GMT

November 18

1865 Mark Twain's first story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is published in the New York Saturday Press.

1928 Mickey mouse makes his film debut in Steamboat Willie, the first animated talking picture.

1936 The main span of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is joined.

1978 Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones leads his followers to a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after cult member killed Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California.

1993 Twenty-one political parties approve a new constitution for South Africa that expands voter rights and ends the rule of the country's white minority.

2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules the state's ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional; the legislature fails to act within the mandated 180 days, and on May 17, 2004, Massachusetts becomes the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage.


Born on November 18

1923 Alan Shepard, first American astronaut in space.


Joke Of The Day

Two Irishmen were sitting a pub having beer and watching the brothel across the street. They saw a baptist minister walk into the brothel, and one of them said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see a man of the cloth goin' bad." Then they saw a rabbi enter the brothel, and the other Irishman said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see that the jews are fallin' victim to temptation." Then they saw a catholic priest enter the brothel, and one of the Irishmen said, "What a terrible pity... one of the girls must be quite ill."