Today is Monday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2011. There are 40 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Nov. 21, 1973, President Richard Nixon’s attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 ½-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.
On this date:
In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1861, Judah Benjamin, who had been acting Confederate Secretary of War, was formally named to the post.
In 1920, the Irish Republican Army killed 12 British intelligence officers and two auxiliary policemen in the Dublin area; British forces responded by raiding a soccer match, killing 14 civilians.
In 1922, Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
In 1931, the Universal horror film “Frankenstein,” starring Boris Karloff as the monster and Colin Clive as his creator, was first released.
In 1942, the Alaska Highway was formally opened.
In 1969, the Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, 55-45, the first such rejection since 1930.
In 1974, bombs exploded at a pair of pubs in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people. (Six suspects were convicted of the attack, but the convictions of the so-called “Birmingham Six” were overturned in 1991.)
In 1980, 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to be Secretary-General.
Ten years ago: Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old resident of Oxford, Conn., died of inhalation anthrax; she was the apparent last victim of a series of anthrax attacks carried out through the mail system. Actor-turned-author Gardner McKay died in Honolulu at age 69.
Five years ago: Kathryn Johnston, 92, was killed in a shootout with Atlanta police during a botched “no-knock” drug raid. Lebanon’s industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, scion of Lebanon’s most prominent Christian family, was assassinated in a brazen daytime hit. A methane gas explosion at the Halemba coal mine in southern Poland killed 23 people. Justin Morneau won the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award.
One year ago: Debt-struck Ireland formally applied for a massive EU-IMF loan to stem the flight of capital from its banks, joining Greece in a step unthinkable only a few years earlier when Ireland was a booming Celtic Tiger and the economic envy of Europe. Sixteen-year-old Justin Bieber received four American Music Awards, becoming the youngest performer to win artist of the year.
Associated Press
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