November 21 birthdays & history

Famous people born on November 21

• 1694Voltaire, French writer and philosopher
• 1903Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-American novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1854Pope Benedict XV, Head of the Catholic Church from 1914 to 1922
• 1965Björk, Icelandic singer-songwriter
• 1898René Magritte, Belgian painter
• 1945Goldie Hawn, American actress, singer, and producer
• 1768Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian, philosopher, and scholar
• 1985Jesús Navas, Spanish footballer
• 1985Carly Rae Jepsen, Canadian singer-songwriter and actress
• 1818Lewis H. Morgan, American lawyer, anthropologist, and theorist

What happened on November 21

• 1620The Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony, was signed by 41 of the Mayflower's passengers while the ship was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor.
• 1877Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a device able to record and play sound.
• 1900Claude Monet's paintings shown at Gallery Durand-Ruel in Paris.
• 1905Albert Einstein's paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.
• 1918The Flag of Estonia, previously used by pro-independence activists, is formally adopted as the national flag of the Republic of Estonia.
• 1918The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 is passed, allowing women to stand for Parliament in the UK.
• 1922Rebecca Latimer Felton became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, albeit for only one day.
• 1942The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the highway is not usable by standard road vehicles until 1943).
• 1953The Natural History Museum, London announces that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.
• 1961La Ronde, the first revolving restaurant in the United States, was inaugurated.
• 1964The Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City, opened to traffic as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
• 1977"God Defend New Zealand" became New Zealand's second national anthem, on equal standing with "God Save the King", which had been the traditional anthem since 1840.

Also observed on November 21

• Armed Forces Day (Bangladesh)
• World Television Day (United Nations observance)