November 21

On the evening of November 21, 1974, two time‑delay bombs exploded in crowded city‑centre pubs in Birmingham, killing 21 people and injuring 182. Six local Irish‑born men were arrested, tried and convicted in 1975 — the “Birmingham Six” — convictions that were overturned in 1991 after persistent campaigning, questions about forensic evidence, and concerns over police conduct. The case changed British policing, forensic practice, and the legal safeguards that followed.

On the night of November 21, 1950, two trains collided head‑on on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line near Canoe River, British Columbia. The crash—caused by conflicting train orders on a single‑track mountain route—killed about 21 people, injured many more, and helped push Canadian railways toward clearer procedures and wider use of radio communications.

On November 21, 1920, Dublin was convulsed by a sequence of coordinated IRA assassinations at dawn, a midday massacre at Croke Park in which Crown forces fired into a crowd at a Gaelic football match, and the killing of three IRA prisoners at Dublin Castle that night. The day left roughly thirty people dead, hardened attitudes on both sides, and became a defining episode of the Irish War of Independence.

In the chaotic aftermath of the Austro‑Hungarian collapse, fighting for control of Lwów (Lemberg) turned inward. Between November 21 and 23, 1918, amid rumors of Jewish collaboration with Ukrainian forces and a breakdown of policing, Polish soldiers, reservists, and armed civilians entered Jewish districts. Dozens of Jewish residents were killed, hundreds beaten and robbed, and many homes and businesses looted. Official Polish inquiries recorded 52 Jewish deaths; Jewish communal tallies at the time reported roughly 70–80, while higher estimates appear in some later accounts. The violence left a lasting wound on the city’s Jewish community and became a contested episode in the wider politics of the new Polish state.

On November 21, 1916, HMHS Britannic — the White Star Line’s hospital ship and sister to Titanic — struck a mine in the Kea Channel off the Greek island of Kea and sank in under an hour. More than a thousand people survived; about 30 were lost. The disaster exposed wartime hazards for marked hospital ships, revealed unexpected vulnerabilities in even the newest liner designs, and left a wreck that would later be explored as both a technical curiosity and a maritime war grave.