November 21

Birthdays:

1965 ~ Reggie Lewis (d. July 27, 1993), American basketball player.  He played for the Boston Celtics from 1987 until his death in 1993.  While practicing off-season at Brandeis University, he went into cardiac arrest and died.  He was 27 years old.

1955 ~ Cedric Maxwell, American basketball player.  He played for the Boston Celtics from 1977 until 1985.

1953 ~ Tina Brown, English journalist and magazine editor.

1945 ~ Goldie Hawn, American actress.

1944 ~ Harold Ramis (d. Feb. 24, 2014), American filmmaker who made comedy smart.  He died at age 69.

1937 ~ Ingrid Pitt (née Ingoushka Petrov, d. Nov. 23, 2010), Polish-born British actress known as the Queen of Horror, who knew the real thing after having survived the Holocaust.  She died of congestive heart failure two days after her 73^rd birthday.

1937 ~ Marlo Thomas, American actress and daughter of Danny Thomas.

1933 ~ Henry Hartsfield (d. July 17, 2014), American shuttle pilot and astronaut who kept cool under pressure.  He died at age 80 from complications following back surgery.

1933 ~ Etta Zuber Falconer (d. Sept. 18, 2002), American educator and mathematician.  She was from Tupelo, Mississippi.  She died at age 68.

1933 ~ Jean Shepard (née Ollie Imogene Shepard, d. Sept. 25, 2016), the American country star who sang of independent women.  She died at age 82.

1929 ~ Marilyn French (d. May 2, 2009), American feminist author best known for her 1977 novel, The Women’s Room.  She was 79.

1920 ~ Stan Musial (né Stanisław Franciszek Musiał, d. Jan. 19, 2013), American baseball players.  He was the son of Polish immigrants, who gave him a Polish name.  He was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.  He died at age 92.

1913 ~ Gunnar Kangro (d. Dec. 25, 1975), Estonian mathematician.  He died just over a month after his 62^nd birthday.

1908 ~ Elizabeth George Speare (d. Nov. 15, 1994), American author.  She died 6 days before her 86^th birthday.

1902 ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer (d. July 24, 1991), Polish-born Yiddish author and 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He wrote primarily in Yiddish.  He died at age 88.

1898 ~ René Magritte (d. Aug. 15, 1967), Belgian painter.  He died at age 68.

1854 ~ Pope Benedict XV (né Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, d. Jan. 22, 1922).  He was Pope from September 1914 until his death 8 years later.  He died at age 67.

1834 ~ Hetty Green (née Henrietta Howland Robinson Green, d. July 3, 1916), American businesswoman and financier.  She was the richest woman in America during the Gilded Age.  She was known for her wealth and her miserliness.  She was called the Witch of Wall Street.  She was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  She died of a stroke at age 81.

1787 ~ Sir Samuel Cunard, 1^st Baronet (d. Apr. 28, 1865), Canadian businessman who founded the Cunard Line.  He died at age 77.

1694 ~ Voltaire (né François-Marie Arouet, d. May 30, 1778), French writer and philosopher.  He died at age 83.

Events that Changed the World:

2015 ~ In an election run-off, the people of Louisiana elected John Bel Edwards (b. 1966) as the next governor, defeating David Vitter (b. 1961).

1992 ~ A major tornado struck Houston, Texas.  Over the next 48 hours, over 100 tornados struck the United States, making it one of the largest tornado outbreaks to occur in the month of November.

1986 ~ National Security Council member Oliver North (b. 1943) began to shred documents that implicated him in the sale of weapon to Iran.  Proceeds from the sale helped to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

1980 ~ A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada caused the worst disaster in Nevada history.  87 people were killed and over 650 people were injured.

1979 ~ The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was attacked and set on fire.  Four people were killed during the attack.

1964 ~ The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City, opened to the public.  It was, at the time, the longest suspension bridge in the world.

1953 ~ The British Natural History Museum acknowledged that the Piltdown Man skull, which had been believed to be an important hominid skull, was a hoax.  The skull had first come to the public’s view in 1912, when Charles Dawson (1864 ~ 1916) claimed that it was the “missing link” between ape and man.

