Mark Twain is born

November 30, 1835

THIS day, Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twin, is born in Florida, Missouri. Clemens was apprenticed to a printer at the age of 13. In 1857, the Keokuk Daily Post commissioned him to write a series of comic travel letters, but after writing five he decided to become a steamboat captain instead.

Clemens piloted boats for two years, until the Civil War halted steamboat traffic. Clemens returned to writing in 1861 and worked for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Later, he worked as a reporter in San Francisco then travelled to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union. He then continued to write travel accounts and lecture. He also wrote novels but among many other Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi and his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn grabbed enormous fame. He died in 1910.

Ford’s assembly line starts rolling

December 1, 1913

ON this day, Henry Ford installed the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to two hours and 30 minutes.

Inspired by the continuous-flow production methods used by flour mills, canneries and industrial bakeries, Ford installed moving lines for bits and pieces of the manufacturing process: For instance, workers built motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulley–powered conveyor belts.

Later he added a mechanised belt that chugged along at a speed of six feet per minute. As the pace accelerated, Ford produced more and more cars, and in the next five years, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park assembly line.

Napoleon crowned emperor

December 2, 1804

THIS day, in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold the title of emperor in a thousand years. Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old conqueror of Europe placed on his own head.

The Corsican-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. Napoleon after encountering significant defeats in his military career, exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa, where he lived with a few followers. In May 1821, he died, most likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old.