Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avrogative.

This day, December 17, 1900 Ellis Island in New York Harbor opens as an immigration inspection station.

On the day it welcomed over 2,000 immigrants to the United States, the island had been used as an immigration facility a few

years earlier but that building burned down and this was the opening of the

fancy new building and would turn Ellis Island into Ellis Island. In many ways the symbol of the American immigrant

experience at least in the first few decades of the 20th century. I don't really

need to play up the significance of Ellis Island both in terms of the way the

immigrants who came through there transformed this country but also the place

it has in the public imagination.

So let's just get into this segment.

I will say though that I really like doing something in 1900.

Nicky we've done like I was looking at all the years we've done it was like 1834 and

1917 and all that stuff and it's just 1900 nice and clean that's not the only

reason we're doing this but I do like the cleanliness of that.

But mostly for the nice round number.

Yes, exactly.

It will just be easier to type when I write,

when I post the episode, fewer characters.

Be easier to do math when you're trying to figure out how far away it was.

Exactly.

That of course is Nicole Hammer of Columbia.

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