November 19 Archives - PopHistory.org

NBA players and fans brawl at infamous “Malice at the Palace” game

On November 19, 2004, Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers jumps into the stands to confront a Detroit Pistons fan who throws a drink at him as he rests on the scorers’ table. This ignites what becomes known as “Malice at the Palace,” one of the more infamous moments in sports history.

The game at the Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit—a rematch of the previous season’s Eastern Conference Finals—was expected to be physical.

With roughly 46 seconds left and Indiana ahead, 97-82, Artest fouled Detroit’s Ben Wallace, who shoved Artest, leading players and coaches from both teams to confront each other on the court. To calm himself, Artest lay on the scorers’ table. Then a fan threw a cup of beer, hitting Artest.

Artest ran into the crowd, followed by his teammate, Stephen Jackson, leading to a chaotic scene. Artest and the Pacers’ Jermaine O’Neal swung at two fans who rushed to the court. The remaining 45.9 seconds were never played.

In the locker room, Artest asked Jackson a strange question.

“After we calmed down, [Artest] looked at me like, ‘Jack, you think we going to get in trouble?'” Jackson told Grantland in 2012. “Jamaal Tinsley fell out laughing. I said, ‘Are you serious, bro? Trouble? Ron, we’ll be lucky if we have a freaking job.’

NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Artest for the remainder of the season, 73 games. Jackson (30 games), O’Neal (25) and Anthony Johnson (five) also were suspended. Wallace, whose shove started the brawl, received a six-game suspension. Other players received one-game suspensions for leaving their bench.

Artest, who changed his name to Metta World Peace, played his final game in the NBA in 2017. He befriended the man who threw the cup of beer at him.

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President Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address

Year: 1863

Month Day: November 19

On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier, was the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Over the course of three days, more than 45,000 men were killed, injured, captured or went missing. The battle also proved to be the turning point of the war: General Robert E. Lee’s defeat and retreat from Gettysburg marked the last Confederate invasion of Northern territory and the beginning of the Southern army’s ultimate decline.

Charged by Pennsylvania’s governor, Andrew Curtin, to care for the Gettysburg dead, an attorney named David Wills bought 17 acres of pasture to turn into a cemetery for the more than 7,500 who fell in battle. Wills invited Edward Everett, one of the most famous orators of the day, to deliver a speech at the cemetery’s dedication. Almost as an afterthought, Wills also sent a letter to Lincoln—just two weeks before the ceremony—requesting “a few appropriate remarks” to consecrate the grounds.

At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Everett before Lincoln spoke. Lincoln’s address lasted just two or three minutes. The speech reflected his redefined belief that the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality for all, an idea Lincoln had not championed in the years leading up to the war. This was his stirring conclusion: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Reception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was initially mixed, divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written.

READ MORE: The Gettysburg Address

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Soviets launch counterattack at Stalingrad

Year: 1942

Month Day: November 19

The Soviet Red Army under General Georgy Zhukov launches Operation Uranus, the great Soviet counteroffensive that turned the tide in the Battle of Stalingrad.

On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided by its greatly superior air force, the German army raced across the Russian plains, inflicting terrible casualties on the Red Army and the Soviet population. With the assistance of troops from their Axis allies, the Germans conquered vast territory, and by mid October the great Russian cities of Leningrad and Moscow were under siege. However, the Soviets held on, and the coming of winter forced the German offensive to pause.

For the 1942 summer offensive, Adolf Hitler ordered the Sixth Army, under General Friedrich von Paulus, to take Stalingrad in the south, an industrial center and obstacle to Nazi control of the precious Caucasus oil wells. In August, the German Sixth Army made advances across the Volga River while the German Fourth Air Fleet reduced Stalingrad to burning rubble, killing more than 40,000 civilians. In early September, General Paulus ordered the first offensives into Stalingrad, estimating that it would take his army about 10 days to capture the city. Thus began one of the most horrific battles of World War II and arguably the most important because it was the turning point in the war between Germany and the USSR.

