Today is Monday, Nov. 21, the 326th day of 2016. There are 40 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On Nov. 21, 1922, Rebecca L. Felton, a Georgia Democrat, was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate; her term, the result of an interim appointment, ended the following day as Walter F. George, the winner of a special election, took office.

On this date

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

In 1864, a letter was signed by President Abraham Lincoln expressing condolences to Lydia Bixby, a widow in Boston whose five sons supposedly died while fighting in the Civil War. (As it turned out, only two of Mrs. Bixby’s sons had been killed in battle.)

In 1934, the Cole Porter musical “Anything Goes,” starring Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney, opened on Broadway.

In 1942, the Alaska Highway, also known as the Alcan Highway, was formally opened at Soldier’s Summit in the Yukon Territory.

In 1945, American humorist Robert Benchley died in New York at age 56.

In 1969, the Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, 55-45, the first such rejection since 1930.

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 1974, bombs exploded at a pair of pubs in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people. (Six suspects were convicted of the attack, but the convictions of the so-called “Birmingham Six” were overturned in 1991.)

In 1980, 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. 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, accused of spying for Israel. (Pollard later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison; he was released on parole on Nov. 20, 2015.)

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to be the new Secretary-General.

In 1996, 33 people were killed, more than 100 injured, when an explosion blamed on leaking gas ripped through a six-story building in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Ten years ago: Kathryn Johnston, 92, was killed in a shootout with Atlanta police during a botched “no-knock” drug raid. (An FBI investigation led five officers to plead guilty for their roles in the shooting, while six others were reprimanded for not following department policy; the city of Atlanta agreed to pay $4.9 million to Johnston’s family.)

The Associated Press