27 Aban 1374

Events

• 1918 (108 years ago) Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
• 1949 (77 years ago) The Iva Valley Shooting occurs after the coal miners of Enugu in Nigeria go on strike over withheld wages; 21 miners are shot dead and 51 are wounded by police under the supervision of the British colonial administration of Nigeria.
• 1970 (56 years ago) U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for $155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government.
• 1971 (55 years ago) Oman declares its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1991 (35 years ago) After an 87-day siege, the Croatian city of Vukovar capitulates to the besieging Yugoslav People's Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces.
• 1991 (35 years ago) The autonomous Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia, which would in 1993 become a republic, was established in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• 1993 (33 years ago) In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule.
• 2002 (24 years ago) Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.

Births

• 1647 (379 years ago) Pierre Bayle, French philosopher and author (died 1706)
• 1786 (240 years ago) Carl Maria von Weber, German composer and conductor (probable; died 1826)
• 1787 (239 years ago) Louis Daguerre, French artist, photographer and inventor (died 1851)
• 1897 (129 years ago) Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1974)
• 1923 (103 years ago) Alan Shepard, American astronaut (died 1998)
• 1939 (87 years ago) Margaret Atwood, Canadian author
• 1945 (81 years ago) Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, 6th President of Sri Lanka
• 1968 (58 years ago) Owen Wilson, American actor

Deaths

• 1886 (140 years ago) Chester A. Arthur, American general, lawyer, and politician, 21st President of the United States (born 1829)
• 1922 (104 years ago) Marcel Proust, French author and critic (born 1871)
• 1941 (85 years ago) Walther Nernst, German chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1864)
• 1952 (74 years ago) Paul Éluard, French poet and author (born 1895)
• 1962 (64 years ago) Niels Bohr, Danish footballer, physicist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1885)
• 1965 (61 years ago) Henry A. Wallace, American agronomist and bureaucrat, 33rd Vice President of the United States, 11th US Secretary of Agriculture (born 1888)
• 1976 (50 years ago) Man Ray, American-French photographer and painter (born 1890)
• 2002 (24 years ago) James Coburn, American actor (born 1928)

All 370 events, births and deaths of November 18