November 21: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

A literal banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $6.2 million in New York.

The new owner of the controversial art piece, a cryptocurrency enthusiast, held an event in Hong Kong on December 2 where he ate the banana.

Elon Musk revealed Tesla’s first electric cyber truck with shatterproof windows.

However, at the grand reveal, when the shatterproof windows were tested by being repeatedly hit by the design chief Franz von Holzhausen, the windows shattered. After a reassuring speech by Musk, the cyber truck did not live up to expectations, so Tesla's share price plummeted by 6%.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in Japan for the N64.

With a budget of over $12 million, Ocarina of Time was always going to impress. That said, even the developers couldn't have foreseen the legendary status it attained: the highest ranking game of all time on Metacritic.

MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, situated on Las Vegas Strip, caught fire, killing 85 people.

Two bombs exploded in pubs in central Birmingham, UK.

IRA terrorists planted the bombs, which killed twenty-one people and injured over 180.

The movie “Frankenstein,” based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of the same name, was released in the US.

Benito Mussolini and Leandro Arpinati led squads of fighters in the melee between Fascists and Socialists in Bologna, Italy.

Inventor Moses F Gale patented the cigar lighter in the US.

British Navy Admiral William Brown and his crew discovered Honolulu Harbor.

North Carolina became the 12th state to join the United States of America.

French chemistry and physics teacher Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier made his first successful balloon flight.

His joy for balloons eventually killed him when he tried to cross the English Channel with Pierre Romain. This became the first-ever known air crash fatality.

Danish astronomer Ole Rømer presented the first measurements of the speed of light.

Whether light traveled at a finite speed had been the subject of debate for centuries already, and Rømer believed he had finally cracked it, to some degree at least. He presented his findings, based on calculations of when Jupiter's moon Io would be eclipsed, to Paris's Royal Academy of Science.

Freed black man Richard Johnson was granted 100 acres of land in the state of Virginia.

Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, fell to the armies of Timur.

The Turco-Mongolian conquerer captured the nation's leader, King Bagrat V, and forced him to convert to Islam at swordpoint. This was the first of eight invasions Timur would lead against the people of Georgia.

Pope Sergius I consecrated Willibrord as bishop of the Frisians at the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome, Italy.

Saint Anterus became the Bishop of Rome.