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On the date

Wednesday, November 25, 1908

From the day

Perspective: The Street Photographer · Sound

The heavy yellow fog chokes the harbor, turning the gaslight to a ghost’s glow and muffling the desperate clang of the fire engine lost somewhere near the docks. My word, the grit on my lens feels like charcoal, but the soot-stained collars and long wool coats of the panicked commuters make for a haunting frame against the gray. In the shadows of a newsstand, three boys are huddled away from the damp, snapping down the red and black cards of a Rook game with feverish intensity. They're whistling a muffled, tuneless version of "Shine On, Harvest Moon" to drown out the low groan of the stranded ferry whistles.

Memories from that day

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The Headlines

WORST FOG IN YEARS CLOGS CITY AND BAY; Ocean and Sound Liners Held Up and All Ferry Service Crippled. FIRE ENGINE GOES ASTRAY Sailor Knocked Overboard and Drowned in Collision; Girl Hurled from Auto; Man Killed by Cars.

Read in The New York Times →

Best-selling Sheet Music

Shine On, Harvest Moon

Nora Bayes & Jack Norworth

The must-have

Rook (Card Game)

Slang

Slang of the decade

General

bullyfit as a fiddleblockhead

Aristocrat

capitalmy wordbally

Working Class

gadzooksblimeychump

Catchphrases of 1908

  • Take me out to the ball game

Tech Check

Ford Model T (Assembly Line), Geiger Counter & Cellophane.

Cost of Living (1900)

Loaf of Bread

$0.05

Gallon of Gas

$0.10

Average Home

$3,200

New Car

$1,000

Time Elapsed

42,926 days ago

(117 years, 221 days)