Today in History: Wednesday, November 21, 2012

On Nov. 21, 1877, inventor Thomas A. Edison unveiled the phonograph.

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

1922 Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

1969 The Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth.

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.

1980 A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas killed 87 people.

1985 Former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested, accused of spying for Israel. (He later pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.)

1989 The proceedings of Britain's House of Commons were televised live for the first time.

1991 The U.N. Security Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to be secretary-general.

1995 The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 5,000 for the first time.

2000 The Florida Supreme Court granted Democrat Al Gore's request to keep the presidential election recount going.

2001 A 94-year-old Connecticut woman died of inhalation anthrax, the last of five people killed in the anthrax attacks.

2002 NATO invited seven former communist countries to join the alliance: Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.

2004 The NBA suspended Indiana's Ron Artest for the rest of the season following a brawl in the stands during a game against the Detroit Pistons.

2005 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon broke away from the hardline Likud with the intention of forming a new party.

2007 Officials announced the recall of more than a half-million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry contaminated with lead.

2010 Debt-struck Ireland applied for a massive EU-IMF loan to stem the flight of capital from its banks.