November 18
At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. – 1883.
Thirty-one men die on Lake Michigan with the sinking of the Carl D. Bradley during one of the worst storms in the Lake’s history. Four crewmen survived. – 1958.
Peoples Temple founder leads hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American nation of Guyana. Many of the Peoples Temple followers willingly ingest a poison-laced punch while others were forced to do so. The final death toll at Jonestown that day was 909; one-third of those who perished were children. – 1978.
November 19
At the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., during the American Civil War, president Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight to win the Civil War. – 1863.
November 20
Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II. – 1945.
Seventy-eight miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, W. Va.. – 1968.
November 21
The American inventor Thomas A. Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a way to record and play back sound. – 1877.
A Senate committee issues a report charging that U.S. government officials were behind assassination plots against two foreign leaders and were heavily involved in at least three other plots. The shocking revelations suggested that the United States was willing to go to murderous levels in pursuing its Cold War policies. – 1975.
National Security Council staff member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, begin shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of illegal activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to a rebel Nicaraguan group. North was fired November 25, but Hall continued to sneak documents to him by stuffing them in her skirt and boots. The Iran-Contra scandal, as it came to be known, became an embarrassment and a sticky legal problem for the Ronald Reagan administration. – 1986.
Congress approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to take effect January 1 of the following year. – 1993.
November 22
Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard the pirate, is killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia. – 1718.
The district president of the American Federation of Labor and two other white men are shot and killed in Bogalusa, Ala. when they attempt to assist an African-American organizer working to unionize African-American workers at the Great Southern Lumber Co.. – 1919.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. The unusual trajectory of the ricochet of the bullet has been the subject of many conspiracy theories. – 1963.
November 23
History’s first-recorded strike by Egyptians working on public works projects for King Ramses III in the Valley of the Kings. They were protesting having gone 20 days without pay, portions of grain, and put their tools down. Exact date estimated, described as within “the sixth month of the 29th year” of Ramses’ reign in “The Spirit of Ancient Egypt,” by Ana Ruiz. – 1170 B.C.E..
Ronald Reagan, president of the United States, signs off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gives the Central Intelligence Agency the power to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. A budget of $19 million was established for that purpose. NSDD-17 marked the beginning of official U.S. support for the so-called Contras in their struggle against the Sandinistas. – 1981.
November 24
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called natural selection. In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. – 1859.