This day in history

[Richard Frost]

The greatest and most famous clown of them all, and by whose name, Joey, all circus clowns became known, was born on this day, December 18, 1778.

1271 Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China

1621 English parliament accept unanimously, Protestation

1642 Abel Tasman's expedition sails around Farewell Spit and into Golden Bay, first sighting local Māori in New Zealand

1773 A skirmish at Grass Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound results in the deaths of two Māori and nine members of James Cook's expedition, New Zealand

1774 Empress Maria Theresa expels Jews from Prague, Bohemia and Moravia

1783 British King George III dismisses Duke of Portland's government

1793 Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French royalists to Lord Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck

1832 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard reaches Tierra del Fuego for the first time

1839 1st celestial photograph (of Moon) made in US by John Draper in New York City
1849 William Bond obtains 1st photograph of Moon through a telescope

1852 George Hamilton-Gordon (Peelite party) becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after the downfall of the Conservative government of Edward Smith-Stanley

1890 Frederick Lugard's British expedition to Meng and Kampala, Uganda

1899 Field Marshal Lord Roberts appointed British supreme commander in South Africa

1902 British parliament passes the Education Act, which will come to be regarded as the most important legislation of Arthur Balfour's government

1912 Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is supposedly found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson

1941 44 surviving crewmen of German U-434 surrender to the HMS Blankney after scuttling their wounded submarine. Two are lost.

1957 World's 1st full scale nuclear power plant, for peacetime use only, begins to generate electricity at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania

1960 General Meeting of UN condemns apartheid

1969 House of Lords votes to abolish the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (Northern Ireland 25 July 1973)

1971 Three members of the Irish Republican Army die when the bomb they were transporting explodes prematurely in King Street, Magherafelt, County Derry.

1985 UN Security Council unanimously condemns "acts of hostage-taking"

2011 The last US troops withdraw from Iraq, formally ending the Iraq War

2018 Meteor explodes in huge fireball over the Bering Sea with 10 times the energy of Hiroshima atomic bomb, 2nd largest in last 30 yrs

2020 International body Covax, established to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to low and middle income countries, announces deals with vaccine manufacturers and method for countries to share excess vaccines

2020 Moderna COVID-19 vaccine granted emergency authorization by US Food and Drug Administration

2020 South Africa announces detection of new variant of COVID-19, called 501.V2, which is driving a second wave of infections

[Richard Frost]

December 19th

1154 King Henry II of England crowned King of England

1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe's famous novel)

1783 William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest ever British Prime Minister at age 24

1835 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard arrives in New Zealand

1843 "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold

1888 Henry Morton Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa

1922 Theresa Vaughn, 24, confesses in court in Sheffield, England, to being married 61 times over 5 years in 50 cities in three countries

1924 The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

1932 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins transmitting overseas

1941 Adolf Hitler takes complete command of German Army

1942 Robert Stroud, convicted murderer, transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, where he becomes known as "Birdman of Alcatraz"

1949 Luxury passenger ship Aquitania demolished in Gareloch, Scotland

1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet forces the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to flee Lhasa for Yadong on the Tibetan-India border [1]

1971 Stanley Kubrick's X-rated film "A Clockwork Orange" based on the book by Anthony Burgess and starring Malcolm McDowell premieres

1974 "The Man with the Golden Gun", 9th James Bond film, starring Roger Moore, Britt Ekland and Christopher Lee, premieres in London

1978 Indira Gandhi 4th Prime Minister of India, ambushed in India

1981 Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee, Cornwall, lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.

1984 Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration to transfer Hong Kong back to China in 1997

1988 Unexploded WW II bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated

2013 81 people are injured after part of the ceiling caved in at London's Apollo Theatre

2014 The Guardian newspaper calls 2014 'The year the people stood up'

2018 Drones flying over Gatwick airport, England, causes delays and cancellations for 800 flights and 110,000 people

2019 Earliest fossilized trees, 386 million years old, found at a quarry in Cairo, New York, study published in "Current Biology"

[Richard Frost]

21 December 1988

A terrorist bomb destroys Pan Am Flight 103 mid-air, over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland; killing all 259 passengers and crew on board, and 11 people on the ground.

[Richard Frost]

1135 Norman nobles recognize Stefanus van Blois as English king

1688 Earl of Danby occupies York for King William III, Prince of Orange

1715 English pretender to the throne James III lands at Peterhead

1807 US Congress passes Embargo Act and President Thomas Jefferson signs into law. Prohibits American ships from trading in foreign ports, as result of involvement in hostilities between France and Britain

1810 British frigate HMS Minotaur sinks killing 480

1882 1st string of Christmas tree lights created by Thomas Edison

1941 Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C. for a wartime conference

1956 Last British & French troops leave Egypt

1964 Ballon d'Or: Manchester United striker Denis Law wins award for best European football player; beats Inter midfielder Luis Suárez and Real Madrid winger Amancio Amaro; first Scotsman to win the award

1965 Great Britain sets national maximum road speed at 70 miles per hour

1971 UN General Assembly ratifies former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General

1974 2nd cease-fire between IRA & British; lasts until approx April 1975

1974 Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb home of former UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath, just before announcing Christmas ceasefire

1978 Kenney Jones becomes The Who's new drummer, replacing the deceased Keith Moon

1990 Iraq announces it will never give up Kuwait

1990 Lech Wałęsa sworn in as Poland's 1st popularly elected president

2001 Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai

2001 Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.

