Today in History: Thursday, November 15, 2012
On Nov. 15, 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War.
1777 The Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, a precursor to the Constitution of the United States.
1926 The National Broadcasting Co. debuted with a radio network of 24 stations.
1939 The cornerstone for the Jefferson Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C.
1940 The first 75,000 men were called to armed forces duty under peacetime conscription.
1959 A farmer, his wife and two of their children were found murdered in their home in Holcomb, Kansas – a crime that was the subject of Truman Capote's non-fiction novel "In Cold Blood."
1984 An infant who had received a baboon's heart to replace her own congenitally deformed one died at a California medical center three weeks after the transplant.
1985 Britain and Ireland signed an accord giving Dublin an official consultative role in governing Northern Ireland.
1988 The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, proclaimed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
1993 A judge in Mineola, N.Y., sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in jail for the statutory rape of Amy Fisher, who shot and wounded Buttafuoco's wife, Mary Jo.
2002 Hu Jintao replaced Jiang Zemin as China's Communist Party leader.
2011 Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York City, evicting hundreds of protesters and then demolishing the tent city.