In their attempt to take Stalingrad, the German Sixth Army faced General Vasily Zhukov leading a bitter Red Army employing the ruined city to their advantage, transforming destroyed buildings and rubble into natural defensive fortifications. In a method of fighting the Germans began to call the Rattenkrieg, or “Rat’s War,” the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of territory. The battle saw rapid advances in street-fighting technology, such as a German machine gun that shot around corners and a light Russian plane that glided silently over German positions at night, dropping bombs without warning. However, both sides lacked necessary food, water, or medical supplies, and tens of thousands perished every week.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was determined to liberate the city named after him, and in November he ordered massive reinforcements to the area. On November 19, General Zhukov launched a great Soviet counteroffensive out of the rubble of Stalingrad. German command underestimated the scale of the counterattack, and the Sixth Army was quickly overwhelmed by the offensive, which involved 500,000 Soviet troops, 900 tanks, and 1,400 aircraft. Within three days, the entire German force of more than 200,000 men was encircled.

Italian and Romanian troops at Stalingrad surrendered, but the Germans hung on, receiving limited supplies by air and waiting for reinforcements. Hitler ordered Von Paulus to remain in place and promoted him to field marshal, as no Nazi field marshal had ever surrendered. Starvation and the bitter Russian winter took as many lives as the merciless Soviet troops, and on January 21, 1943, the last of the airports held by the Germans fell to the Soviets, completely cutting off the Germans from supplies. On January 31, Von Paulus surrendered German forces in the southern sector, and on February 2 the remaining German troops surrendered. Only 90,000 German soldiers were still alive, and of these only 5,000 troops would survive the Soviet prisoner-of-war camps and make it back to Germany.

The Battle of Stalingrad turned the tide in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. General Zhukov, who had played such an important role in the victory, later led the Soviet drive on Berlin. On May 1, 1945, he personally accepted the German surrender of Berlin. Von Paulus, meanwhile, agitated against Adolf Hitler among the German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union and in 1946 provided testimony at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. After his release by the Soviets in 1953, he settled in East Germany.

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Soccer legend Pelé scores 1,000th goal

Year: 1969

Month Day: November 19

Brazilian soccer great Pelé scores his 1,000th professional goal in a game, against Vasco da Gama in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium. It was a major milestone in an illustrious career that included three World Cup championships.

Pelé, considered one of the greatest soccer players ever to take the field, was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in Tres Coracos, Brazil, in 1940. He acquired the nickname Pelé during his childhood though the name has no meaning in his native Portuguese. When he was a teenager, he played for a minor league soccer club in Bauru in Sao Paulo state and in 1956 joined the major league Santos Football Club in the city of Sao Paulo, playing inside left forward. Two years later, he led the Brazilian national team to victory in the World Cup. Pelé, who was only 17 years old, scored two goals to defeat Sweden in the final.

Pelé was blessed with speed, balance, control, power, and an uncanny ability to anticipate the movements of his opponents and teammates. Although just five feet eight inches tall, he was a giant on the field, leading Santos to three national club championships, two South American championships, and the world club title in 1963. Under Pelé’s leadership, Brazil won the World Cup in 1958, 1962, and 1970. In 1970, Brazil was granted permanent possession of the World Cup’s Jules Rimet Trophy as a tribute to its dominance. On November 19, 1969, Pelé scored his 1,000th goal on a penalty kick against Vasco da Gama. Eighty thousand adoring fans in Maracana stadium cheered him wildly, even though Santos was the opposing team.

Pelé announced his retirement in 1974 but in 1975 accepted a $7 million contract to play with the New York Cosmos. He led the Cosmos to a league championship in 1977 and did much to promote soccer in the United States. On October 1, 1977, in Giants Stadium, he played his last professional game in a Cosmos match against his old team Santos.

