HISTORY
On this day November 17-23 2019 (week 47)
November 17, 2019 - November 23, 2019 - Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. This week features the opening of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, China’s Shenzhou spacecraft, the cruise ship the Oasis of the Seas, New York’s Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, novelist George Eliot, and the mass vaccination against yellow fever
November 17, 1869: The Suez Canal opened to navigation. The canal linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and cut the trip from London to Bombay by 4,000 miles
November 18, 2016: Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of the Philippines, was finally laid to rest in a secret ceremony almost three decades after his death
November 19, 1999: China launched its first, unmanned Shenzhou spacecraft. It landed safely after 21 hours in orbit and was recovered from the desert in Inner Mongolia
November 20, 2009: The Oasis of the Seas, first in a new class of cruise ships 40% bigger than any of its rivals, was unveiled. It was the first ship able to carry over 6,000 passengers
November 21, 1964: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, marking the gateway to New York harbour, was opened. It was at the time the longest single-span bridge in the world
November 22, 1819: British novelist George Eliot was born as Mary Ann Evans. Her works included Middlemarch, regarded as one of the greatest novels in the English language
November 23, 2009: The largest-ever yellow fever mass vaccination campaign got underway, targeting 11.9 million people across Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone