Tidbits of History, December 2

December 2 is:

National Fritters Day The Spanish created this fried food technique, but today almost every culture has its own version of fritters. Sometimes they’re sweet, sometimes they’re savory.

December 2, 1775 – The USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag was hoisted by John Paul Jones.

At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of the French, the first French Emperor in a thousand years.

Monroe Doctrine: In the State of the Union message of 1823, U.S. President James Monroe proclaimed American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas.

Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announced to Congress in 1845 that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

Militant abolitionist leader John Brown was hanged for his October 16, 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

1865 – Alabama ratifies 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, followed by North Carolina then Georgia, and U.S. slaves were legally free within two weeks.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wed second wife, Edith Kermit Carow, in London in 1886. He would become the 26th U. S. President in 1901. Roosevelt’s first wife had died Feb 14, 1884 of kidney disease, only eleven hours after the death of his mother from typhoid fever.

Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveiled the Ford Model A in 1927 as its new automobile.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency began operations on December 2, 1970. In 2013 the EPA had 15,913 employees and an annual budget of $7.9 billion.