MOMENTS IN TIME

. On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.

. On Nov. 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington. The long-awaited memorial was a simple V-shaped black-granite wall inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict, arranged in order of death, not rank, as was common in other memorials.

. On Nov. 14, 1851, “Moby Dick,” a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published. Initially the book was a flop. By the 1920s, scholars had rediscovered Melville’s work, and “Moby Dick” became a staple of high-school reading lists across the United States. 