21 November

1620     Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact.

1652     Jan Brożek (died), Polish mathematician, physician, and astronomer (born 1585)

1694     Voltaire (born), French philosopher (died 1778)

1695     Henry Purcell (died), English composer (born 1659)

1783     In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.

1787     Samuel Cunard (born), Canadian businessman, founded the Cunard Line (died 1865)

1877     Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.

1902     The Philadelphia Football Athletics defeated the Kanaweola Athletic Club of Elmira, New York, 39-0, in the first ever professionalAmerican football night game.

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.

1922     Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (10 June 1835 – 24 January 1930) of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.

1927     Striking coal miners at the Columbine Mine near Serene, Colorado, are attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes or guards working for the mine.

1931     Lewis Binford (born), American archaeologist (died 2011)

1940     Malcolm John “Mac” Rebennack, Jr., AKA Dr. John (born), American singer-songwriter

1940     Richard Marcinko (born), founder of Navy Seal Team V1, American author

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).

1948     George Zimmer (born), American businessman, founded Men’s Wearhouse

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.

1969     The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.

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.

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EO Smith

Interests include biological anthropology, evolution, social behavior, and human behavior. Conducted field research in the Tana River National Primate Reserve, Kenya and on Angaur, Palau, Micronesia, as well as research with captive nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Institute for Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.
EO Smith
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