On November 18th...

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1497 Bartolomeu Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope.

1755 Boston was struck by the worst earthquake ever recorded in the Massachusetts Bay area.

1776 Hessians captured Fort Lee, New Jersey.

1787 The first Unitarian minister in the United States was ordained, in Boston.
1787 Painter-inventor Louis Jacques Daguerre was born.

1810 Botanist Asa Gray was born.

1820 Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer discovered Antarctica.

1836 Dramatist William S. Gilbert was born.

1865 Mark Twain published Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

1860 Pianist Ignace Paderewski was born.

1870 Advice columnist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (who wrote under the name Dorothy Dix) was born.

1874 The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was organized in Cleveland.

1883 Standard time was adopted by railroads in the United States and Canada.

1885 Forrest Clare "Phog" Allen, long-time head basketball coach at the University of Kansas, was born.

1886 Chester Alan Arthur, 21st President of the United States, died.

1887 All railroads in the United States synchronized their clocks to the "official time" of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

1889 Oahu Railway began public service in Hawaii.

1894 The first newspaper Sunday color comics section was published by the New York World.

1899 Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy was born.

1901 George Gallup, founder of the Gallup Poll, was born.

1903 The United States and Panama signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, granting the United States exclusive right of way for the Panama Canal.

1905 Prince Carl of Denmark was elected King of Norway; he assumed the name Haakon VII upon his coronation.

1908 Actress Imogene Coca was born.

1922 Author Marcel Proust died.

1923 Astronaut Alan Shepard was born.

1927 Rhythm and blues singer Hank Ballard was born.

1928 Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie debuted in New York City.

1929 The Transatlantic Cable was broken by a large quake in the Atlantic Ocean.

1936 The Spanish government of Francisco Franco was recognized by Germany and Italy.
1936 The main span of the Golden Gate Bridge was joined.

1939 Author Margaret Atwood was born.
1939 Actress Brenda Vaccaro was born.

1942 Actress Linda Evans was born.
1942 Actress Susan Sullivan was born.

1945 Mahinda Rajapakse, President of Sri Lanka, was born.

1947 Construction of Palomar Mountain Observatory was completed.

1951 The news/history program See It Now debuted on television.

1953 Comedian Kevin Nealon was born.

1955 The Bell X-2 rocket plane was taken up for its first powered flight.

1956 Football player Warren Moon was born.

1960 The U.S. Copyright Office issued its 10 millionth registration.

1961 The U.S. Ranger 2 was launched toward the Moon.

1962 Physicist Niels Bohr died.

1965 American politician Henry A. Wallace died.

1966 Catholic bishops in the United States did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

1969 Joseph P. Kennedy, patriarch of the Kennedy family, died.

1970 Russia landed a self-propelled rover on the Moon.

1975 Baseball player David Ortiz was born.

1987 31 people died in a fire at King's Cross, London's busiest subway station.

1991 Former Czechoslovak Communist Party leader Gustav Husak died.

1994 Singer Cab Calloway died.

2002 Actor James Coburn died.

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This page was last updated on April 04, 2018.