Events on November 19 45
Year 461
Libius Severus is declared emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The real power is in the hands of the magister militum Ricimer.
Year 636
The Rashidun Caliphate defeated the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in Iraq.
Year 1493
Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).
Year 1794
The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.
Year 1863
American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Year 1881
A meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
Year 1885
Serbo-Bulgarian War: Bulgarian victory in the Battle of Slivnitsa solidifies the unification between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.
Year 1911
The Doom Bar in Cornwall claimed two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew except the captain.
Year 1912
First Balkan War: The Serbian Army captures Bitola, ending the five-century-long Ottoman rule of Macedonia.
Year 1941
World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.
Year 1942
World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
Year 1942
Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993.
Year 1943
Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.
Year 1944
World War II: U.S. 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.
Year 1944
World War II: Thirty members of the Luxembourgish resistance defend the town of Vianden against a larger Waffen-SS attack in the Battle of Vianden.
Year 1952
Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.
Year 1954
Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.
Year 1967
The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
Year 1969
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.
Year 1979
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.
Year 1984
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.
Year 1985
Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
Year 1985
Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 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.
Year 1985
Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.
Year 1988
Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević 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.
Year 1994
In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.
Year 1996
Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire.
Year 1998
Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Year 1998
Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million.
Year 1999
Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
Year 2002
The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing over 20 million US gallons (76,000 m³) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
Year 2004
The Malice at the Palace: The worst brawl in NBA history, Ron Artest suspended 86 games (rest of season), Stephen Jackson suspended 30 games
Year 2010
The first of four explosions takes place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand; 29 people are killed in the nation's worst mining disaster since 1914.
Year 2013
A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others.
Year 2016
Pope Francis created 17 new members of the College of Cardinals at a consistory in Vatican City.