Today in History: November 21, deadly Las Vegas hotel fire

Today in History Today is Monday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2022. There are 40 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Nov. 21, 1980, 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. On this date: In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1920, the Irish Republican Army killed 12 British intelligence officers and two auxiliary policemen in the Dublin area; British forces responded by raiding a soccer match, killing 14 civilians. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Air Quality Act. In 1969, the Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, 55-45, the first such rejection since 1930. In 1973, President Richard Nixon’s attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18-1/2-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate. In 1979, a mob attacked the U-S Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two Americans. In 1980, an estimated 83 million TV viewers tuned in to the CBS prime-time soap opera ‘œDallas’� to find out ‘œwho shot J.R.’� (The shooter turned out to be J.R. Ewing’s sister-in-law, Kristin Shepard.) In 1985, U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested and accused of spying for Israel. (Pollard later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison; he was released on parole on Nov. 20, 2015, and moved to Israel five years later.) In 1990, junk-bond financier Michael R. Milken, who had pleaded guilty to six felony counts, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 10 years in prison. (Milken served two.) In 1995, Balkan leaders meeting in Dayton, Ohio, initialed a peace plan to end 3 1/2 years of ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BAHZ’-nee-ah HEHR’-tsuh-goh-vee-nah). In 2001, Ottilie (AH’-tih-lee) Lundgren, a 94-year-old resident of Oxford, Connecticut, died of inhalation anthrax; she was the apparent last victim of a series of anthrax attacks carried out through the mail system. In 2020, a federal judge in Pennsylvania tossed out a Trump campaign lawsuit seeking to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the state; in a scathing order, the judge said Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented only ‘œspeculative accusations.’� The Trump campaign requested a recount of votes in the Georgia presidential race, a day after state officials certified results showing that Democrat Joe Biden won the state. (After the recount, the state’s top elections official recertified Biden’s victory.) Ten years ago: Two weeks after he was re-elected to a ninth full term in Congress, Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois quietly resigned in a letter in which he acknowledged an ongoing federal investigation. (Jackson would eventually be sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for illegally spending campaign money.) Israel and the Hamas militant group in Gaza agreed to a cease-fire to end eight days of the fiercest fighting in nearly four years. Five years ago: Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old president Robert Mugabe resigned; he was facing impeachment proceedings and had been placed under house arrest by the military. Former teen pop idol David Cassidy, star of the 1970s sitcom ‘œThe Partridge Family,’� died at the age of 67; he’d announced earlier in the year that he had been diagnosed with dementia.