November 19
Events
Pre-1600
- 461 - Libius Severus is declared emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The real power is in the hands of the magister militum Ricimer.
- 636 - The Rashidun Caliphate defeats the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in Iraq.
1601–1900
- 1646 - The current Saint Peter's Basilica is consecrated in Rome, replacing an earlier basilica on the same site.
- 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.
- 1802 - The Garinagu arrive at British Honduras.
- 1808 - Finnish War: The Convention of Olkijoki in Raahe ends hostilities in Finland.
- 1816 - Warsaw University is established.
- 1847 - The second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railroad, is opened.
- 1863 - American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
- 1881 - A meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odesa, Ukraine.
- 1885 - Serbo-Bulgarian War: Bulgarian victory in the Battle of Slivnitsa solidifies the unification between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.
1901–present
- 1911 - The Doom Bar in Cornwall claims two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew except the captain.
- 1912 - First Balkan War: The Serbian Army captures Bitola, ending the five-century-long Ottoman rule of Macedonia.
- 1916 - Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1942 - Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993.
- 1943 - The Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.
- 1944 - World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the sixth War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
- 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.
- 1944 - The founding congress of the Communist Party of Transcarpathian Ukraine is held in Mukachevo.
- 1946 - Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
- 1950 - US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.
- 1952 - Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.
- 1954 - Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.
- 1955 - National Review publishes its first issue.
- 1967 - The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
- 1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
- 1969 - Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
- 1977 - TAP Air Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1985 - Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
- 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.
- 1985 - Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.
- 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.
- 1993 - A factory fire killed 87 and injured 51 in Shenzhen, China.
- 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.
- 1996 - 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.
- 1996 - A Beechcraft 1900 and a Beechcraft King Air collide at Quincy Regional Airport in Quincy, Illinois, killing 14.
- 1997 - Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-87.
- 1998 - Clinton–Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings into U.S. President Bill Clinton.
- 1999 - Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
- 1999 - John Carpenter becomes the first person to win the top prize in the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
- 2001 - 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.
- 2002 - The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing over of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
- 2004 - The worst brawl in NBA history results in several players being suspended. Several players and fans are charged with assault and battery.
- 2010 - 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.
- 2013 - A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others.
- 2022 - A gunman kills five and injures 17 at Club Q, a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- 2023 - The 2023 Cricket World Cup final takes place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India, played between host nation India and Australia.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1417 - Frederick I, Count Palatine of Simmern
- 1464 - Emperor Go-Kashiwabara of Japan
- 1503 - Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Parma
- 1563 - Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, English poet and politician
- 1600 - Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland
- 1600 - Lieuwe van Aitzema, Dutch historian and diplomat
1601–1900
- 1617 - Eustache Le Sueur, French painter and educator
- 1700 - Jean-Antoine Nollet, French priest and physicist
- 1711 - Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian physicist, chemist, astronomer, and geographer
- 1722 - Leopold Auenbrugger, Austrian physician
- 1722 - Benjamin Chew, American lawyer and judge
- 1752 - George Rogers Clark, American general
- 1765 - Filippo Castagna, Maltese politician
- 1770 - Bertel Thorvaldsen, Danish sculptor and academic
- 1802 - Solomon Foot, American lawyer and politician
- 1805 - Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and engineer, developed the Suez Canal
- 1808 - Janez Bleiweis, Slovenian journalist, physician, and politician
- 1812 - Karl Schwarz, German theologian and politician
- 1828 - Rani Lakshmibai, Indian queen
- 1831 - James A. Garfield, American general, lawyer, and politician, 20th President of the United States
- 1833 - Wilhelm Dilthey, German psychologist, sociologist, and historian
- 1834 - Georg Hermann Quincke, German physicist and academic
- 1843 - Richard Avenarius, German-Swiss philosopher and academic
- 1843 - C. X. Larrabee, American businessman
- 1845 - Agnes Giberne, Indian-English astronomer and author
- 1858 - Gina Oselio, Norwegian opera singer.
- 1859 - Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Russian composer, conductor, and educator
- 1862 - Billy Sunday, American baseball player and evangelist
- 1873 - Elizabeth McCombs, the first woman elected to the Parliament of New Zealand
- 1875 - Mikhail Kalinin, Russian civil servant and politician, 1st Head of State of The Soviet Union
- 1876 - Tatyana Afanasyeva, Russian-Dutch mathematician and theorist
- 1877 - Giuseppe Volpi, Italian businessman and politician, founded the Venice Film Festival
- 1883 - Ned Sparks, Canadian-American actor and singer
- 1887 - James B. Sumner, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1888 - José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban-American chess player and theologian
- 1889 - Clifton Webb, American actor, singer, and dancer
- 1892 - Thomas Clay, English footballer and coach
- 1892 - Huw T. Edwards, Welsh poet and politician
- 1893 - René Voisin, French trumpet player
- 1894 - Américo Tomás, Portuguese admiral and politician, 14th President of Portugal
- 1895 - Louise Dahl-Wolfe, American photographer
- 1895 - Evert van Linge, Dutch footballer and architect
- 1897 - Quentin Roosevelt, American lieutenant and pilot
- 1898 - Klement Jug, Slovenian philosopher and mountaineer
- 1898 - Arthur R. von Hippel, German-American physicist and academic
- 1899 - Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Iranian religious leader and scholar
- 1899 - Allen Tate, American poet and critic
- 1900 - Bunny Ahearne, Irish-English ice hockey player and manager
- 1900 - Mikhail Lavrentyev, Russian mathematician and hydrodynamicist
- 1900 - Anna Seghers, German author and politician