Buster Keaton's silent comedy The Haunted House was released February 21, 1921. Keaton plays a bank clerk that finds a house, reportedly haunted, that is actually a hideout for thieves, who disguise themselves as ghouls to keep people away.
How Scooby-doo!
It is full of Keaton's characteristic physical, slapstick humor, and very funny.
Nelson Wesley Trout, born in 1921 in Columbus, Ohio, graduated from Capital University and Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus. He received his Doctor of Divinity from Warburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
He served at Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and held several positions on the staff of the American Lutheran Church in Dayton, Ohio. He returned to Trinity Lutheran Seminary as the professor and Director of Minority Ministry Studies.
In 1983, he was elected bishop of the ALC's South Pacific District, becoming the first African American bishop in US Lutheranism. After the 1987 merger which formed the ELCA, Dr. Trout became Bishop Emeritus of the new Southwest California Synod. He also served as Director for Mission Theology and Evangelism Training for the ELCA.
One of the worst, if not THE worst, race riots began in Tulsa, Oklahoma May 31, 1921. A young black man, Dick Rowland, was accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator in the city. The man was arrested, but word got around, mainly due to the white newspaper in Tulsa at the time, spreading rumors of a lynching. The paper used inflammatory language which stirred up the white population into a murderous frenzy.
The black community rallied around Rowland, by arming themselves and showing up at the jail where he was being held. The sheriff reassured them that Rowland would not be lynched. However as the crowd began to disperse, a gunshot was heard and "all hell broke loose".
The riots, arson, and murders took place in the Greenwood area of Tulsa, a wealthy, black neighborhood, which had been dubbed "Black Wall Street".
Over the course of two days, people were killed, houses were burned, businesses were looted, and scores injured. The exact number of casualties is unknown but estimates range from 36 dead to 300.
For decades, the incident was kept quiet and omitted from local, state, and national histories. The Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was formed in 1996. The commission reported that the city had conspired with the racist mob. Oklahoma passed legislation to establish scholarships for descendants of the survivors, and develop a park in memory of the victims of the massacre. Schools in Oklahoma have been required to teach students about the massacre since 2002, and the massacre became an official part of the Oklahoma school curriculum.
However, the governor and the state superintendent of schools have declared teachers cannot teach that the massacre was based on race.
Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introducing Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, was published in the UK January 21, 1921. It had been published the previous October in the US. It was well-received by critics and remains one of her best.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was adapted for television and aired as an episode on ITV's series Poirot starring David Suchet as the detective in September 1990.
Since its initial publication, it has been re-released in hardcover and paperback dozens of times.
Harry Cole, born January 21, 1921 in Washington, DC, was the first African-American ever elected to the Maryland Senate and the first African-American to serve on the Maryland Court of Appeals. He was valedictorian of his graduating class from Morgan State College with a Bachelor of Arts. After serving in the U.S. Army, he studied law at the University of Maryland and was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1949.
He was elected to the Maryland State Senate in 1955 and served until 1966.
John Glenn, born July 18, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio, is the first American to orbit Earth. In February 1962, he orbited Earth three times in Friendship 7, lasting almost 5 hours. After his historic flight, JFK said Glenn was too valuable to the nation as an iconic figure that he would not risk putting Glenn back in space.
After leaving NASA, Glenn ran for the US Senate and became Ohio's senator from 1974 to 1999.
Glenn did return to space in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery (STS-95) October-November 1998, making him the oldest person in space.
Cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy, born April 15, 1921, went into space only once on Soyuz 3. It was a one-man mission launched in October 1968 and he orbited Earth for almost four days.
He had been scheduled to fly Voskhod 3 in 1966 but the mission never happened.
In October 1969, Beregovoy and fellow cosmonaut Konstatin Feokistov visited Disneyland as guests of NASA, joined by Eugene Cernan, Neil Armstrong and others.
John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, has passed away. He flew on the Friendship 7 in February 1962 making three orbits of Earth in just under 5 hours. President John F. Kennedy presented him with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
At 77, he flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 as a Payload Specialist, making him the oldest man to go into space.
Nancy Kulp, the ever-lovable Miss Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies, would've been 94 today, but she passed away back in 1991 of cancer. She seemed to be one of those people who just happen to be in the right place at the right time. I couldn't find a clip of her appearance in a "Twilight Zone" episode, but the one below certainly displays her extraordinary comedic talent!
