November 21, 1995: The Dayton Agreement

November 21, 1995: The Dayton Agreement is reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside Dayton, Ohio, ending the Bosnian Civil War. It was signed there on December 14.

It took the leadership of the President of the United States to stop it. A President who, just hours earlier, was fighting to get his own government reopened.

Taking down Slobodan Milošević and Newt Gingrich in the same week is a very impressive feat, and Bill Clinton simply doesn't get the credit he deserves.

Among the Republican politicians opposing the agreement were Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a bigot who hated anyone who wasn't white and, by his definition, "Christian"; and Representative Robert Dornan of California, a Korean War bomber pilot who so loved war that he was known as "B-1 Bob," but suddenly became a pacifist when it was a liberal Democrat enforcing a peace.

What does it say about Helms and Dornan that they were less reasonable than Slobodan Milošević? A man who killed more people in 5 years than Saddam Hussein killed in 25 years, more than Fidel Castro killed in 50 years?

Just in this war, about 31,000 soldiers died, and an equal number of civilians, many of them in concentration camps, because of their religion -- in this case, Eastern Orthodox Catholic Serbs killing Bosnians for being Muslims. It had been half a century since the Holocaust, and "Never again" had happened again, on the same continent.

Finally, after 3 years of being begged to do something, and remembering how he did nothing to end the Rwandan Genocide in Africa the year before, President Clinton met with his fellow NATO leaders, and united them, and convinced President Boris Yeltsin of Russia to stay out of it. On August 30, Operation Deliberate Force began, with NATO planes bombing "Bosnian Serb" artillery positions. On November 1, Milosevic realized he could beat the Bosnians, but he couldn't beat NATO, and let peace talks begin.

As of November 21, 2022, the peace still holds. The Nobel Committee has given the Nobel Peace Prize to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama -- but not, as yet, Bill Clinton.

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November 21, 1995 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The expansion Toronto Raptors beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 102-97 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Dallas Mavericks, 108-102 in overtime at the Reunion Arena in Dallas. Michael Jordan led all scorers on the night with 36 points.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 107-99 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-108 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 7 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 9-4 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Florida Panthers, 4-3 at the Miami Arena.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Winnipeg Jets, 5-4 at the brand-new FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-2 at The Spectum in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Capitals beat the San Jose Sharks at the USAir Arena (formerly the Capital Centre) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim beat the Calgary Flames, 3-2 at the Saddledome in Calgary.