On 20 November 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the south Pacific. The Essex was 87′ 7″ while one report put the whale at 85′. First mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson each wrote accounts, the first an inspiration for Moby-Dick.
Chase and Nickerson would both die in Nantucket, as would the luckless Captain George Pollard Jr who lived out his life as the island’s nightwatchman. Herman Melville met him a few years after the publication of Moby-Dick and called him “the most impressive man, tho’ wholly unassuming, even humble—that I ever encountered.”
Later in life, Chase would hide food in his attic and was institutionalized for a number of years while every 20 November Pollard would lock himself in his room and fast in memory of the lost men.
American actor Robert Armstrong was born on 20 November 1890. When he and Fay Wray came to star in King Kong, it was only their day job. Each night – same jungle sets, same producers, same RKO – they would film The Most Dangerous Game, a story about shipwrecked survivors in the south Pacific. This time round, it was neither whaling nor cannibalism where the danger lay but a maniacal big game hunter preying on humans.
