This Day in History: Nov. 21

On this day, Nov. 21 …

1931: The Universal horror film "Frankenstein," starring Boris Karloff as the monster and Colin Clive as his creator, is first released.

Also on this day:

  • 1922: Rebecca L. Felton, a Georgia Democrat, is sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate; her term, the result of an interim appointment, would end the following day when Walter F. George, the winner of a special election, takes office.
  • 1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Air Quality Act.
  • 1969: The Senate votes down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, 55-45, the first such rejection since 1930.
  • 1979: A mob attacks the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two Americans.

  • 1985: U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested, accused of spying for Israel. (Pollard would plead guilty to espionage and be sentenced to life in prison; he would be released on parole Nov. 20, 2015.)
  • 1992: A three-day tornado outbreak that would strike 13 states and kill 26 people begins in the Houston area before spreading to the Midwest and eastern U.S. 
  • 1992: U.S. Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., issues an apology but refuses to discuss allegations that he’d made unwelcome sexual advances toward 10 women over the years. (Faced with a threat of expulsion, Packwood eventually would resign from the Senate in 1995.)
  • 1995: Balkan leaders meeting in Dayton, Ohio, initial a peace plan to end more than three years of ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  • 1997: U.N. arms inspectors return to Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s three-week standoff with the United Nations over the presence of Americans on the team.
  • 2008: Madonna and Guy Ritchie are granted a preliminary decree of divorce by a London court.

  • 2017: Former teen pop idol David Cassidy, star of the 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family,” dies at age 67; he had announced earlier in the year that he had been diagnosed with dementia. 
  • 2017: Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, 93, resigns while facing impeachment proceedings. He had been placed under house arrest by the military.

Source: Read Full Article