November 18 is:
National Apple Cider Day
Kids were baptized in cider during the 14th century because it was believed that cider was more sanitary than water.
President John Adams drank cider every morning because he believed it promoted good health. Adams lived to 90 years old.
It takes about 36 apples to make one gallon of apple cider.
According to legend, William Tell shot an apple off his son’s head on this date in 1307.
Birthday of Louis Jacques Daguerre (November 18, 1789), French inventor of the “daguerreotype” method of producing permanent pictures.
Mark Twain’s short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was published in the New York Saturday Press. on November 18, 1865. The Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee takes place for a four day weekend, in Angels Camp, CA the third weekend in May every year and is one of California’s longest continually running fairs.
Birthday of Clarence Shepard Day (November 18, 1874), American author of “Life With Father”, a book famous in the late 1930’s, made into a movie in 1947.
In 1883, American and Canadian railroads instituted five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
Death of Chester Alan Arthur , twenty-first President of the United States (November 18, 1886). He became President upon the death of James Garfield. Arthur died in New York City at age 57. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never regained consciousness.
In 1926, George Bernard Shaw refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying,
“I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie in 1928, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey’s birthday.
United States President John F. Kennedy sent 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam in 1961.
In 1966, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule forbidding the eating of meat on Fridays.
In Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, including over 270 children.
Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England died on November 17, 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I of England. Sometimes called the Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor.
Publication of 
1934 
Britney Spears, at 21 years old, becomes the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1849 – A Russian court sentenced writer Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group. At the last moment, a note from Tsar Nicholas I was delivered to the scene of the firing squad, commuting the sentence to ten years’ hard labor in Siberia. Dostoevsky’s seizures, which may have started in 1839, increased in frequency in Siberia, and he was diagnosed with epilepsy. On his release, he was forced to serve as a soldier, before being discharged on grounds of ill health. He survived until 1881. Dostoevsky was the author of Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov.
In 2010, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel was convicted on 11 of 13 charges related to financial misconduct, prompting fellow lawmakers to censure the 80-year-old New York Democrat. Despite the ethics violations, Rangel was re-elected in 2012 and 2014.
In 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike saw a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Originally called “El Capitán” by Spanish explorers, the mountain was renamed Pike’s Peak. The Arapaho name is heey-otoyoo’ (“long mountain”).)
In Washington, D.C. on November 15, 1939, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the 
1943 – The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps”.
Birthday of Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765), American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat; the first was called North River Steamboat. In 1807 that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers, from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 miles, in 62 hours.
Death of Georg Wilhelm Hegel (Nov 14, 1831), German philosopher, and a major figure in German Idealism. He achieved recognition in his day and—while primarily influential in the continental tradition of philosophy—has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. His dying words were “Only one man understood me and he didn’t understand.”
Birthday of Claude Monet (November 14, 1840), French landscape painter. In almost every sense he was the founder of French Impressionist painting, the term itself coming from one of his paintings, Impression, Sunrise. His paintings can be viewed at 
In 1889, pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) began a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in 72 days.
Birthday of Mamie Eisenhower (November 14, 1896), wife of 
Birthday of King Charles II (November 14, 1948), (Charles Philip Arthur George), is the eldest child and heir of Queen Elizabeth II. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (born 1982), and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced. Diana died in a car crash the following year. In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who now uses the title Queen Consort.
Birthday of Condoleezza Rice, (November 14, 1954) American political scientist and diplomat; former Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration.
Birthday of Curt Schilling, (November 14,1966), baseball pitcher. He helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 1993 and won World Series championships in 2001 with the Arizona Diamondbacks and in 2004 and 2007 with the Boston Red Sox.
On November 13, 1553, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer and four others, including Lady Jane Grey, were accused of high treason and sentenced to death under Catholic Queen “Bloody” Mary I. 
Birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson (November 13, 1850), Scottish novelist and poet famous for writing “Treasure Island”, “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and many more. Treasure Island is in the public domain and is available at our other website 
Birthday of Letitia Christian Tyler (November 12, 1790), wife of 
Leon Trotsky expelled from Soviet CP in 1927; Joseph Stalin became undisputed dictator. Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Soviet revolutionary, Marxist theorist and politician whose particular strain of Marxist thought is known as 
Birthday of Abigail Smith Adams (November 11, 1744), wife of 
Birthday of George Patton, (Nov. 11, 1885), the famous World War II American military officer.
Anniversary of the burial of the Unknown Soldier at the Tomb of the Unknowns in 1921 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The tomb is guarded by soldiers of the United States Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment. The first 24-hour guard was posted on midnight, July 2, 1937. The Tomb of the Unknowns has been guarded continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, since that time. Inclement weather, terrorist attacks, etc, do not cause the watch to cease.
Forget-Me-Not Day, get in touch with family and friends that you haven’t seen in awhile. The Forget-Me-Not is the state flower of Alaska.
Birthday of Martin Luther (November 10, 1483), German religious reformer, born in Eisleben, Germany, beginner of the Protestant Reformation.
Birthday of Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1730), Irish author of “She Stoops to Conquer” and “The Vicar of Wakefield”.
Publication of 
The U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was dedicated in Arlington, Virginia in 1954.
Birthday of Carl Sagan, (November 9, 1934,), the astronomer whose books and television show informed millions of Americans.