A Tale of Two Cities is published

November 15, 1859

ON this day, Charles Dickens’ serialised novel, A Tale of Two Cities, comes to a close, as the final chapter is published in Dickens’ circular, All the Year Round.

Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown in debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory.

The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.

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November 16, 2001

THIS day, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first movie adapted from the mega-best-selling fantasy novel of the same name by the British author J.K. Rowling, opens in theatres across the US.

The movie went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies in history. To date, the Harry Potter films are the most financially successful series having surpassed both the Star Wars and James Bond franchises.

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November 21, 1877

ON this day, Thomas Edison, announces his invention of the phonograph, a way to record and playback sound.

Edison stumbled upon the phonograph while working on a way to record telephone communication at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His work led him to experiment with a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his surprise, played back the short song he had recorded, ‘Mary had a little lamb’.