• Today is Tuesday, Nov. 13, the 318th day of 2012. There are 48 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On Nov. 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by Maya Lin, was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
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• On this date:
• In 1312, England's King Edward III was born at Windsor Castle.
• In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
• In 1849, voters in California ratified the state's original constitution.
• In 1909, 259 men and boys were killed when fire erupted inside a coal mine in Cherry, Ill.
• In 1927, the Holland Tunnel opened to the public, providing access between lower Manhattan and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River.
• In 1937, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, formed exclusively for radio broadcasting, made its debut.
• In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.
• In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public city and state buses.
• In 1969, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew accused network television news departments of bias and distortion, and urged viewers to lodge complaints.
• In 1971, the U.S. space probe Mariner 9 went into orbit around Mars.
• In 1974, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.
• In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city.
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• Ten years ago: Claiming Iraq was seeking the "path of peace," Saddam Hussein's government agreed to the return of international weapons inspectors. U.S.

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