In what proved a fateful decision on November 21, 1776, Continental Commander in Chief General George Washington writes to General Charles Lee in Westchester County, New York, to report the loss of Fort Lee, New Jersey, and to order Lee to bring his forces to New Jersey. Lee wanted to stay in New York, so […]

On November 21, 1817, U.S. troops from Fort Scott attack the small Seminole Indian village of Fowltown, located in southern Georgia, killing about 20 men and igniting the First Seminole War. The conflict, which lasted less than a year, would not succeed in squashing Native resistance, but it would contribute to the Spanish relinquishing its […]

On November 17, 1877, the publication Scientific American enthuses about Thomas Edison‘s new invention: the phonograph, a way to record and play back sound. Calling it a “wonderful invention,” the article describes the machine’s capability: “…whoever has spoken or whoever may speak into the mouthpiece of the phonograph, and whose words are recorded by it, […]

On November 21, 1912, the Manchester Guardian breaks the news: After three years of digging in the Piltdown gravel pit in Sussex, England, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson had discovered two skulls that appear to belong to a primitive hominid and ancestor of man, along with a canine tooth, a tool carved from an elephant’s tusk, […]

On the evening of November 21, 1934, a young and gangly would-be dancer named Ella Fitzgerald takes to the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater to participate in a harrowing tradition known as Amateur Night. Finding herself onstage as a result of pure chance after her name was drawn out of a hat, the aspiring dancer […]

National Security Council staff member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, begin shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of illegal activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to a rebel Nicaraguan group. On November 25, North was fired but Hall continued to […]