2006 Australian archaeologist Sue O'Connor finds first evidence of modern humans in Jerimalai cave, near Lene Hara cave in East Timor

2010 Repeal of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell policy", a 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the US military, signed into law by President Barack Obama

2018 Tsunami hits Indonesia's Sunda Strait killing over 400 after part of the Anak Krakatoa volcano slips into the sea - Anak Krakatau – the “Child of Krakatoa” – erupts in December, 2018, causing more than 400 deaths

2019 New Orleans wide receiver Michael Thomas sets NFL record for most catches in a season with his 144th as Saints beat Tennessee 38-28; breaks 17-year old record held by Marvin Harrison (143)

[Richard Frost]

On the night of Dec. 23, 1888, in the throes of a mental breakdown, Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. From here, however, details scatter, leaving countless contradictions in their wake. “When I started looking into Vincent van Gogh, nothing made any sense,” said Irish art historian Bernadette Murphy in a recent interview.

[Richard Frost]

24th December 1974
British politician and one-time Labour minister, MP John Stonehouse, ended up faking his own death by pretending to have drowned off the Miami coast in 1974, but then was found to be alive and well when he turned up in Australia!

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian ... aked-death

[Richard Frost]

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is the festival celebrating the birth of Christ and is observed in most countries on December 25. Christmas is sometimes called Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon) or Noel (from the French). Christian churches throughout the world hold special services on Christmas Day to give thanks for the birth of Christ. In addition to religious observances, Christmas is a time of merrymaking and feasting. Customs are a combination of those of various European countries. On Christmas Eve children hang stockings for Santa Claus to fill with gifts. The Christmas tree, usually an evergreen, was first used in Germany. Topped with a star or spire and decorated with coloured lights and shiny ornaments, the tree plays an important part in the celebrations. Mistletoe was sacred to the Druids, priests of ancient Britain and Gaul. The Norse used holly and the Yule log to keep away evil spirits. Gifts were exchanged during the Roman celebration of the Saturnalia, a feast to the god Saturn. Gift-giving came to symbolize the gifts brought to the Christ Child by the Magi. The most popular Christmas legend however, is that of Santa Claus, whose name came from Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children. Many of the qualities that Santa Claus is known for came from Clement C. Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

[Richard Frost]

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

[Richard Frost]

27th December

1945 The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created
First conceived at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are formally created to help Europe rebuild after World War II. Over time, their focus will shift to providing loans to address poverty.

1977 Star Wars fever hits UK
Thousands flock to cinemas in the UK to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars. Young and old queue from 0700 GMT in London at the Dominion and Leicester Square cinemas. Fans are so desperate to see the movie that some are willing to pay up to £30 for the £2.20 tickets.

[Richard Frost]

On December 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. The Lumiere brothers unveiled their invention to the public in March 1895 with a brief film showing workers leaving the Lumiere factory. On December 28, the entrepreneurial siblings screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time.

Movie technology has its roots in the early 1830s, when Joseph Plateau of Belgium and Simon Stampfer of Austria simultaneously developed a device called the phenakistoscope, which incorporated a spinning disc with slots through which a series of drawings could be viewed, creating the effect of a single moving image. The phenakistoscope, considered the precursor of modern motion pictures, was followed by decades of advances and in 1890, Thomas Edison and his assistant William Dickson developed the first motion-picture camera, called the Kinetograph. The next year, 1891, Edison invented the Kinetoscope, a machine with a peephole viewer that allowed one person to watch a strip of film as it moved past a light.

In 1894, Antoine Lumiere, the father of Auguste (1862-1954) and Louis (1864-1948), saw a demonstration of Edison’s Kinetoscope. The elder Lumiere was impressed, but reportedly told his sons, who ran a successful photographic plate factory in Lyon, France, that they could come up with something better. Louis Lumiere’s Cinematographe, which was patented in 1895, was a combination movie camera and projector that could display moving images on a screen for an audience. The Cinematographe was also smaller, lighter and used less film than Edison’s technology.

The Lumieres opened theatres (known as cinemas) in 1896 to show their work and sent crews of cameramen around the world to screen films and shoot new material. In America, the film industry quickly took off. In 1896, Vitascope Hall, believed to be the first theatre in the U.S. devoted to showing movies, opened in New Orleans. In 1909, The New York Times published its first film review (of D.W. Griffith’s Pippa Passes), in 1911 the first Hollywood film studio opened and in 1914, Charlie Chaplin made his big-screen debut.

In addition to the Cinematographe, the Lumieres also developed the first practical colour photography process, the Autochrome plate, which debuted in 1907.