November 19 in history — What Happened Today in History

A Beechcraft 1900 and a Beechcraft King Air collide at Quincy Regional Airport in Quincy, Illinois, killing 14.

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.

A factory fire killed 87 and injured 51 in Shenzhen, China.

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.

Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

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.

Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.

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.

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.

TAP Air Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.

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.

Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.

The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.

National Review publishes its first issue.

Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.

Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos becomes the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece.

US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.

Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.

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.

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.

The founding congress of the Communist Party of Transcarpathian Ukraine is held in Mukachevo.

The 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.

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.

Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993.

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.

Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.

First Balkan War: The Serbian Army captures Bitola, ending the five-century-long Ottoman rule of Macedonia.

The Doom Bar in Cornwall claims two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew except the captain.

Cameron Bancroft, Australian cricketer

Roland Baumann, Austrian politician

James Tarkowski, English footballer

Fabien Antunes, French footballer

Marina Marković, Serbian basketball player

Marquise Goodwin, American football player

Josh Lambo, American football and soccer player

John Moore, American ice hockey player

Benedikt Schmid, German footballer

Kenneth Faried, American basketball player

John McCarthy, Australian footballer (died 2012)

Roman Sergeevich Trofimov, Russian ski jumper

Tyga, American rapper

Korrie Layun Rampan, Indonesian author, poet, and critic (born 1953)

Mal Whitfield, American runner and diplomat (born 1924)

Roy Bhaskar, English philosopher and academic (born 1944)

Jeremiah Coffey, Irish-Australian bishop (born 1933)

Pete Harman, American businessman (born 1919)

Richard A. Jensen, American theologian, author, and academic (born 1934)

Gholam Hossein Mazloumi, Iranian footballer and manager (born 1950)

Mike Nichols, German-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1931)

Babe Birrer, American baseball player (born 1928)

Dora Dougherty Strother, American pilot and academic (born 1921)

Ray Gosling, English journalist, author, and activist (born 1939)

Frederick Sanger, English biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918)

Charlotte Zolotow, American author and poet (born 1915)