During his long career, Pelé scored 1,282 goals in 1,363 games. In 1978, Pelé was given the International Peace Award and in 1993 he was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Since retiring, he has acted as an international ambassador for his sport and has worked with the United Nations and UNICEF to promote peace and international reconciliation through friendly athletic competition.

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An arrest warrant is issued for Michael Jackson

Year: 2003

Month Day: November 19

Rumors had swirled around Michael Jackson since the first public allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor child were aired amidst a 1993 civil lawsuit that was eventually settled out of court. A decade later, on November 19, 2003, an embattled Jackson prepared to face criminal charges of a similar nature when a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of child molestation. Though he would be acquitted two years later of each criminal count on which he was eventually tried, the erstwhile King of Pop suffered many blows to his already damaged reputation and finances while facing the charges filed on November 19, 2003.

In fact, this day in 2003 was the second bad November 19th in a row for Michael Jackson, who had been caught on camera dangling his infant son from a hotel balcony in Berlin, Germany, exactly one year earlier. And that incident was only the most recent occurrence to have helped transform Jackson’s image from that of a beloved pop idol to that of a tabloid curiosity.

It was in this environment that a British television crew led by reporter Martin Bashir secured Jackson’s cooperation in the production of a documentary called Living With Michael Jackson, a film the ended up leaving Jackson feeling “devastated and utterly betrayed,” according to a statement he released after its initial airing. Living With Michael Jackson included interview footage in which Jackson discussed having had children sleep in his bed with him during their visits to his now-infamous Neverland Ranch. It was this footage that led directly to Jackson’s arrest on this day in 2003 after the mother of one of his alleged victims—a 13-year-old cancer patient at the time of the alleged incidents—filed a criminal complaint in Santa Barbara County.

More than a year later, the case of The People of the State of California v. Michael Joseph Jackson went to trial, with Jackson facing four counts each of molesting a minor and intoxicating a minor, one count of abduction and one count of conspiracy to hold his alleged victim and the victim’s parent’s hostage at Neverland Ranch. On June 13, 2005, however, Jackson was acquitted on all 10 counts.

Shortly after his trial, Jackson announced his intention to leave the United States and settle permanently in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. He would return to the U.S. in late 2006 however, though not to Neverland Ranch, which Jackson lost sole ownership of amid the financial struggles that dogged him up until his death in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009.

Jackson was the subject of a a 2019 HBO documentary, Leaving Neverland, which reignited credible allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct.

READ MORE: The Final Days of Michael Jackson

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“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” opens in theaters

Year: 1975

Month Day: November 19

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a film about a group of patients at a mental institution, opens in theaters. Directed by Milos Forman and based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson and was co-produced by the actor Michael Douglas. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest went on to become the first film in four decades to win in all five of the major Academy Award categories: Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched), Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Picture.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest marked Jack Nicholson’s first Oscar win, although the actor, who was born April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey, had already received four other Academy Award nominations by that time. Nicholson’s first nomination, in the Best Supporting Actor category, came for his performance as an alcoholic lawyer in 1969’s Easy Rider, co-starring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. He earned his next Oscar nomination, for Best Actor, for 1970’s Five Easy Pieces, in which he played a drifter. For 1973’s The Last Detail, Nicholson earned another Best Actor Oscar nomination. His fourth Best Actor Oscar nomination came for his performance as Detective Jake Gittes in director Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson played Randle McMurphy, a convict who pretends to be crazy so he can be sent to a mental institution and avoid prison work detail. Once at the asylum, McMurphy encounters a varied cast of inmates and clashes memorably with the authoritative Nurse Ratched.

During the 1980s, Nicholson, known for his charisma and devilish grin, appeared in such films as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), which was based on a Stephen King horror novel; The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), with Jessica Lange; Reds (1981), which was directed by Warren Beatty and earned Nicholson another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination; Terms of Endearment (1983), for which he collected a second Best Actor Oscar; Prizzi’s Honor (1985), for which he received another Best Actor Oscar nomination; The Witches of Eastwick (1987), with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer; Ironweed (1987), for which he took home yet another Best Actor Academy Award nomination; and Batman (1989), in which he portrayed the villainous Joker.

