Years Ago

Today is Friday, Nov. 13, the 317th day of 2009. There are 48 days left in the year. On this date in1909, 259 men and boys are killed when fire erupts inside a coal mine in Cherry, Ill. (Nearly as many miners survive the disaster).

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin writes in a letter to a friend, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In 1927, the Holland Tunnel opens to the public, providing access between lower Manhattan and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18. In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down laws calling for racial segregation on public city and state buses. In 1969, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew accuses network TV news departments of bias and distortion, and urges viewers to lodge complaints. In 1971, the U.S. space probe Mariner 9 goes into orbit around Mars. In 1974, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., dies in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter. In 1979, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan announces in New York his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated on the National Mall in Washington. In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city.