Q & A

November 02, 2009

Letter to Editor

q On Nov. 14, 1851, “Moby Dick,” a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published. Initially the book was a flop. By the 1920s, scholars had rediscovered Melville’s work, and “Moby Dick” became a staple of high-school reading lists across North America.

q On Nov. 10, 1775, the Continental Congress passes a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces for the Continental Navy. The resolution created the Continental Marines and is now observed as the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.

q On Nov. 15, 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City. The advent of the ticker made up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country.

Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange traveled by mail or messenger.

q On Nov. 11, 1918, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, World War I ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany – bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion – signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.

• On Nov. 9, 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence left approximately 100 Jews dead, and 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested.

• On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.

• On Nov. 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington. The long-awaited memorial was a simple V-shaped black-granite wall inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict, arranged in order of death, not rank, as was common in other memorials.

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