NOVEMBER 15th

On this date in:
1777	The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, precursor to the U.S. Constitution.
1806	Explorer Zebulon Pike spotted the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak.
1889	Brazil's monarchy was overthrown.
1926	The National Broadcasting Co. debuted with a radio network of 24 stations.
1939	President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1940	The first 75,000 men were called to armed forces duty under peacetime conscription.
1982	Funeral services were held in Moscow for Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.
1984	Baby Fae, the month-old infant who had received a baboon's heart to replace her own congenitally deformed one, died at a California medical center three weeks after the transplant.
1985	Britain and Ireland signed an accord giving Dublin an official consultative role in governing Northern Ireland.
1986	A government tribunal in Nicaragua convicted American Eugene Hasenfus of delivering arms to Contra rebels and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He was pardoned a month later.
1988	The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, proclaimed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
1993	A judge in Mineola, N.Y., sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in jail for the statutory rape of Amy Fisher, who shot and wounded Buttafuoco's wife, Mary Jo.
2002	Hu Jintao replaced Jiang Zemin as China's Communist Party leader.
2005	Baseball players and owners agreed on a tougher steroids-testing policy.
2006	One of four U.S. soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family pleaded guilty at Fort Campbell, Ky. (Spec. James P. Barker, who agreed to testify against the others, was later sentenced to 90 years in prison.)
2007	Baseball home run king Barry Bonds was indicted on charges related to grand jury testimony during which he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. (Bonds has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.)

Article of the day

First stock ticker debuts

On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City. The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or messenger.

The ticker was the brainchild of Edward Calahan, who configured a telegraph machine to print stock quotes on streams of paper tape (the same paper tape later used in ticker-tape parades). The ticker, which caught on quickly with investors, got its name from the sound its type wheel made.

Calahan worked for the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, which rented its tickers to brokerage houses and regional exchanges for a fee and then transmitted the latest gold and stock prices to all its machines at the same time. In 1869, Thomas Edison, a former telegraph operator, patented an improved, easier-to-use version of Calahan's ticker. Edison's ticker was his first lucrative invention and, through the manufacture and sale of stock tickers and other telegraphic devices, he made enough money to open his own lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he developed the light bulb and phonograph, among other transformative inventions.

The last mechanical stock ticker debuted in 1960 and was eventually replaced by computerized tickers with electronic displays. A ticker shows a stock's symbol, how many shares have traded that day and the price per share. It also tells how much the price has changed from the previous day's closing price and whether it's an up or down change. A common misconception is that there is one ticker used by everyone. In fact, private data companies run a variety of tickers; each provides information about a select mix of stocks.

Today Birthdays

Sam Waterston turns 68 years old today.

AP Photo/Peter Kramer Actor Sam Waterston ("Law and Order") turns 68 years old today.

89 Joseph Wapner TV personality ("The People's Court") 83 Howard Baker Former U.S. senator, R-Tenn. 79 Ed Asner Actor ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Lou Grant") 76 Petula Clark Singer 75 Jack Burns Comedian 74 Joanna Barnes Actress 63 Frida Pop singer (ABBA) 63 Bob Gunton Actor 61 Bill Richardson Governor of New Mexico 55 James Widdoes Director 54 Beverly D'Angelo Actress 54 Mitch Easter Rock producer 51 Kevin Eubanks Bandleader ("The Tonight Show With Jay Leno") 46 Judy Gold Comedian 41 E-40 Rapper 39 Rachel True Actress 38 Jack Ingram Country singer 36 Jonny Lee Miller Actor 35 Sydney Tamiia Actress 34 Chad Kroeger Rock musician (Nickelback) 34 Jesse Sandoval Rock musician (The Shins) 32 Virginie Ledoyen Actress