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Explore 19 November

Explore 19 November: Lincoln speaks at Gettysburg, the Red Army traps the Germans at Stalingrad, Sadat flies to Israel and Reagan meets Gorbachev. Meet Indira Gandhi, Ferdinand de Lesseps and James Garfield, born on this date.

This day through time →10 verified events across 4 eras

⌛10Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☉2Observances
A crowd of citizens and soldiers with Lincoln at Gettysburg, from the Mathew Brady collection.
A crowd of citizens and soldiers with Lincoln at Gettysburg, from the Mathew Brady collection.
Image creditMathew Benjamin Brady · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1863

Lincoln gives the Gettysburg Address

Four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg, a cemetery for the Union dead was dedicated on the battlefield in Pennsylvania on 19 November 1863. The main speaker, the orator Edward Everett, spoke for two hours. President Abraham Lincoln had been asked only for ‘a few appropriate remarks’.

Lincoln spoke for about two minutes. In ten sentences he honoured the soldiers who had died and called on the living to ensure ‘a new birth of freedom’ and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It became one of the most famous speeches in the English language.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress: The Gettysburg Address, exhibition items ↗
A map of Operation Uranus, the Soviet encirclement at Stalingrad, 19-30 November 1942.
A map of Operation Uranus, the Soviet encirclement at Stalingrad, 19-30 November 1942.
Image creditLưu Ly · CC BY 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
1942

The Red Army strikes back at Stalingrad

For three months the German Sixth Army had fought its way into Stalingrad on the Volga. On 19 November 1942 the Soviet Union launched Operation Uranus, planned by Georgy Zhukov, Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Nikolay Voronov: two great thrusts north and south of the city aimed at the weaker Axis troops guarding the German flanks.

The Germans were taken completely by surprise. Within four days the pincers met and the Sixth Army was encircled. The Sixth Army surrendered at the end of January 1943, and Stalingrad became the turning point of the war in the east.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Operation Uranus ↗
Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt.
Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt.
Image creditGovernment · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1977

Sadat flies to Israel

On the evening of 19 November 1977 President Anwar Sadat of Egypt landed at Ben Gurion Airport, the first Arab head of state to visit Israel since its founding in 1948. He was welcomed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, President Ephraim Katzir and the former prime minister Golda Meir.

The next day, in Arabic, Sadat addressed the Knesset in Jerusalem, calling for peace, Israel’s withdrawal from the land it had occupied in 1967 and a homeland for the Palestinians. His journey led to the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of March 1979.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Arab-Israeli dispute ↗
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev by the fireside in Geneva, 19 November 1985.
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev by the fireside in Geneva, 19 November 1985.
Image creditPresident (1981-1989 : Reagan). White House Photographic Office. 1981-1989 · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1985

Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Geneva

President Ronald Reagan and the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time in Geneva on 19 November 1985. Over three days they talked privately, sometimes by a fireside, about the mistrust of the past, nuclear weapons, human rights and Afghanistan.

No arms treaty was signed, but their joint statement declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The personal trust they built led to further summits and to the treaty of 1987 that abolished a whole class of nuclear missiles.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: Geneva Summit, November 1985 ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Charles I
Image creditWorkshop of Anthony van Dyck · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1600

Charles I

King of England, Scotland and Ireland whose quarrels with Parliament led to civil war and his execution in 1649 (Julian calendar).

Ferdinand de Lesseps
Image creditNadar · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1805

Ferdinand de Lesseps

French diplomat who developed the Suez Canal, opened in 1869.

Indira Gandhi
Image creditAnefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1917

Indira Gandhi

India’s first woman prime minister, who led the country for fifteen years.

Calvin Klein
Image creditDavid Shankbone · CC BY 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1942

Calvin Klein

American fashion designer whose name became a worldwide brand.

Jodie Foster
Image creditClaire Fridkin · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1962

Jodie Foster

American actor and director, winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actress.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Alan Bean climbs down from the lunar module Intrepid, 19 November 1969, photographed by Pete Conrad.
Alan Bean climbs down from the lunar module Intrepid, 19 November 1969, photographed by Pete Conrad.
Image creditNASA Charles Pete Conrad · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1969

Apollo 12 makes a pinpoint landing on the Moon

Four months after the first Moon landing, Apollo 12’s lunar module Intrepid touched down in the Ocean of Storms on 19 November 1969. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean became the third and fourth people to walk on the Moon while Richard Gordon orbited overhead.

Conrad steered Intrepid down within walking distance of Surveyor 3, an unmanned probe that had landed in 1967, proving that crews could land precisely where they chose. On two moonwalks the astronauts set up experiments, collected rocks and brought parts of Surveyor back to Earth for study.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA: 55 years ago, Apollo 12 makes a pinpoint landing on the Moon ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Nicolas Poussin
Image creditNicolas Poussin · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1665

Nicolas Poussin

French painter who spent most of his life in Rome, a master of classical landscape and history painting.

Franz Schubert
Image creditWilhelm August Rieder · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1828

Franz Schubert

Austrian composer of more than 600 songs, symphonies and chamber music, who died at 31.

John Vane
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 2004

John Vane

British pharmacologist who discovered how aspirin works and shared the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Frederick Sanger
Image creditUnknown · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 2013

Frederick Sanger

British biochemist who won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, for sequencing proteins and DNA.

Mike Nichols
Image creditMcManus - ebay · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 2014

Mike Nichols

German-born American director of The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

The World Toilet Day campaign logo.
The World Toilet Day campaign logo.
Image creditUN-Water · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

World Toilet Day

In 2013 the UN General Assembly made 19 November World Toilet Day, to draw attention to the billions of people who lack safe sanitation and to the illness and deaths that follow, especially among young children.

Source: United Nations: World Toilet Day, background ↗
Crowds with flags outside the Prince's Palace on Monaco's National Day, 2010.
Crowds with flags outside the Prince’s Palace on Monaco’s National Day, 2010.
Image creditSantiago Puig Vilado… · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

National Day in Monaco

Since 1952 Monaco has held its National Day, the Fête du Prince, on 19 November, the feast of the Blessed Rainier of Arezzo, patron saint of Prince Rainier III. Prince Albert II kept the date, and the day is marked with a Mass in the cathedral and a parade on the Place du Palais.

Source: Government of Monaco: Fête nationale ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 19 November chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 10 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading