Today in History

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2)sets sail on her final voyage, bound for Dubai.

Queen Elizabeth II unveils New Zealand War Memorial in London.

Palestine Liberation organization confirms the death of its longtime chairman Yasser Arafat; cause of death has never been conclusively determined.

Journalists Pierre Billaud (France), Johanne Sutton (France) and Voker Handloik (Germany) killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy in which they were traveling.

House of Lords Act reforming Britain’s House of Lords, given Royal Assent; the act removed the right to hereditary seats (sitting members were permitted to remain).

Sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

An unidentified buyer buys Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Irises” from the estate of Joan Whitney Payson for $53.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York.

Bettina Goislard, first United Nations worker to be killed in Afghanistan (Nov. 16, 2003) since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001; she was a French employee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Soviet Union is kicked out of World Cup soccer for refusing to play Chile.

U.S. Army Special Forces raid the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam but find no prisoners.

The United States launches Gemini 12, a two-man orbiter, into orbit.

Demi Moore, actress (Ghost, A Few Good Men); in 1996 became highest-paid actress in film history when she received $12.5 million to star in Striptease.

The polio virus is identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua (2007– ).

Private Eddie Slovik is convicted of desertion and sentenced to death for refusing to join his unit in the European Theater of Operations.

Britain’s Royal Navy attacks the Italian fleet at Taranto.

Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” is performed for the first time by singer Kate Smith.

Albert Anderson and Orvil Anderson set a new altitude record in South Dakota, when they float to 74,000 feet in a balloon.

The first of the great dust storms of the 1930s hits North Dakota.

Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist and essayist.

Jonathan Winters, comedian.

Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist (Slaughterhouse Five).

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is dedicated.

The first two-minutes’ silence is observed in Britain to commemorate those who died in the Great War.

The German leaders sign the armistice ending World War I.

Construction begins on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Rene Clair, French film director.

Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union.

George S. Patton, U.S. Army commander in World War II.

Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist and political revolutionary (The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment).

Indians, led by William Butler, massacre the inhabitants of Cherry Valley, N.Y.

Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is executed.

Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.