November Anniversaries
Momentous or Merely Memorable
- By Alison McLean
- Smithsonian magazine, November 2009, Subscribe
20 Years Ago
Something There Is...
The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 to stop emigration from communist East Germany, cracks November 9, 1989, when the country, again facing a mass exodus—this time through its newly democratized Eastern Bloc neighbors—allows two-way travel between East and West Berlin. Thousands cross within hours, and souvenir hunters soon reduce the wall to rubble. Germany reunites the following October.
50 Years Ago
Answer Man
"I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception," Charles Van Doren admits on November 2, 1959, to a House subcommittee investigating the rigging of TV quiz shows about having been fed the answers while a contestant on "Twenty-One." Money was a motivator, he says, but of his $129,000 winnings, "taxes took more than half of it, and the lawyers took a big part." He pleads guilty to a misdemeanor. Van Doren, now 83, goes on to edit Encyclopaedia Britannica, and declines a paid consulting job on the 1994 film Quiz Show.
140 Years Ago
First Down!
Princeton takes on Rutgers in the first American college football game, November 6, 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The 25 helmetless men on each team play a game more similar to soccer and rugby than today's football, which will not evolve for several years. "Princeton had the most muscle," Rutgers' newspaper reports, but despite scoring a point against themselves, Rutgers wins 6-4. Some 48 million people will attend 3,493 National Collegiate Athletic Association football games in 2008.
140 Years Ago
Cut To The Chase
A flotilla of some 45 ships, carrying French Empress Eugenie and other dignitaries, makes the first crossing when the Suez Canal opens to shipping on November 17, 1869. Built over ten years by Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps with French and Egyptian backing—and thousands of forced Egyptian laborers—the 101-mile canal, from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Suez on the Red Sea, eliminates a trip around Africa for ships sailing between Europe and Asia. In 1956, Egyptian President Nasser nationalizes the canal, provoking an invasion by Israel, the United Kingdom and France; Egypt retains control of the waterway. Today more than 21,000 ships use it annually.
150 Years Ago
Birds Do It
Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, "the chief work of my life," November 22, 1859. In it he marshals 20 years of biological and geological observations to support his theory that the descent—he will not use the word "evolution" until 1872—of all creatures is governed by natural selection, "the preservation of favorable variations, and the rejection of injurious variations." The first printing of 1,250 copies sells out in a day, and Origin lays the groundwork for modern scientific thought.
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Comments (3)
Thanks for the effort you took to expand upon this topic so thoroughly. I look forward to future post.
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Please pass on the name of the poster that is pictured on page 30 of the November 2009 issue and where I can purchase a copy of it. Thank you. Nancy Salley
Posted by Nancy Salley on November 10,2009 | 10:40 AM
Re. Your article on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall/Nov. 2009.
How interesting and disappointing, that a magazine such as Smithsonian, which should be an example of historical integrity, would omit the true hero of the fall of the Berlin Wall. President Ronald Wilson Reagan. The man who, standing before the wall, delivered one of the most effective, memorable speeches ever written, to the Russian Government. Proudly and bravely uttering the phrase, "Mr. Gorbachov, Tear Down this Wall", words that electrified the world. His picture should have accompanied the article.
Your actions are a good example of the lack of truth in liberal print media, and the dumbing down, and destruction of our once noble and admired, United States of America.
Posted by Judith Bisso on November 1,2009 | 12:33 PM