Nicholson’s prolific film work in the 1990s included The Two Jakes (1990), a sequel to Chinatown directed by Nicholson himself, the biopic Hoffa (1992) and A Few Good Men (1992), for which he earned another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. A Few Good Men features Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and includes the now-famous Nicholson line “You can’t handle the truth.” Nicholson won his third Best Actor Oscar for 1997’s As Good as it Gets, which co-stars Helen Hunt, and earned his 12th Academy Award nomination for his performance in 2002’s About Schmidt.

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Patty Hearst out on bail

Year: 1976

Month Day: November 19

Patricia Campbell Hearst, a granddaughter of the legendary publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, is released on bail pending the appeal of her conviction for participating in a 1974 San Francisco bank robbery that was caught on camera.

Hearst’s ordeal began on the night of February 4, 1974, when, as a 19-year-old college student, she was kidnapped from her Berkeley, California, apartment by armed gunmen. The kidnappers, members of a political terrorist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), beat Hearst’s fiancé and drove off with the heiress in the trunk of their car to a hideout near San Francisco.

The kidnappers demanded the release of two SLA members in prison for murder, a request that was denied, and called for Hearst’s family to donate millions of dollars to feed the poor. The Hearsts eventually established a program called People in Need (PIN) to distribute $2 million worth of food, but negotiations with the SLA deteriorated after the group demanded additional millions for PIN.

After being abducted, Patricia Hearst was locked in a closet by her captors for two months and subjected to mental and physical abuse. As a result, she later claimed, she was brainwashed into becoming an SLA member, adopting the name Tania and renouncing her family.

In April 1974, the SLA robbed the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco and surveillance videotape captured Hearst holding a gun. In May of that same year, six SLA members, including the group’s leader Donald DeFreeze (who called himself Field Marshall Cinque Mtume), were killed when their house went up in flames during a shootout with police in Los Angeles that was broadcast on live television. Hearst, along with several other SLA members not in the house at the time, remained on the lam for another year.

Law enforcement finally caught up with Hearst in September 1975 in San Francisco, where she was arrested and charged with armed robbery and use of a firearm during a felony, in connection with the Hibernia Bank heist. When authorities asked her occupation, Hearst famously replied “urban guerilla.” During her widely publicized trial, Hearst’s famous defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, claimed she’d been brainwashed and made to believe she’d be killed if she didn’t comply with her captors and go along with their criminal activities. However, in March 1976, a jury found her guilty of armed robbery and she was sentenced to seven years in prison. In November of that year she was released on bail while lawyers tried to appeal her conviction, but the appeal was later denied and Hearst went back to prison.

Hearst spent almost two years behind bars before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Shortly thereafter, she married Bernard Shaw, her former bodyguard, and went on to raise a family in Connecticut. She later became a writer and actress. In 2001, President Bill Clinton granted Hearst a presidential pardon.

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Reagan and Gorbachev hold their first summit meeting

Year: 1985

Month Day: November 19

For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship.

The meeting came as somewhat of a surprise to some in the United States, considering Reagan’s often incendiary rhetoric concerning communism and the Soviet Union, but it was in keeping with the president’s often stated desire to bring the nuclear arms race under control. For Gorbachev, the meeting was another clear signal of his desire to obtain better relations with the United States so that he could better pursue his domestic reforms.Little of substance was accomplished. Six agreements were reached, ranging from cultural and scientific exchanges to environmental issues. Both Reagan and Gorbachev, however, expressed satisfaction with the summit, which ended on November 21.

The next summit was held in October 1986 in Reykjavik and ended somewhat disastrously, with Reagan’s commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative (the so-called “Star Wars” missile defense system) providing a major obstacle to progress on arms control talks. However, by the time of their third summit in Washington, D.C. in 1987, both sides made concessions in order to achieve agreement on a wide range of arms control issues.

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