Today in History: November 21, Las Vegas hotel fire claims 85 lives

Today is Thursday, Nov. 21, the 326th day of 2024. There are 40 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 21, 1980, 85 people died, most because of smoke inhalation, after a fire broke out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Also on this date:

In 1920, on “Bloody Sunday,” the Irish Republican Army killed 14 suspected British intelligence officers in the Dublin area; British forces responded by raiding a soccer match, killing 14 civilians.

In 1964, New York City's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world, was opened to traffic.

In 1980, an estimated 83 million TV viewers tuned in to the CBS prime-time soap opera “Dallas” to find out “who 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, but was released in 2015.)

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.

In 2017, Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, resigned; he was facing impeachment proceedings and had been placed under house arrest by the military.

In 2022, NASA’s Orion capsule reached the moon, whipping around the far side and buzzing the lunar surface on its way to a record-breaking orbit. It was the first time an American capsule visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Marlo Thomas is 87. Basketball Hall of Famer Earl Monroe is 80. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is 80. Actor Goldie Hawn is 79. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is 73. Journalist Tina Brown is 71. Actor Cherry Jones is 68. Gospel musician Steven Curtis Chapman is 62. Musician Björk is 59. Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman is 58. Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. is 55. Football Hall of Famer-TV host Michael Strahan (STRAY’-han) is 53. Actor Jena Malone is 40. Actor-comedian Ronny Chieng is 39. Pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen is 39.