1927 ~ In Columbine, Colorado, striking coal miners were attacked by state police officers with machine guns.  At least 6 miners were killed and scores were injured, in an event that became known as the Columbine Mine Disaster.

1922 ~ Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835 ~ 1930) of Georgia became the first woman United States Senator.  She served, however, for only one day.

1920 ~ In what is now known as Bloody Sunday, during the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) set out to assassinate a team of undercover British agents.  By the end of the day, 31 people were killed, including 14 British informants, 14 Irish civilians and 3 IRA prisoners.

1918 ~ During the Pogrom of Lviv, Ukraine, which took place over a period of three days, at least 50 Jews and 270 Ukrainian Christians were killed by Poles.

1905 ~ Albert Einstein (1879 ~ 1955) published his paper, entitled Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, on relativity.  The paper revealed the relationship between energy and mass.

1877 ~ Thomas Edison (1847 ~ 1931) announced his invention of the phonograph.

1861 ~ Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808 ~ 1889) appointed Louisiana native Judah Benjamin (1811 ~ 1884) as his Secretary of War during the American Civil War.

1789 ~ North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution and became the 12^th State admitted into the Union.

1620 ~ The Plymouth Colony settlers signed the Mayflower Compact.

164 BCE ~ The traditional date in the Gregorian calendar when Judas Maccabaeus restored the Temple in Jerusalem.  This event is commemorated by the festival of Chanukah.

Good-Byes:

2010 ~ Norris Church Mailer (née Betty Jean Davis, b. Jan. 31, 1949), American model and widow of Norman Mailer.  She died of cancer at age 61.

2010 ~ Frank Fenner (b. Dec. 21, 1914), Australian virologist who fought smallpox, malaria and rabbits.  He died a month before his 96^th birthday.

1999 ~ Quentin Crisp (né Denis Charles Pratt, b. Dec. 25, 1908), English author.  He died about a month before his 91^st birthday.

1996 ~ Abdus Salam (b. Jan. 29, 1926), Pakistani physicist and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 70.

1993 ~ Bill Bixby (b. Jan. 22, 1934), American actor.  He died of prostate cancer at age 59.

1970 ~ Sir C. V. Raman (né Chandrasekhara Venkata Rāman, b. Nov. 7, 1888), Indian physicist and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died 2 weeks after his 82^nd birthday.

1963 ~ Robert Stroud (b. Jan. 28, 1890), American murderer and ornithologist.  He was known as the Bird Man of Alcatraz, although he was not actually able to keep birds at that prison.  He had, however, kept birds while at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth.  He died in prison at age 73.

1959 ~ Max Baer (b. Feb. 11, 1909), American boxer.  He died of a heart attack at age 50.

1958 ~ Mel Ott (b. Mar. 2, 1909), American baseball player.  He was born in Louisiana.  He was killed in a car accident in Mississippi.  He was 49 years old at the time of his death.

1924 ~ Florence Harding (b. Aug. 15, 1960), First Lady and Wife of President Warren Harding.  She died at age 64.

1916 ~ Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria (b. Aug. 18, 1830).  He reigned in Austria from December 1848 until his death in 1916.  He died at age 86.

1899 ~ Garret Hobart (b. June 3, 1844), 24^th Vice President of the United States.  He served under President William McKinley, however, he died while in office of heart disease at age 55 and was replaced by Theodore Roosevelt.

1886 ~ Charles Francis Adams (b. Aug. 18, 1807), American diplomat.  He was the son of President John Quincy Adams and the grandson of President Adams.  He died at age 79.

1710 ~ Bernardo Pasquini (b. Dec. 7, 1637), Italian composer.  He died 16 days before his 73^rd birthday.

1695 ~ Henry Purcell (b. Sept. 10, 1659), English composer.  He died of tuberculosis at age 36.

1652 ~ Jan Brożek (b. Nov. 1, 1585), Polish mathematician, physician and astronomer.  He died 3 weeks after his 67^th birthday.