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

Today is Saturday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2026. There are 40 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 21, 1980, 85 people died, most from 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 primetime 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 related to violating U.S. securities laws by selling junk bonds, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 10 years in prison. (Milken served two.)

In 1995, Balkan leaders meeting near 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. His resignation ended a 37-year rule beginning with Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

In 2021, an SUV sped through barricades and into marchers in a Christmas parade in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, killing six people and injuring several others. A judge the following year sentenced Darrell Brooks Jr. to life in prison without parole for his conviction on first-degree intentional homicide and other counts.

In 2022, a powerful earthquake killed at least 162 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s main island of Java, sending terrified residents into streets covered with debris.

In 2022, NASA’s uncrewed Orion capsule reached the moon, whipping around the far side and buzzing the lunar surface on an orbit that broke the record at that time for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans. The mission marked the first time an American capsule visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program ended a half-century earlier.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Marlo Thomas is 89. Basketball Hall of Famer Earl Monroe is 82. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is 82. Actor Goldie Hawn is 81. Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana is 75. Journalist Tina Brown is 73. Actor Cherry Jones is 70. Gospel musician Steven Curtis Chapman is 64. Musician Björk is 61. Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman is 60. Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. is 57. Football Hall of Famer-TV host Michael Strahan (STRAY’-han) is 55. Actor Jena Malone is 42. Actor-comedian Ronny Chieng is 41. Pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen is 41. Pro baseball player Brice Turang is 27. Actor Isabel May is 26.