Sunday, December 9, 2012

December In History

Every month on the calendar has its notable dates in history whether of major significance or merely a fun remembrance.  I've gathered a sampling of each to share with you here.

December 1          Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print (1887)
December 1          Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man which sparked a black boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, public transportation system, a significant event in the Civil Rights Movement (1955)

December 2          Barney Clark received the world's first artificial heart transplant (1982)

December 5          The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment thus putting an end to Prohibition, the only amendment to the Constitution ever repealed (1933)

December 7          Martin Van Buren elected the 8th President of the United States, the first president to be born in the U.S. (1836)
December 7          Thomas Edison exhibited the phonograph (1877)
December 7          Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, bombed by the Japanese marking the U.S. entry into World War II (1941)

December 8          John Lennon murdered in New York City (1980)

December 10        Wyoming, a U.S. Territory not yet a state, allowed women to vote and hold office (1869)
December 10        Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., received the Nobel Peace Prize (1964)

December 13        The Clip-on tie was invented (1928)

December 15        The Bill of Rights were enacted, creating the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution (1791)
December 15        Gone With The Wind premiered in Atlanta (1939)

December 16        Boston residents protested a British tax by throwing barrels of tea over the side of a British ship in the harbor, known as the Boston Tea Party that sparked the beginning of the American Revolution (1773)
December 16        The World War II Battle of the Bulge began (1944)

December 17        Wright Brothers made their first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (1903)

December 19        Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol (1843)

December 21        Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620)
December 21        Snow White premiered in theaters (1937)

December 23        Transistor invented by U.S. physicists (1947)

December 24        Franz Joseph Gruber composed Silent Night (1818)

December 25        William the Conqueror crowned King of England (1066)

December 26        James Mason invented the coffee percolator (1865)

December 27        Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City (1932)

December 28        William F. Semple patented chewing gum (1869)

December 30        Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other galactic systems (1924)

And that's only a sampling of what history in December offers.

2 comments:

morgan said...

Hi Shawna,
Nice blog. Did you know we've only been celebrating Christmas in the US for about 150 years. The Puritans were against it, and folks, even Congress met on Christmas day.

When it first started it was such a rowdy holiday--they had to have extra police to patrol streets in major cities. LOL

Children didn't start getting presents until Clement Moore's poem The Night Before Christmas was published.

Shawna Delacorte said...

Hi, Morgan. Yes...I did a blog a couple of years ago about the history of Christmas and came across that information. It's strange to think that at one time Christmas was the type of celebration somewhat akin to today's Mardi Gras revelry. :)

Thanks for your comment.