It’s November 14, the day James Bruce discovered the source of the Nile River. He traced it all the way to an Ethiopian town called Gish Abay. There was a fresh water spring there, and Bruce declared it to be the source of the river. There was at least one hole in his story, though; the Nile splits into two streams in Khartoum (in Sudan) — the main one is called the White Nile. Bruce had been following the other one; the Blue Nile. Not that the Blue Nile is insignificant; for part of its length it flows through canyons just as deep as the Grand Canyon — it’s just that they’re not well known because they’re still nearly impossible to get to.
Speaking of nearly impossible quests, today is also the day, in 1851, that Moby Dick was first published. Nowadays everybody thinks it’s one of the best novels ever written, but that wasn’t how it was regarded at first. Reviewers weren’t thrilled with it, and it ended up not making Melville much money at all. It didn’t even stay in print for very long. It took until the early 20th century for it to be reconsidered and reappear on shelves.
One little-known fact about “Moby Dick” is that the whale was modeled after a real-life whale called Mocha Dick — it was also an albino whale, and escaped from whalers as many as 100 times, often wrecking their boats in retaliation. There was a book, Mocha Dick by Jeremiah Reynolds, that recounted as many encounters with the whale as could be gathered. It concluded with a story that the whale had finally been killed in 1838, but there was a hole in that story too — the whale was sighted again a few years later.
Whaling ships in the 19th century carried longboats that they would launch in pursuit when they spotted a whale. That might have been part of the inspiration for Eugene Ely’s accomplishment on November 14, 1910. He took off in a Curtiss Pusher biplane from the USS Birmingham, a 400-foot-long Navy cruiser with a makeshift platform built on the bow. Airplanes in 1910 didn’t have much power, but Ely punched it as much as possible for the takeoff. Even so, he almost didn’t make it — the plane dipped down toward the water and got so close the wheels got wet before Ely was able to pull up. Just to add another page to his binder of feats, Ely was also the first person to land a plane on a ship, just a few months later. Ely died in a crash in 1911, but was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, honoring his laser-like focus on naval aviation.
Of course they didn’t call it “laser-like” at the time; nobody had heard of a laser. That all changed on November 14, 1967 when Theodore Maiman received a patent for the first laser. There are quite a few types of lasers, but the first one was based on a ruby crystal. It was a synthetic ruby, and Maiman’s success surprised a number of other physicists who thought using a ruby would never work. But it did, and in fact worked so well that ruby lasers have been used to melt holes in solid steel.
By now you must have figured out what the premier November 14th event was — there have certainly been enough clues scattered around. But just in case, I’ll mention it anyway. It happened in 1886. It was an invention — by Friedrich Soennecken. (Ringing any bells yet?) Here’s another hint: Soennecken is nowadays known in Germany as a leading vendor of office supplies. OK, I’ll tell you. November 14, 1886 marks the invention of the hole punch and the ring binder! It’s okay; you can say you figured it out. You probably did anyway!
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