November 14
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/november-14
On November 14, 1851, Moby-**** is published. Now considered a great classic of American literature—with one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: “Call me Ishmael”—the book about Captain Ahab and his quest to catch a giant white whale was originally a big flop.
On November 14, 1776, the St. James Chronicleof London carries an item announcing “The very identical Dr. Franklyn [Benjamin Franklin], whom Lord Chatham [former leading parliamentarian and colonial supporter William Pitt] so much caressed, and used to say he was proud in calling his friend, is now at the head of the rebellion in North America.”
On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging his Muslim followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I.
On November 14, 1970, a chartered jet carrying most of the Marshall University football team clips a stand of trees and crashes into a hillsidejust two miles from the Tri-State Airport in Kenova, West Virginia, killing everyone onboard.The team was returning from that day’s game, a 17-14 loss to East Carolina University. Thirty-seven Marshall football players were aboard the plane, along with the team’s coach, its doctors, the university athletic director and 25 team boosters–some of Huntington, West Virginia’s most prominent citizens–who had traveled to North Carolina to cheer on the Thundering Herd. “The whole fabric,” a citizen of Huntington wrote later, “the whole heart of the town was aboard.”