A collector's stock book for one date: the night the sky rained meteors, the rainy beach where Seattle began 175 years ago today, a tunnel that breathes, a film you could hear from behind, a court order that ended a 381-day boycott, and a prime number with 420,921 digits.
Nine November 13ths, filed in the strips oldest first. Pick up a stamp to read its story on the approval card; arrow keys move along the rows.
Stock page 13 · November9 of 9 filled
Approval card · 1 of 9Hinge-free, examined with tongs
The night the stars fell
Before dawn, November 13, 1833 · eastern North America
For a few hours before sunrise, meteors streaked across skies from New England to the frontier at a rate later estimated at 50,000 to 150,000 an hour. People woke neighbors, rang bells and wrote to their local papers. A young Abraham Lincoln is said to have watched it in Illinois.
Yale professor Denison Olmsted asked the public for observations, then worked through the letters. His conclusion was new: the meteors came from space, not the weather, and all of them seemed to fly out of one point in the constellation Leo. That shower is now called the Leonids, and the 1833 storm is often counted as the start of meteor science.
50k–150kestimated meteors an hour
Leothe radiant Olmsted traced them to
~33 yrsgap between great storms
Seattle begins on a wet beach
November 13, 1851 · Alki Point, Puget Sound
The schooner Exact, out of Portland since November 5, put the Denny Party ashore at Alki Point: 24 people, half of them children, led by Arthur Denny. The cabin scouts had started was not finished and it was raining. One of the settlers wrote that the women sat on the logs and had a big cry.
They called the place New York, later teased into "New York Alki," Chinook Jargon for "by and by." Low and Terry had already claimed the Alki land and few newcomers came, so in April 1852 most of the group moved across Elliott Bay to the east shore, today's Pioneer Square. Charles Terry stayed on the point. Today marks 175 years.
24people landed, 12 of them children
8 daysPortland to Alki on the Exact
175years ago today
A tunnel that breathes
12:01 a.m., November 13, 1927 · Hudson River
The Holland Tunnel, the first vehicle tunnel under the Hudson, opened to traffic one minute after midnight following a ceremony the evening before. By the end of the day 52,285 vehicles had driven between Jersey City and Lower Manhattan, more than its planned capacity. A car paid 50 cents.
Its real invention was air. Four ventilation buildings with 84 fans can replace all the air inside about every 90 seconds, making it the first mechanically ventilated underwater road tunnel. Chief engineer Clifford Holland died in 1924 at 41, before the two headings met; Ole Singstad, who designed the ventilation, finished the job.
52,285vehicles on day one
84fans, about 90 s per full air change
8,558 ftthe longer, westbound tube
A film you could hear from behind
November 13, 1940 · Broadway Theatre, New York
Walt Disney's Fantasia opened as a reserved-seat roadshow, with an intermission and eight animated pieces set to classical music played by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Theaters had to be refitted for Fantasound, built with RCA: speakers left, center and right of the screen, plus more in the auditorium. It was the first commercial film released in stereo.
Critics praised it, but the $2.28 million picture lost money at first; the war closed Europe and only a few theaters could be fitted for Fantasound. It ran 49 weeks at the Broadway, earned its money back in later reissues and joined the National Film Registry in 1990.
8animated segments
49 wksrun at the Broadway Theatre
$2.28Mbudget, a loss at first
Dynamo Moscow come to London
November 13, 1945 · Stamford Bridge
Six months after the war in Europe ended, Soviet champions Dynamo Moscow opened a British tour against Chelsea in front of a crowd Dynamo puts at about 90,000, a record for a British club match. Chelsea led 2–0 at halftime and 3–2 late; Vsevolod Bobrov leveled at 3–3 seven minutes from time.
Dynamo went home unbeaten: 10–1 at Cardiff City, 4–3 over Arsenal in thick fog, and 2–2 at Rangers. Their passing and fitness made a strong impression on British football, and the tour is still argued over as early Cold War sport.
3–3Chelsea vs. Dynamo
~90,000crowd at Stamford Bridge
19–9Dynamo's goals over four games
The order that ended the boycott
November 13, 1956 · U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court affirmed a three-judge federal panel's 2–1 ruling from June that Alabama's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. The plaintiffs were four Montgomery women: Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith. Martin Luther King Jr. heard the news that day while in court defending the boycott's carpools.
The written order reached Montgomery on December 20, after the Court rejected appeals for reconsideration. That night the Montgomery Improvement Association voted to end the boycott, and on December 21 Black riders went back on desegregated buses after 381 days.
4plaintiffs who saw the case through
2–1district court vote, June 5, 1956
381days the boycott lasted
The Wall is dedicated
November 13, 1982 · National Mall, Washington
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated at the end of a five-day salute, after thousands of veterans marched to the site. Its design came from a national competition: entry No. 1026 of 1,421, by Maya Lin, then a Yale student. Two walls of polished black granite from India meet in a shallow V that sinks into the ground.
The names are listed in the order the service members died, not alphabetically, so the wall reads like a timeline of the war. 57,939 names were carved by the dedication; more have been added since, bringing the total to 58,320 as of 2018.
1,421designs entered
246′ 9″length of each wall
58,320names as of 2018
A prime found by volunteers
November 13, 1996 · Paris
Joel Armengaud's 90 MHz Pentium finished an 88-hour test and showed that 21,398,269 − 1 is prime. At 420,921 digits it was the largest known prime, the 35th Mersenne prime, and the first win for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a project where volunteers lend spare computer time.
Armengaud was one of about 700 people running George Woltman's free Lucas–Lehmer software at the time. David Slowinski, co-discoverer of the previous record, verified the result independently.
420,921digits
88 hrson a 90 MHz Pentium
35thMersenne prime known
Totality over Cairns, then the Pacific
November 13, 2012 (UTC) · northern Australia to the South Pacific
The Moon's shadow touched down at sunrise in Australia's Far North, where it was already the morning of November 14. Cairns got about two minutes of totality starting at 6:38 a.m. local time with the Sun low in the east; clouds hid it for many of the crowds on the beaches.
The shadow then crossed open ocean for hours. The longest totality, about 4 minutes 2 seconds, fell over empty sea far east of New Zealand, and the path ended over the ocean west of Chile. The track was up to 179 km wide.
2:01minutes of totality at Cairns
4:02longest totality, mid-Pacific
179 kmwidest point of the path
Stamps are original drawings made for this page; none reproduces an issued stamp.
II
Still in the mail
Two of today's stamps have a sequel this month.
LEO
Look up · night of Nov. 17–18
The Leonids peak next week
The shower behind the 1833 storm returns every November as Earth crosses the trail of comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. This year's peak is forecast for 0:00 UTC on November 18, which is 6 p.m. Central on the 17th; the radiant in Leo rises late, so the best hours are midnight to dawn.
Rate
about 10–15 an hour under dark skies; no storm is expected
Moon
first quarter, setting around midnight
Speed
about 69 km/s, so swift, often with trains
175
Anniversary · today
Alki Point, 175 years on
Seattle traces its start to the Denny Party's landing on November 13, 1851. The Exact's passengers soon moved to the far side of Elliott Bay, but the point where they came ashore is now part of West Seattle, marked by a monument and a beach park.