November 21 - Events

Events

• 164 BC – Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
• 235 – Pope Anterus succeeds Pontian as the nineteenth pope. During the persecutions of emperor Maximinus Thrax he is martyred.
• 1386 – Timur of Samarkand captures and sacks the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, taking King Bagrat V of Georgia captive.
• 1620 – Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11, O.S.).
• 1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.
• 1789 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.
• 1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
• 1894 – Port Arthur, Manchuria falls to the Japanese, a decisive victory of the First Sino-Japanese War, after which Japanese troops massacre the remaining inhabitants of the city.
• 1905 – Albert Einstein's paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, is published in the journal "Annalen der Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc².
• 1910 – Sailors onboard Brazil's most powerful military units, including the brand-new warships Minas Geraes, São Paulo, and Bahia, violently rebel in what is now known as the Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash).
• 1916 – World War I: A mine explodes and sinks HMHS Britannic in the Aegean Sea, killing 30 people.
• 1918 – Flag of Estonia, previously used by pro-independence activists, is formally adopted as national flag of the Republic of Estonia.
• 1918 – A pogrom takes place in Lwów (now Lviv); over three days, at least 50 Jews and 270 Ukrainian Christians are killed by Poles.
• 1920 – Irish War of Independence: In Dublin, 31 people are killed in what became known as "Bloody Sunday". This included fourteen British informants, fourteen Irish civilians and three Irish Republican Army prisoners.
• 1922 – Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
• 1927 – Columbine Mine Massacre: Striking coal miners are allegedly attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes.
• 1942 – The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the highway is not usable by general vehicles until 1943).
• 1950 – Two Canadian National Railway trains collide in northeastern British Columbia in the Canoe River train crash; the death toll is 21, with 17 of them Canadian troops bound for Korea.
• 1953 – The British Natural History Museum announces that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.
• 1959 – American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, is fired from WABC-AM radio for refusing to deny allegations that he had participated in the payola scandal.
• 1962 – The Chinese People's Liberation Army declares a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War.
• 1964 – The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opens to traffic (at the time it is the world's longest suspension bridge).
• 1964 – Second Vatican Council: The third session of the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.
• 1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."
• 1969 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, D.C. on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.
• 1969 – The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.
• 1970 – Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast – A joint Air Force and Army team raids the Son Tay prison camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there.
• 1971 – Indian troops, partly aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas), defeat the Pakistan army in the Battle of Garibpur.
• 1972 – Voters in South Korea overwhelmingly approve a new constitution, giving legitimacy to Park Chung-hee and the Fourth Republic.
• 1974 – The Birmingham Pub Bombings kill 21 people. The Birmingham Six are sentenced to life in prison for the crime but subsequently acquitted.
• 1977 – Minister of Internal Affairs Allan Highet announces that 'the national anthems of New Zealand shall be the traditional anthem "God Save the Queen" and the poem "God Defend New Zealand", written by Thomas Bracken, as set to music by John Joseph Woods, both being of equal status as national anthems appropriate to the occasion.
• 1979 – The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing four.
• 1980 – A deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.
• 1985 – United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
• 1986 – Iran-Contra Affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
• 1995 – The Dayton Peace Agreement is initialed at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, ending three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement is formally ratified in Paris, on December 14 that same year.
• 1996 – Humberto Vidal Explosion. 33 people die when a Humberto Vidal shoe shop explodes.
• 2002 – NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.
• 2004 – The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, giving rise to massive protests and controversy over the election's integrity.
• 2004 – The island of Dominica is hit by the most destructive earthquake in its history. The northern half of the island receives the most damage, especially the town of Portsmouth. It is also felt in neighboring Guadeloupe, where one person is killed.
• 2004 – The Paris Club agrees to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt.
• 2006 – Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel is assassinated in suburban Beirut.
• 2009 – A mine explosion in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China, kills 108.