TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 21
164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah
1620 Leaders of the Mayflower expedition frame the “Mayflower Compact,” designed to bolster unity among the settlers.
1783 Jean de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes make the first free-flight ascent in a balloon to over 500 feet in Paris.
1789 North Carolina ratifies the Constitution, becoming the 12th state to do it.
1818 Russia’s Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestine
1855 Franklin Colman, a pro-slavery Missourian, guns down Charles Dow, a Free Stater from Ohio, near Lawrence, Kansas.
1906 In San Juan, President Theodore Roosevelt pledges citizenship for Puerto Rican people.
1911 Suffragettes storm Parliament in London. All are arrested and all choose prison terms.
1927 Police turn machine guns on striking Colorado mine workers, killing five and wounding 20.
1941 Tweety Bird makes its debut
1949 The United Nations grants Libya its independence by 1952.
1953 “Pitdown Man,” discovered in 1912 proved to be a hoax
1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the air quality act, allotting $428 million for the fight against pollution.
1969 For the first time since 1930, the U.S. Senate rejected a Supreme Court nominee, Clement Haynsworth.
1977 1st flight of the Concorde (London to New York)
1979 Mob burns down US embassy in Pakistan The mob was allegedly incensed by a rumor that the United States was involved in an attack on a mosque in the holy city of Mecca.
1985 US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard arrested for spying and passing classified information to Israel; he received a life sentence on Nov. 1, 1987.
1986 The Justice Department begins an inquiry into the National Security Council into what will become known as the Iran-Contra scandal.
1995 The Dayton Peace Agreement is initialed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio; the agreement, formally ratified in Paris on Dec. 14, ends the three-and-a-half year war between Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2006 Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel assassinated in Beirut.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
