Something to think about.Something to discover.Something to remember.Every day.
⌕ My Time Capsule

Explore 21 November

Explore 21 November: two Frenchmen make the first free balloon flight, the Dayton talks end the Bosnian war, the United States agrees to return Okinawa and Robert Mugabe resigns. Meet Voltaire, René Magritte and Björk, born on this date.

This day through time →9 verified events across 3 eras

⌛9Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☉1Observances
Robert Mugabe's official portrait as president of Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe’s official portrait as president of Zimbabwe.
Image creditGovernment of Zimbabwe, taken by Joseph Nyadzayo as Presidential Photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
2017

Robert Mugabe resigns after 37 years

Robert Mugabe had led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, first as prime minister and then as president. In mid-November 2017, after he dismissed his vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, the army took control and placed the 93-year-old leader under house arrest, and his own party, ZANU-PF, removed him as its leader.

On 21 November 2017, as parliament began proceedings to impeach him, Mugabe sent a letter resigning with immediate effect. Crowds celebrated in the streets of Harare, and Mnangagwa was sworn in as president three days later.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Robert Mugabe, succession controversy ↗
Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman initial the Dayton agreement, 21 November 1995.
Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman initial the Dayton agreement, 21 November 1995.
Image creditU.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Brian Schlumbohm · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1995

The Dayton talks end the war in Bosnia

For three weeks the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević, negotiated at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, a site chosen to keep them away from the press. On 21 November 1995 they initialled a peace agreement.

Formally signed in Paris on 14 December, it ended three and a half years of war in Bosnia. The country was kept as a single state made up of two entities, a Bosniak-Croat federation and a Bosnian Serb republic, with Sarajevo as its undivided capital.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Museum of American Diplomacy: November 1995, the Dayton Accords ↗
Richard Nixon and Eisaku Satō at San Clemente, California, in January 1972.
Richard Nixon and Eisaku Satō at San Clemente, California, in January 1972.
Image creditBob Moore · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1969

The United States agrees to return Okinawa

Okinawa had been under American administration since the end of the Second World War, home to major US military bases. After three days of talks in Washington, President Richard Nixon and the Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satō issued a joint statement on 21 November 1969 agreeing that administrative rights over Okinawa would be returned to Japan.

They aimed to complete the handover during 1972 without weakening security in the Far East. A reversion agreement was signed in June 1971, and Okinawa returned to Japanese rule on 15 May 1972, although many American bases remained.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: The American Presidency Project: Joint statement following discussions with Prime Minister Sato of Japan ↗
Croke Park, Dublin, photographed in 2006.
Croke Park, Dublin, photographed in 2006.
Image creditNo machine-readable author provided. Tolivero~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1920

Bloody Sunday in Dublin

On the morning of Sunday 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, the IRA killed British intelligence officers and others in Dublin. That afternoon police and soldiers surrounded Croke Park, where Dublin were playing Tipperary at Gaelic football, and opened fire into the crowd.

The shooting lasted about 90 seconds; fourteen people died at the ground, including the Tipperary player Michael Hogan, after whom a stand at Croke Park is now named. The day is seen as a turning point in the war.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: GAA: Remembering Bloody Sunday at Croke Park ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Voltaire
Image creditNicolas de Largillière · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1694

Voltaire

French writer and philosopher of the Enlightenment, author of Candide and champion of religious tolerance.

Victoria, Princess Royal
Image creditThomas Heinrich Voigt · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1840

Victoria, Princess Royal

Eldest child of Queen Victoria, who became German empress and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Pope Benedict XV
Image creditNicola Perscheid · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1854

Pope Benedict XV

Italian pope who led the Catholic Church through the First World War and pressed for peace.

René Magritte
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1898

René Magritte

Belgian Surrealist painter of bowler-hatted men and the pipe that is ‘not a pipe’.

Goldie Hawn
Image creditPeabody Awards · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1945

Goldie Hawn

American actor who won an Academy Award for Cactus Flower.

Björk
Image creditFrédéric Vicomte · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1965

Björk

Icelandic singer and songwriter, one of the most inventive figures in popular music.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

The Montgolfier balloon that first carried people through the air, in a French print of 1786.
The Montgolfier balloon that first carried people through the air, in a French print of 1786.
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1783

The first people fly

On 21 November 1783 Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes rose from the grounds of the Château de la Muette on the edge of Paris in a hot-air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers. It was the first time people had flown free, untethered to the ground.

Feeding a fire of straw and wool to keep the air hot, they drifted across Paris for about 25 minutes and came down about nine kilometres away.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Sending humans aloft ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Georgius Agricola
Image credit{{creator:|Year = }} · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1555

Georgius Agricola

German scholar whose De re metallica founded the study of mining and mineralogy (Julian calendar).

Henry Purcell
Image creditJohn Closterman · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1695

Henry Purcell

English composer of the opera Dido and Aeneas, who died aged about 36.

Heinrich von Kleist
Image creditAnton Graff · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1811

Heinrich von Kleist

German playwright and story writer, author of The Broken Jug and The Prince of Homburg.

Franz Joseph I
Image creditCarl Pietzner · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1916

Franz Joseph I

Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary for 68 years, who died in the middle of the First World War.

C. V. Raman
Image creditNobel Foundation · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1970

C. V. Raman

Indian physicist who discovered the Raman effect in the scattering of light and won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Abdus Salam
Image creditMolendijk, Bart / Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nlResized and cropped for display.
Died 1996

Abdus Salam

Pakistani physicist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for unifying the weak and electromagnetic forces.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

A television set bought in 1953.
A television set bought in 1953.
Image creditJohn Atherton · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

World Television Day

The United Nations held its first World Television Forum on 21 and 22 November 1996, and that December the General Assembly proclaimed 21 November World Television Day, recognising television’s power to draw the world’s attention to conflict, peace and social questions.

Source: United Nations: World Television Day ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 21 November chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 9 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading