MILESFORTIS

November 21

164 BC – Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias, restores the Temple in Jerusalem after retaking the city, and relighting the lamps, keeps them burning from a 1 day supply of oil that lasts 8 days.  This is commemorated by the festival of Hanukkah.

1676 – The Danish astronomer Ole Rømer presents the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.

1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent 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.

1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph

1902 – The Philadelphia Football Athletics defeats the Kanaweola Athletic Club of Elmira, New York, 39–0, at Elmira, in the first professional American football night game.

1905 – Albert Einstein publishes 4 papers in the German science journal Annalen der Physik., one of which; Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig? – “Does the Inertia of an object Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” – leads to the mass/energy equivalence formula, E = mc²

1922 – Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female Senator.

1943 – During World War II, continuing operations in the Gilbert Islands, a company sized element of U.S. Marines offload from the submarine USS Nautilus to assault Abemama Atoll, 94 miles southeast of Tarawa.

1944 – On combat patrol in the Taiwan Strait during World War II, the crew of the American submarine SS-315, USS Sealion becomes the only one to sink a battleship when they torpedo the IJN Kongō. 

1945 – Members of the the United Auto Workers begin labor strikes at 92 General Motors plants in 50 cities.

1953 – The Natural History Museum in London announces that the “Piltdown Man” skull is a hoax.

1963 – Robert Stroud the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ dies, completing his life sentence in solitary confinement for murder at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri

1964 – The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn, opens to traffic. At the time it is the world’s longest bridge span.

1969 – The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute .

1970 – In Operation Ivory Coast, a joint U.S. Air Force and Army team raids the Sơn Tây prisoner of war camp 23 miles west of Hanoi in North Vietnam, in an attempt to free American prisoners of war believed to be held there. The failure to detect the removal of the prisoners prior to the raid leads to a major reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community.

1979 – The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, is attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing 2 U.S. service members, Marine Security Guard Corporal Steven Crowley, and Army Chief Warrant Officer Bryan Ellis

1980 – A fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada killing 87 people and injuring more than 650.

1985 – U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations

1992 – A major tornado outbreak, the largest tornado ever to occur in the US during November, spawns over 100 tornadoes through the southeast and midwest over a period of 3 days, causing 26 deaths and over $300 million in damage,

1995 – The Dayton Agreement is initialed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, at Dayton, Ohio, ending 3 1/2 years of war between Bosnia and Herzegovina of the former Yugoslavia.

2002 – NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

2019 – Tesla introduces the SUV Cybertruck.

2021 – A man driving an SUV plows through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing 6 people and injuring 62.  A little less than a year later, he is convicted at trial and sentenced to 6 terms of life imprisonment without parole, to be served consecutively.

November 20

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, British forces land at the Hudson River Palisades in New Jersey and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.

1789 – New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1805 – Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, opens in Vienna.

1820 – An 80 ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the whaling ship Essex of Nantucket off the western coast of South America, inspiring Herman Melville’s story of Moby Dick.

1862 – The Confederate armies of Mississippi and Kentucky merge as the Army of Tennessee, under command of General Braxton Bragg.

1902 – George Lefevre and Henri Desgrange create the Tour de France bicycle race

1903 – The day before his 43rd birthday, Tom Horn, convicted of murder, is executed by hanging in Cheyenne, Wyoming

1910 – Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí, denouncing Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.

1923 – The Rentenmark replaces the Papiermark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Rentenmark to One Trillion Papiermark.

1931 – AT&T begins commercial teletype service.

1940 – During World War II, Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, joining the Axis powers.

1942 – During World War II, the 1522 mile long Alaska Highway opens for military traffic from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska.

1943 – During World War II,  the U.S. stages Operation Galvanic, invading the Gilbert Island chain with the 2nd Division of the U.S. Marine Corps assaulting Tarawa Atoll’s Betio Island and the U.S. Army’s 27th Division assaulting Makin Atoll’s Butaritari Island.

1945 – Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.

1953 – Scott Crossfield piloting the Douglas Skyrocket, breaks Mach 2 – 1,300 miles per hour – at the High Speed Flight Research Station, Muroc, California.

1958 –American puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson establish Muppets, Inc.

1962 – In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, President Kennedy ends the quarantine of the island and the diplomatic crisis with the Soviets.

1968 – 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia

1974 – The U.S. Department of Justice files an antitrust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and the Bell System.

1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, meeting with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaking before the Knesset

1980 – A misplaced Texaco exploratory oil probe drills into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing Lake Peigneur in Louisiana to flow down into the mine, filling it while swallowing the drilling platform, 11 barges holding supplies for the drilling operation, a tugboat, and 65 acres of the surrounding terrain.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

1993 – The Senate Ethics Committee issues censures of Senators for their “dealings” with executive Charles Keating during the Savings and Loan crisis which collapsed that part of the financial system

1998 – The first module component, Zarya, for the International Space Station is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

2008 – Due to the Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis building up since September causing failures in the US financial system, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997, falling 43% over the past year to less than 8000 points.

2014 –President Obama defers the threat of deportation for nearly 5 million illegal aliens in the US

2022 – Joe Biden turns 80 years old, the first octogenarian to serve as President