Today in History....November 14

* 1851, Herman Melville's novel "Moby-Dick" was first published in the United States

* 1862, President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg

* 1889, pioneer woman journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days.
She completed the trip in seventy-two days

* 1922, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom

* 1959, Clutter family murdered in rural Kansas, which inspired the Truman Capote novel, In Cold Blood

* 1969, Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon

* 1971, Mariner program: Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet

* 1972, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time

* 1979, amid the Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis

* 1982, Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border

* 1990, after German reunification, the (extended) Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland

* 1991, American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103

* 1995, a budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S.
Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs

* 2001, Afghan Northern Alliance fighters takeover the capital Kabul

* 2002, the US House of Representatives votes to not create an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks.