Tidbits of History

December 8 is:

National Chocolate Brownie Day

Bodhi Day is a holiday celebrated by Buddhists. It commemorates the day that Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha) achieved enlightenment. Traditionally the day is celebrated with meditation, chanting, or performing acts of kindness to others. See How to Celebrate Bodhi Day for suggestions such as “colored lights are strung about the home to recognize the day of enlightenment.”

Beach Day or Blessing of the Water Day in Uruguay.
Sometimes called “Beach Day,” this Uruguayan holiday involves a contest: Religious leaders send a cross into the ocean, and whoever gets to it first is guaranteed a year’s worth of good fortune. Read the full text here: Offbeat Holidays

Take it in the Ear Day A day to listen to others.

Feast day of Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, was the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her mother’s womb, free from original sin.

Birthday of Eli Whitney (December 8, 1765), born in Westboro, MA. Whitney invented the cotton gin and developed the concept of mass-production of interchangeable parts.

Publication of Federalist Paper #19: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union written by Alexander Hamilton and/or James Madison in 1787. In Paper #18 Madison spoke of the failure of ancient Greek confederacies. In this Paper #19 he considers several existing confederacies – German, Polish, and Swiss. He speaks of conflicts between the members or from foreign powers. He is using these examples to demonstrate the weakness of the government under the Articles of Confederation.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South in 1863.
Even before the war ended, President Lincoln began the task of restoration. Motivated by a desire to build a strong Republican party in the South and to end the bitterness engendered by war, he issued (Dec. 8, 1863) a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction for those areas of the Confederacy occupied by Union armies. It offered pardon, with certain exceptions, to any Confederate who would swear to support the Constitution and the Union. Once a group in any conquered state equal in number to one tenth of that state’s total vote in the presidential election of 1860 took the prescribed oath and organized a government that abolished slavery, he would grant that government executive recognition.

Read more: Reconstruction: Lincoln’s Plan | Infoplease.com

1886-12-08 – American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed by 26 craft unions Samuel Gompers elected AFL president.

1940 – According to History.com, Bears beat Redskins 73-0 in an NFL Championship Game, the largest margin of defeat in NFL history.

The Bears, coached by George Halas, brought a 6-2 record to their regular-season meeting with the Redskins in Washington on November 17, 1940. After Chicago lost 3-7, the Redskins coach, George Preston Marshall, told reporters that Halas and his team were “quitters” and “cry babies.” Halas used Marshall’s words to galvanize his players, and the Bears scored 78 points in their next two games to set up a showdown with the Redskins in the league’s championship game on December 8, also in Washington.

Less than a minute into the game, the Bears’ running back Bill Osmanski ran 68 yards to score the first touchdown. After the Redskins narrowly missed an opportunity to tie the game, the Bears clamped down and began to dominate, leaving the field at halftime with a 28-0 lead. Things only got worse for the Redskins, and by the end of the second half officials were asking Halas not to let his team kick for extra points, as they were running out of footballs after too many had been kicked into the stands.

On Dec. 8, 1941, the United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Japan one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota Apartments in New York City in 1980.

December 6 is the 341st day of the year.

St. Nicholas Day Children in families who celebrate St Nicholas’ Day receive treats – including candy, cookies, small toys, or fruit – in stockings, socks, shoes or bags on December 6. The legendary figure of St. Nicholas is derived from Nicholas of Myra who officiated as a bishop in 4th century Greece. During his lifetime he developed a reputation for gift-giving by putting coins into other people’s shoes, which accounts for many of today’s Christmas traditions that involve leaving gifts in shoes or boots. {In my family, St. Nicholas filled up stockings on December 6. We didn’t have stockings on Christmas Day.}

In the 16th Century in Europe, the stories and traditions about St. Nicholas had become very unpopular. But someone had to deliver presents to children at Christmas, so in the UK, he became ‘Father Christmas’, a character from old children’s stories; in France, he was then known as ‘Père Nöel’; in Germany, the ‘Christ Kind’. In the early USA his name was ‘Kris Kringle’. Later, Dutch settlers in the USA took the old stories of St. Nicholas with them and Kris Kringle became ‘Sinterklaas’ or as we now say ‘Santa Claus’! It is from St. Nicholas that Santa Claus is sometimes referred to as “Old St. Nick”.

Mitten Tree Day

National Gazpacho Day

The city of Quito in Ecuador was founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar in 1534. Celebrated on December 6th as Founder’s Day in Ecuador.

The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published on this date in 1768.

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in America, and was ratified on December 6, 1865, after the conclusion of the American Civil War. The amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., was completed in 1884.
From History.com

Made of some 36,000 blocks of marble and granite stacked 555 feet in the air, the monument was the tallest structure in the world at the time of its completion in December 1884. In the six months following the dedication ceremony, over 10,000 people climbed the nearly 900 steps to the top of the Washington Monument. Today, an elevator makes the trip far easier, and more than 800,000 people visit the monument each year. A city law passed in 1910 restricted the height of new buildings to ensure that the monument will remain the tallest structure in Washington, D.C.–a fitting tribute to the man known as the “Father of His Country.”

On this date in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt articulated his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable.

December 5 is:
Repeal (of Prohibition) Day

National Sacher Torte Day It consists of two layers of dense chocolate cake with apricot preserves between the layers, chocolate icing, and whipped cream. This cake is the pride of Vienna.

Comfort Food Day

Bathtub Party Day

International Ninja Day

London auctioneers Christie’s held their first sale December 5, 1766.

Publication of Federalist Paper #17: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union written by Alexander Hamilton in 1787. Hamilton addresses the issue of possible encroachment by the federal government on the powers of the states. He says that the states have more direct power over the citizens, especially in criminal and civil justice and that the nature of man dictates that citizens will be more attached to their own state governments than to a federal government.

Birthday of Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782), eighth President of the United States.
The term “O.K.” was popularized because Van Buren was from Kinderhook, New York, sometimes referred to as “Old Kinderhook” in speeches and print. O.K. Clubs formed to support Van Buren’s campaign. “O.K.” later came to mean all right.

Points of Interest:

• Van Buren was the first president born a citizen of the United States.
• Van Buren was the only president who spoke English as a second language.
• His autobiography does not mention his wife once. A gentleman of that day would not shame a lady by public references
• Van Buren took $100,000, the sum of his salary as president over four years, in a lump sum at the end of his term.
• Martin Van Buren said that the two happiest days of his life were his entrance into the office of President and his surrender of the office.
• Van Buren made three unsuccessful bids for reelection.
• It has been reported that Van Buren enjoyed the night life and was known to imbibe, often staying up until the wee hours of the morning. As a result, he was not easy to rouse out of bed. This presented a problem when Van Buren was Vice President. He once lay in bed so late that he could not reach the Senate by noon in order to call that body to order.
• Van Buren was only about five foot six inches tall and very fussy about his appearance.

California Gold Rush of 1849: In a message to the U.S. Congress in 1848, U.S. President James K. Polk confirmed that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California, leading to the Gold Rush of 1849.

1872 – The crewless American ship Mary Celeste was found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged. None of those on board were ever seen or heard from again.

Birthday of Walt Disney, (Dec. 5, 1901), the pioneer of animated cartoon films and founder of the Disney theme parks.

Prohibition in the United States ended in 1933: Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to enact the amendment. (This overturned the 18th Amendment which had made the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol illegal in the United States.)

TV series “Dragnet” premiered in 1951. Starred Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday and Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon.

On December 5, 2008, human remains previously found in 1991 were finally identified by Russian and American scientists as those of Tsar Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov) who had been executed along with his entire family on 17 July 1918. Pictured (left to right): Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.

December 4 is:

National Cookie Day
Cookies were invented during the seventh century in Persia. Right around the time that sugar became a common resource in that region.

Santas’ List Day – “He’s making a list and checking it twice!”

Wear Brown Shoes Day

In 1674, Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek. (The mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois.)

Publication of Federalist Paper #16: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union written by Alexander Hamilton in 1787. Hamilton continues to push for a strong central government. In this article Hamilton speaks of states or groups of states resisting general authority and how that would lead to civil war and the disbanding of the Union. He makes a distinction between noncompliance and active resistance to federal mandates. He says the laws set forth by the federal government should not require the intervention of the state legislatures but directly apply to the people.

Peter Gaillard patented the power mower in 1812.

North Carolina ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

William Magear Tweed , the “Boss” of New York City’s Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled to Spain from the U.S. in 1875. He was returned to custody in 1876. He died of pneumonia in the Ludlow Street Jail in 1878. Tweed was convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an aldermen’s committee in 1877 at between $25 million and $45 million from New York City taxpayers through political corruption, although later estimates ranged as high as $200 million.

1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sailed for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.

1945 – By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approved United States participation in the United Nations. (The UN had been established on October 24, 1945.)

1954 – The first Burger King opened in Miami, Florida. At the end of fiscal year 2013, Burger King reported it had over 13,000 outlets in 79 countries; of these, 66 percent are in the United States.

Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco’s first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been assassinated in 1978.

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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.

December 1 is:

Eat a Red Apple Day The phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” was coined by J. T. Sinson at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis to promote apples as a healthy snack.

National Fried Pie Day
Per Foodimentary.com:
Fried apple pies were first introduced in McDonald’s in 1968, originally fried in lard.
New Hampshire fried pies were the favorite dessert of U.S. president Franklin Pierce.

National French Fried Clam Day

National Handwashing Awareness week

World Aids Awareness Day

If the arm of King Henry I (born c 1068; died December 1, 1135) of England had been forty-two inches long, the unit of measure of a “foot” today would be fourteen inches. But his arm happened to be thirty-six inches long and he decreed that the standard “foot” should be one-third that length – twelve inches.

From Asimov, Isaac. Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts. New York, Bell Publishing Company, 1981

Birthday of Marie Tussaud (December 1, 1761), French-born artist who became known for her wax sculptures and the wax museum that she founded in London.

Publication of Federalist Paper #15: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union written by Alexander Hamilton in 1787. In Paper #15 Hamilton opens the subject of the insuffiencies of the Articles of Confederation. This subject is discussed in this and following Papers. Under the Articles, the federal government could pass laws requisitioning men and money but had no authority over the individual citizens of the States to raise either. The national government could not enforce its laws because the states cannot be thrown in jail. He says “we must extend the authority of the union to the persons of the citizens, the only proper objects of government”.

United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In February, 1825, John Quincy Adams was declared to be president-elect.

1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas. It was introduced nationally in the United States at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition as a new kind of soda pop, made with 23 flavors. Its introduction in 1885 preceded the introduction of Coca-Cola by one year. Like many early sodas, the drink was marketed as a brain tonic and energizing pick-me-up, so one theory holds that it was named for the pep it supposedly gave to users.

Birthday of Rex Stout (December 1, 1886), American author best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective, Nero Wolfe. The Nero Wolfe stories are narrated by Wolfe’s assistant, Archie Goodwin, who is presented as having recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair).

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.