Nov. 21 history: Who shot JR?

In what proved a fateful decision in 1776, Continental Commander in Chief General George Washington writes to General Charles Lee in Westchester County, NY, to report the loss of Fort Lee, NJ, and to order Lee to bring his forces to New Jersey. Lee wanted to stay in New York, so he dawdled in departing and crossing the small state of New Jersey to the Delaware River, where Washington impatiently awaited the arrival of his reinforcements. Lee, who took a commission in the British army upon finishing military school at age 12 and served in North America during the Seven Years’ War, felt slighted that the less experienced Washington had been given command of the Continental Army and showed no inclination to rush. 

In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1864, President Lincoln allegedly writes to mother of Civil War casualties

In 1877, Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph 

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Air Quality Act.

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 1976, "Rocky" opens in theaters. 

In 1980, 350M people around the world tune in to television’s popular primetime drama “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R. Ewing, the character fans loved to hate. J.R. had been shot on the season-ending episode the previous March 21, which now stands as one of television’s most famous cliffhangers.

In 2012, 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.

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 “speculative accusations.”

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 with test dummies sitting in for astronauts in the first time a capsule visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago. (History.com 11/21/23)