Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Today is the 326th day of 2024. There are 39 days left in this year.
Notable Events
1783
French physicist Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier makes the first manned flight in a hot air balloon.
1789
North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1877
Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph.
1918
The German High Seas Fleet surrendered to the Allies.
1922
Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
1929
Surrealist painter Salvador Dali had his first exhibit.
1942
The Alcan Highway, an overland military supply route to the U.S. territory of Alaska, linking Canada and Alaska, was opened. It is now called the Alaska Highway.
1945
The United Auto Workers staged the first postwar strike at the General Motors plant in Detroit, Michigan.
1953
The discovery of the Piltdown Man skull by Charles Dawson in Sussex in 1912 was revealed as a hoax.
1964
New York's Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened.
1967
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the air quality act, which allotted money to fight air pollution.
1969
The Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.
1973
President Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.
1979
A mob in the Pakistani capital Islamabad burns the US Embassy to the ground in a five-hour attack in which a US marine is killed.
1980
A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas killed 87 people.
1980
Approximately 83 million people tuned in to find out "who shot J.R." on the TV show "Dallas."
1985
Former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested, accused of spying for Israel. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
1989
The proceedings of Britain's House of Commons were televised live for the first time.
1990
Leaders of NATO and Warsaw Pact member states signed the Charter of Paris and a treaty on conventional forces in Europe, bringing an end to the Cold War.
1991
The U.N. Security Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to be the new secretary-general.
1992
Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., issued an apology but refused to discuss allegations that he'd made unwelcome sexual advances toward 10 women over the years.
1995
The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 5,000 mark for the first time.
1995
The United States brokers a peace settlement for Bosnia Herzegovina in Dayton, to be enforced by 60,000 NATO troops.
2002
NATO invited the seven former communist countries into its membership.
2004
Donald Trump's casino empire filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Notable Births
1694
Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), French philosopher, historian, poet, dramatist and novelist.
1898
René Magritte, French surrealist painter.
1904
Coleman Hawkins, American jazz musician
1920
Stan Musial, American baseball Hall-of-Famer.
1945
Goldie Hawn, American Academy Award-winning actress.
1969
Ken Griffey, Jr., American baseball player
Notable Deaths
1695
Henry Purcell, English composer.
1945
Robert Benchley, American humorist, critic, and parodist.
1997
Robert Simpson, English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.
1999
Quentin Crisp, English writer, actor and raconteur.