November 21 in Pop Culture History

November 21 History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

November 21 History Highlights

  • 1800 – The US Congress met in Washington for the first time.
  • November 21, 2004 – Nintendo DS released, Video Game Console
  • North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution and was admitted as the 12th U.S. state in 1789.
  • 1992 – Starting November 21, and lasting several days, the largest tornado outbreak ever to occur in the US during November spawned over 100 tornadoes.
  • 2002 – NATO invited Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia to become members.
  • If you were born on November 21st,
    You were likely conceived the week of… February 28th (same year)

November 21 is…

False Confession Day
National Stuffing Day
World Hello Day
World Television Day (United Nations)

November 21 Birthday Quotes

“There are only three ages for women in Hollywood – Babe, District Attorney and Driving Miss Daisy.”
-Goldie Hawn

“Man is free at the instant he wants to be.”
– Voltaire

“My characters aren’t losers. They’re rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else’s rules.”
– Harold Ramis

“Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.”
– Voltaire

“You lose, you smile, and you come back the next day. You win, you smile, you come back the next day.”
Ken Griffey, Jr. –

“All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,
But virtue itself that makes the difference.”
– Voltaire

November 21 Birthdays

1694 – Voltaire, French historian, playwright, and philosopher (died in 1778)
1835 – Hetty Green, American businesswoman, and financier (‘richest miser’ died in 1916)
1898 – René Magritte, Belgian painter (died in 1967)
1904 – Coleman Hawkins, American saxophonist and clarinet player (died in 1969)
1920 – Ralph Meeker, American actor (died in 1988)
1933 – Jean Shepard, American country music Singer/Songwriter (died in 2016)
1937 – Ingrid Pitt, Polish-English actress (Hammer Horror, died in 2010)
1937 – Marlo Thomas, American actress, producer, and activist
1941 – Juliet Mills, English-American actress
1944 – Harold Ramis, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died in 2014)
1945 – Goldie Hawn, American actress, singer, and producer
1948 – George Zimmer, American businessman, founded Men’s Wearhouse
1950 – Livingston Taylor, American Singer/Songwriter, and musician
1952 – Lorna Luft, American actress and singer
1963 – Nicollette Sheridan, English actress
1965 – Björk, Icelandic Singer/Songwriter
1969 – Ken Griffey Jr., American baseball player, and actor
1985 – Carly Rae Jepsen, Canadian Singer/Songwriter, and actress

November 21 History

164 BC – Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restored the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.

1783 – Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois Laurant d’Arlandes became the first men to make a free flight. Their hot-air balloon lifted off from La Muettte, a royal palace in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. Ben Franklin was among the witnesses.

1832 – Wabash College was founded in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

1846 – The word ‘anesthesia’ was used by Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter to William Thomas Green Morton, the surgeon who gave the first public demonstration of the pain-killing effects of ether.

1871 – The patent (#121,049) for a cigar lighter was issued to Moses F. Gale of New York City as an “Improvement in Cigar-Lighters.”

1877 – Thomas Edison announced his “talking machine” invention. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder. (Patent #200,521, granted in 1878)

1905 – Albert Einstein’s paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, was published in the journal Annalen der Physik.

1920 – In Dublin, Ireland, 31 people are killed in what became known as Bloody Sunday. This included fourteen British informants, fourteen Irish civilians, and three Irish Republican Army prisoners. U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday references the event

1942 – Tweety Bird, aka Tweety Pie, debuted in Tale of Two Kitties. Bob Clampett created the character. Tweety is a boy.

1952 – First US postage stamp (The Red Cross 3 cent) in 2 colors (with the rotary printing process) was introduced.

1953 – #1 Hit November 21, 1953 – January 1, 1954: Tony Bennett – Rags To Riches

1953 – Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announced the “Piltdown Man” skull, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, was a hoax.

1959 – Jack Benny (violin) & Richard Nixon (piano) play their famed duet.

1959 – DJ Alan Freed, who had popularized the term rock and roll and music of that style, was fired from New York’s WABC-AM radio for refusing to deny allegations that he had participated in the payola scandal.

1960 – #1 Hit November 21, 1960 – November 27, 1960: Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs – Stay

1964 – World’s longest suspension bridge Verrazano Narrows opened (New York City – 4,260 feet). It is still the longest in the western hemisphere.

1969 – The first permanent ARPANET (multi-computer connection) link was established between UCLA and SRI.

1970 – #1 Hit November 21, 1970 – December 11, 1970: The Partridge Family – I Think I Love You

1980 – Everyone asked “Who Shot J.R.?” in last year’s Dallas season finale. The season opener of Dallas answered the question people were asking all summer, and well into the fall. Sue Ellen’s sister Kristin (played by Mary Crosby) shot J.R.

1980 – A deadly fire broke out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada (now Bally’s Las Vegas). Eighty-seven people were killed and more than 650 were injured.

1981 – #1 Hit November 21, 1981 – January 29, 1982: Olivia Newton-John – Physical

November 21, 1984 Birthday (fictional) Dr. Donald Blake, Thor, Marvel Cinematic Universe

1987 – #1 Hit November 21, 1987 – November 27, 1987: Billy Idol – Mony Mony

1989 – The law banning smoking on most US domestic flights was signed by President George H. W. Bush.

1995 – Dow Jones closed above 5,000 for first time.

November 21, 2004 – Nintendo DS released, Video Game Console

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Nothing comes after “Thrice”. Once, Twice, and Thrice are the only words of their type. Don’t try to ‘Force’ one.

“Jingle Bells” was originally written to be a Thanksgiving song. The horse mentioned in the song is never named.

Don’t scream at me from the bathroom to get toilet paper!
You’ve got a phone.
Text me.
We aren’t cavemen here you know.

9000 meters of single-strand silk weighs about 1 gram. It is also known as a Denier and used to define how fine a thread is.

Cher’s name is Cherilyn Sarkisian.

10 Billion Kuerig pods were produced in 2015, enough to circle the globe 12 times at the equator.

In the 70’s my parent’s idea of a car seat was two phone books and a qualified babysitter was anyone. I would go to prison for that.

England and Portugal have been allies since 1386, the longest unbroken treaty in effect today.

A group of Alligators is called a Congregation.

Casimir Pulaski is one of eight people to have been granted “Honorary Citizenship” by the United States.

“Remember those posters that said, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’? Well, that’s true with every day except one- the day you die.” – Lester Burnham in American Beauty  #moviequotes

All other measurements considered, a “month” is a pretty inaccurate measurement of time considering it can range from 28 to 31 days.

It’s a complete coincidence that the word “emoji” resembles “emotion”. It simply comes from the Japanese words e (“picture”) and moji (“character”).

Things I Learned At The Movies:
It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

More Pop Culture History Resources