Tidbits of History, December 9

December 9 is:

Christmas Card Day

Weary Willie Day from the birthday of Emmett Kelly, American clown who created “Weary Willie”

National Pastry Day

Birthday of John Milton, (December 9, 1608) poet, author of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained.

Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captured San Antonio, Texas in 1835. ‎The Battle of the Alamo took place the following year (February 23 – March 6, 1836).

Ten years later, on December 9, 1845, President James K Polk sent a special message:

To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I communicate herewith a letter received from the President of the existing Government of the State of Texas, transmitting duplicate copies of the constitution formed by the deputies of the people of Texas in convention assembled, accompanied by official information that the said constitution had been ratified, confirmed, and adopted by the people of Texas themselves, in accordance with the joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States, and in order that Texas might be admitted as one of the States of that Union.

From: James K. Polk: “Special Message,” December 9, 1845. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

The poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was published in England in 1854 about the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Includes:

“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.”

Statistician Herman Hollerith installed his computing device at the United States War Department in 1888.

From Free Dictionary.com
Tanzania Independence Day
Tanzania Independence Day is a celebration of independence from the British in 1961 of Tanganyika, which merged with Zanzibar in 1964 to become Tanzania. The day is a national holiday celebrated with parades, youth leagues marching before the president at the stadium in Dar es Salaam, school games, cultural dances, and aerobatics by the air force.

The Petrified Forest National Park was established in Arizona in 1962. Petrified Forest National Park is known for its fossils, especially of fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic period of the Mesozoic era, about 225 million years ago. During this period, the region that is now the park was near the equator on the southwestern edge of the supercontinent Pangaea, and its climate was humid and sub-tropical. What later became northeastern Arizona was a low plain flanked by mountains to the south and southeast and a sea to the west. Streams flowing across the plain from the highlands deposited inorganic sediment and organic matter, including trees as well as other plants and animals that had entered or fallen into the water. Although most organic matter decays rapidly or is eaten by other organisms, some is buried so quickly that it remains intact and may become fossilized.

A Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuted on CBS in 1965.

Phoenix Arizona, got 3 inches of snow in 1985.