01011121 This Day In History, November 21

164 BC: Judas Maccabaeus, the son of Mattathias the Hasmonean, restored the Temple in Jerusalem after the original "abomination of desolation" (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Hasmonean Judea). The event is celebrated each year by Jews with the festival of Hanukkah (see Why Did The Messiah Observe Hanukkah? and The Temple Vessel Prophecies Today).

235: Anterus began his reign as pope (see The Struggle For The Papacy).

1620: Leaders of the Mayflower expedition wrote the Mayflower Compact which was designed to bolster unity among the English settlers of "New England." (see also Thanksgiving In History and Prophecy and The Pilgrims).

1783: In Paris, France, Jean de Rozier and the Marquis d' Arlandes made the first uncabled balloon flight, covering nearly 6 miles in 23 minutes.

1818: Czar Alexander I of Russia called for a Jewish state in "Palestine" (the word "Palestine" originated as an alternate English pronunciation of Philistine; see also Gaza In History And Prophecy).

1880: Emmanuel Daude d'Alzon of France died at age 70. The Church of Rome cleric, who founded the order of the "Augustinians of the Assumption," was active in preparing the Church of Rome's anti-Biblical doctrine of papal infallibility - that has proven itself false, by numerous papal blunders (see also Constantine's Crusades In History And Prophecy).

1904: Motorized buses replaced horse-drawn cars in Paris.

1905: Albert Einstein's "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" was published in the journal Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics). The paper examined the relationship between energy and mass which led to Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2.

1907: The Cunard liner Mauretania set a new speed record for steamship travel: 624 nautical miles in a one-day run.

1916: During the First World War (listen also to our Sermon The European World Wars), the Britannic, the larger sister ship of the Titanic, sank in the Kea Channel off Greece. It was on its fourth trip from Southampton to the island of Lesbos to pick up casualties. 18 people died, 1,106 survived. Still under construction when the Titanic sank in 1912, the Britannic had its design changed to correct defects in what was supposed to have been the unsinkable Titanic.

1918: The German High Seas Fleet surrendered at the Firth of Fourth in Scotland, one of the key conditions of the First World War armistice signed on November 11.

1929: A tidal wave caused by an underwater earthquake in the Atlantic Ocean off southeastern Newfoundland killed 29 people who were drowned when their homes were swept into the ocean.

1949: The United Nations granted Libya its independence (see also Libya In History And Prophecy).

1953: The British Museum published a scientific report proving that the "Pitdown Man," discovered in 1912 by Charles Dawson (not to be confused with Charles Darwin), proved to be a hoax (listen to our Sermon Darwin's Theory of Evolution).

1962: The Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral cease-fire during the Sino-Indian War.

1977: The first operational flight of the supersonic Concorde took place from London to New York.

1985: U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He was sentenced to life in prison.

1986: During the "Iran-Contra Affair," National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary destroyed documents that implicated them in the sale of weapons to Iran and the channeling of the proceeds to help support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

1991: The UN Security Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.

2002: NATO invited former East-Bloc communist nations Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

2004: The island of Dominica was hit by the most destructive earthquake in its recorded history.

2006: Anti-Syrian Lebanese Member of Parliament Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in suburban Beirut.