14 November 656

Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Championship after winning the final race of the season, becoming the youngest Formula One champion.

Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discovered the trans-Neptunian object Sedna.

As a result of budget conflicts between President Bill Clinton and the United States Congress led by Newt Gingrich, the federal government was forced to shut down non-essential services.

In poor conditions caused by Cyclone Forrest, Vietnam Airlines Flight 474 crashed near Nha Trang, killing 30 people.

Croatian War of Independence: Croatian naval commandos attacked the Yugoslav patrol boat Mukos, starting the Battle of the Dalmatian Channels.

Music producer Frank Farian admitted that the German R&B duo Milli Vanilli did not sing the vocals on their album Girl You Know It's True.

Southern Airways Flight 932, chartered by the Marshall University football team, crashed into a hill near Ceredo, West Virginia, killing all 75 people on board.

Apollo 12 (pictured) launched from the Kennedy Space Center, later becoming the second crewed flight to land on the Moon.

American physicist Theodore Maiman was given a patent for his ruby laser systems, the world's first laser.

Ruby Bridges and the McDonogh Three became the first black children to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana as part of the New Orleans school desegregation crisis.

World War II: German troops, aided by local auxiliaries, murdered nine thousand residents of the Słonim Ghetto in a single day.

Second World War: After suffering torpedo damage the previous day, the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sank as she was being towed to Gibraltar for repairs.

Aviator Eugene Burton Ely performed the first takeoff from a ship (pictured), flying from a makeshift deck on USS Birmingham in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Moby-Dick, an epic novel by American writer Herman Melville, was first published in the United States.

German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovered the Great Comet of 1680, the first comet to be discovered by telescope.

A mass shooting occurs at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, resulting in three deaths, including that of the perpetrator, and three injuries.

A gunman kills four people and injures 12 others during a shooting spree across Rancho Tehama, California. He had earlier murdered his wife in their home.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Kaikōura, New Zealand, at a depth of 15 km (9 miles), resulting in the deaths of two people.

Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas.

The first G-20 economic summit opens in Washington, D.C.

Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-126 to continue assembly of the International Space Station.

Astronomers discover Sedna, a distant trans-Neptunian dwarf planet.

War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes a remote part of the Tibetan Plateau. It has the longest known surface rupture recorded on land (~400 km) and is the best documented example of a supershear earthquake.