Today is Thursday, November 19, the 323rd day of 2009. There are 42 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1600, King Charles I of England was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

In 1794, the United States and Britain signed Jay's Treaty, which resolved some issues left over from the Revolutionary War.

In 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

In 1919, the US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 55 in favor, 39 against, short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.

In 1941, the Australian warship Sydney engaged the German raider Kormoran in a fierce battle in the Indian Ocean some 300 miles off Australia's west coast. The Sydney sailed off and was never seen again, with all 645 aboard presumed dead.

In 1942, Soviet launched their winter counter-offensive against the Germans along the Don front, to relieve pressure on Stalingrad.

In 1969, Apollo XII astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon.

In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time as they began a summit in Geneva.

Thought for Today

"You simply cannot hang a millionaire in America." — Bourke Cockran, American politician and orator (1854-1923).