzhen, China.
On 19 November 1993, a major fire occurred at the Zhili Handicraft Factory (èŽéșć·„èèŁœćć» ) in Kuichong Town, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China. The fire resulted in 87 deaths and 51 injuries, making it...
In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw is held. A ÂŁ1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery established in 1994 in the United Kingdom. It is regulated by the Gambling Commission, and is operated by Allwyn Entertainment, who took...
Space Shuttle program: Columbia is launched on STS-80, which would become the longest mission in the program at 17 days. On this mission, astronaut Story Musgrave becomes the only astronaut to fly on all five space shuttles.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for...
A Beechcraft 1900 and a Beechcraft King Air collide at Quincy Regional Airport in Quincy, Illinois, killing 14.
The Beechcraft 1900 is an American twin-engine turboprop regional airliner manufactured by Beechcraft. It is also used as a freight aircraft and corporate transport, and by several governmental and...
Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-87.
STS-87 was a Space Shuttle mission launched from Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center on 19 November 1997. It was the 88th flight of the Space Shuttle and the 24th flight of Columbia. The...
ClintonâLewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings into U.S. President Bill Clinton.
A sex scandal involving Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, erupted in 1998. Their sexual relationship began in 1995âwhen Clinton was 49...
Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
Shenzhou 1 was the first uncrewed test flight of the Shenzhou spacecraft and the Long March 2F rocket, launched on 19 November 1999. The spacecraft lacked a life-support system but included an...
John Carpenter becomes the first person to win the top prize in the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
John Carpenter is an American game show contestant and Internal Revenue Service agent. He is the fifteenth highest-earning American game show contestant of all time. Carpenter is best known for...
The Aviation and Transportation Security Act is enacted by the 107th United States Congress in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Act created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The Aviation and Transportation Security Act was enacted by the 107th United States Congress in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Act created the Transportation Security...
The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing over 76,000 m3 (20 million US gal) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude...
The worst brawl in NBA history results in several players being suspended. Several players and fans are charged with assault and battery.
The "Malice at the Palace" was a fight involving players and fans during a National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the Indiana Pacers and the defending champion Detroit Pistons on...
The first of four explosions takes place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand. Twenty-nine people are killed in the nation's worst mining disaster since 1914.
The Pike River Mine disaster was a coal mining accident that began on 19 November 2010 in the Pike River Mine, 46Â km (29Â mi) northeast of Greymouth, in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South...
A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others.
The 2013 Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut was a double suicide bombing in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on 19 November 2013. The two bombings resulted in 23 deaths and injured at...
A gunman kills five and injures 17 at Club Q, a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
On November 19â20, 2022, an anti-LGBTQâmotivated mass shooting occurred at Club Q, a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States. Five people were killed, and 25 others were injured, 19 of...
The 2023 Cricket World Cup final takes place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India, played between host nation India and Australia.
The 2023 Cricket World Cup Final was a One Day International cricket match played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, on 19 November 2023 to determine the winner of the 2023 Cricket World...