200 years ago, throughout November 1803, Captains Meriwether Lewis & William Clark headed down the Ohio River to its junction with the Mississippi River. On November 11-13, they stopped at Massac on the Illinois side of the Ohio River, 35 miles above its merger with the Mississippi. On November 20, they began the difficult journey up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. On November 28, they reached Kaskaskia, Ill., 60 miles below St. Louis.
125 years ago, Nov. 5, 1878, the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1858. The Greenback Labor Party won 14 seats. And yellow fever killed more than 14,000 southerners in the second half of 1878.
100 years ago, on Nov. 2, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the cruiser Nashville to protect the newly independent Panama isthmus nation. On Nov. 23, 1903, Enrico Caruso made his U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera, in Rigoletto. On the same day, the automatic car starter was patented by D.J. Coleman, of New York.
75 years ago, on Nov. 6, 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover beat Democrat Alfred E. Smith. To beam out the news, the first electric flashing sign was installed on all four sides of the New York Times building in New York City. The 360-foot-long signs used more than 14,000 lamps and more than one million feet of wire. The resulting display featured more than 21-million flashes per hour.
25 years ago, on Nov. 1, 1978, the "Carter package" of monetary reforms earmarked $30 billion in foreign currencies to support the dollar, which had sunk to about 1.3 to the Swiss franc (from 4.3 in 1971). A euphoric stock market gained 35.34 Dow points (+4.5%) in the exchange's first 50-million share trading day. Alas, the Carter package backfired, as inflation kept rising. Thanksgiving time turned deadly on Nov. 18, 1978, when Jim Jones and his crew murdered California Rep. Leo Ryan (D.) and four others in Guyana, then instigated a mass suicide of nearly 1,000 church members.
