Moments in Time – November 2, 2022

#Middlebury

• On Nov. 14, 1889, journalist Nellie Bly took a page from Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in 80 Days” by following in the footsteps of the book’s protagonist, Phileas Fogg, and embarked on her own adventure, starting in Hoboken, New Jersey. She chronicled the trip in her book “Around the World in 72 Days.”
• On Nov. 15, 1949, Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and six of their co-conspirators in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi were hanged at the Ambala jail. Godse, unhappy over Gandhi’s accommodation of Indian Muslims, had shot Gandhi the previous January while Gandhi was out for his evening prayers.
• On Nov. 16, 1990, Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus, known to the pop music world as Milli Vanilli, were humiliatingly stripped of their Grammy award for the “Girl You Know It’s True” album when it was revealed they hadn’t sung even a note of it.
• On Nov. 17, 1827, the Delta Phi fraternity, America’s oldest continuous social fraternity, was founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York. With just 10 active chapters today, it has resisted expansion in order to create an “intimate, personal experience” for its members.
• On Nov. 18, 1872, American civil rights activist Susan B. Anthony and 14 of her brave female cohorts were arrested for voting illegally in the United States presidential election of 1872. Though she was fined $100, she refused to pay a cent of it.
• On Nov. 19, 1493, Christopher Columbus set foot on the island called Borinquen, which he had viewed for the first time the day before. He rechristened it San Juan Bautista, but today we know it as Puerto Rico.
• On Nov. 20, 1805, Beethoven’s only opera, “Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Fidelity” (later known as Fidelio), premiered in Vienna – not to its originally intended audience of the aristocracy and Imperial court, who had fled before Napoleon’s advancing army, but a small audience of French officers. Their unsurprising lack of enthusiasm shelved the project for nearly a decade.

© 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.