Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
On this date:
In 1600, King Charles I of England was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.
In 1850, Alfred Tennyson was invested as Britain’s poet laureate.
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 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon.
In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel.
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 1996, 14 people were killed when a commuter plane collided with a private plane at an airport in Quincy, Illinois. The United States vetoed U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s bid for a second term.
In 1997, Iowa seamstress Bobbi McCaughey (mihk-KOY’) gave birth to the world’s first set of surviving septuplets, four boys and three girls.
In 2017, Charles Manson, the hippie cult leader behind the gruesome murders of actor 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, attending a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, won an agreement to build a missile shield over Europe, a victory that risked further aggravating Russia. Twenty-nine miners were killed by a methane explosion in a southern New Zealand coal mine.
Five years ago: A study by the Pew Research Center found that more Mexicans were leaving than moving into the United States, reversing the flow of a half-century of mass migration. Marcus Ray Johnson, convicted of killing Angela Sizemore, a woman he’d met at a Georgia nightclub, was put to death after losing a last-minute round of appeals. Bryce Harper, 23, became the youngest unanimous MVP winner in baseball history, capturing the NL award despite his Washington Nationals missing the playoffs; Josh Donaldson took the AL MVP, earning the honor after helping boost the Toronto Blue Jays back into the postseason for the first time since 1993.
One year ago: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a career Army officer on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, testified about what he said was a clearly “improper” phone call in which Trump sought Ukrainian investigations of U.S. Democrats; Republicans responded by questioning Vindman’s loyalty to the United States. Two jail guards who were supposed to be monitoring Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself were indicted on charges of falsifying prison records; prosecutors said the guards had been sleeping and browsing the internet instead of watching Epstein. (The guards are awaiting trial.) GateHouse completed its $1.1 billion takeover of Gannett, the publisher of USA Today. The Taliban freed American Kevin King and an Australian man, Timothy Weeks, who’d been held hostage since 2016, in exchange for three top Taliban figures.
Today’s Birthdays: Talk show host Larry King is 87. Talk show host Dick Cavett is 84. Broadcasting and sports mogul Ted Turner is 82. Former Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is 81. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson is 79. Fashion designer Calvin Klein is 78. Sportscaster Ahmad Rashad is 71. Actor Robert Beltran is 67. Actor Kathleen Quinlan is 66. Actor Glynnis O’Connor is 65. Broadcast journalist Ann Curry is 64. Former NASA astronaut Eileen Collins is 64. Actor Allison Janney is 61. Rock musician Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver) is 60. Actor Meg Ryan is 59. Actor-director Jodie Foster is 58. Actor Terry Farrell is 57. TV chef Rocco DiSpirito is 54. Actor Jason Scott Lee is 54. Olympic gold medal runner Gail Devers is 54. Actor Erika Alexander is 51. Rock musician Travis McNabb is 51. Singer Tony Rich is 49. Actor Sandrine Holt is 48.
Country singer Billy Currington is 47. Dancer-choreographer Savion Glover is 47. Rhythm-and-blues singer Tamika Scott (Xscape) is 45. Rhythm-and-blues singer Lil’ Mo is 43. Olympic gold medal gymnast Kerri Strug is 43. Actor Reid Scott is 43. Movie director Barry Jenkins (Film: “Moonlight”) is 41. Actor Katherine Kelly is 41. Actor Adam Driver is 37. Country singer Cam is 36. Actor Samantha Futerman is 33. NHL forward Patrick Kane is 32. Rapper Tyga is 31.
