November 21: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 164 BC - Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
2. 1620 - Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11, O.S.).
3. 1783 - In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozierand François Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.
4. 1789 - North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.
5. 1877 - Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
6. 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.
7. 1922 - Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
8. 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).
9. 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.
10. 1969 - U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, D.C. on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.
11. Famous Birthdays: Voltaire (French philosopher), Josiah Bartlett (American physician and politician, 6th Governor of New Hampshire, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence), René Magritte (Belgian painter), Henry Hartsfield (American astronaut), Lewis H. Morgan (American anthropologist)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: November 20

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: November 22

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.