Today in History

[Lean'n'mean]

@Lean'n'mean, glad to see you edited the 2nd paragraph of you post above to state, " . . . entered lunar orbit." Originally, it implied Apollo 8 had actually gone to the moon itself. I am old enough to remember that event (Apollo 11) was in July, 1969.

I didn't edit that bit. Apollo 8 did go to the moon it just didn't land.
I was around too in '69 & remember the landing.

 

[GHT]

On Christmas Eve of 1814, The Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the War of 1812 between the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies.
On Christmas Eve, 1877, Thomas Edison files a patents for the phonograph.
On Christmas Eve, 1922, the BBC broadcasts it's first British radio play "The Truth about Father Christmas"

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day, God knows when, Christ was probably not born.

 

[GHT]

On this day, God knows when, Christ was probably not born.

You are most probably right. Although the Roman rulers, and the Hebrews both had, and used, the written word, it would be a long time before a register of births deaths and marriages would set up. It has always intrigued me that 'The Census of Quirinius, ' Roman governor of Syria, was a census of Judea, taken around what we call today, the birth of Christ. My intrigue is why that census has never come to light.

Christmas is celebrated at exactly the time of the pagan festival of Yuletide,which according to The Gregorian calendar comes around at the time of the winter solstice. (December 21st.)

The Hebrew calendar doesn't synchronise with the Gregorian calendar, nonetheless there is a Jewish festival at that time of year called Hanukkah.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1870, Christmas was celebrated as a Federal holiday in the United States for the first time. Prior to that year, the status of the holiday was up to individual states. The Federalization of Christmas was an important step in the ongoing secularization of what had once been a primarily church-oriented observation, but which, by the middle of the nineteenth century, was increasingly seen as an occasion for eating and, especially, drinking.

Jesus wasn't born on December 25, but Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Quentin Crisp, and Robert L. "Believe It Or Not!" Ripley were.

 

[Peacoat]

Jesus wasn't born on December 25, but Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Quentin Crisp, and Robert L. "Believe It Or Not!" Ripley were.

And so was Jimmy Buffett, way down in the Deep South in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Christmas is celebrated at exactly the time of the pagan festival of Yuletide,which according to The Gregorian calendar comes around at the time of the winter solstice. (December 21st.).

It's no coincidence that many Christian celebrations fall on or near pagan festivals. Religious leaders merely supplanted existing 'heathen' rituals with those of the church so as better to control the uneducated populace. It doesn't really matter to people if they worship an oak tree or an imaginary god just as long as they can believe in something.

 

[GHT]

Jesus wasn't born on December 25, but Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Quentin Crisp, and Robert L. "Believe It Or Not!" Ripley were.

As was, Justin Trudeau, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, 1971.
1949 Sissy Spacek,
Anwar Sadat, 3rd President of Egypt 1918.
Conrad Hilton, hotel mogul 1887
Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross 1827.
Isaac Newton, English physicist, mathematician and astronomer, and inventor of Gravity & the Laws of Motion, 1642.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1919, the Boston Red Sox sold pitcher-outfielder George "Babe" Ruth" to the New York Yankees for $100,000, consisting of an immediate cash down payment of $25,000, and four subsequent $25,000 payments spread out over the next three years. As part of the deal, the Yankees also loaned the Red Sox $300,000, to be secured by a mortgage on Fenway Park and its associated land.

Ruth had annoyed Red Sox owner Harry Frazee during the previous season by demanding to be paid what he was worth at the box office, leading Frazee to smear him as a troublemaker and malcontent in the Boston press, but the papers were outraged when news of the deal was released the following week. Red Sox field manager Ed Barrow was also furious, and after a dismal 1920 season in Boston, he too left for New York, joining the Yankees as their general manager.

The Yankees held the mortgage on Fenway Park until the middle of June 1933 -- when, after the Sox subjected the Yankees to an embarassing four-game drubbing, Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert called the note. New Red Sox owner Thomas A. Yawkey, who had nothing but money, paid him off in cash and walked away laughing.

 

[3fingers]

^^^ There is no petty like rich people petty.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1837, Charles Darwin set sail from Plymouth aboard the HMS Beagle, on a 5 year surveying expedition. It was during this voyage that Darwin formulated his 'Theory of Evolution.'

On this day in 1968, Apollo 8, returned safely to Earth after a 6 day voyage.

Oh & on this day in 1932, The Radio City Music Hall was opened. I hesitated to mention this one as I've probably opened Lizzie's box there. Sorry.

 

[MissMittens]

No American was executed for broadcasting Nazi propaganda although there were a great many who broadcast for Goebbels throughout the war.

Doesn't surprise me that there were many pro-German media voices in the US, let's not forget the "Bund". There's the remains of an actual Nazi children's camp only a short drive away in NJ, and let's not forget the Madison Square Gardens gathering.......

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1901 Marlene Detrich was born

 

[LizzieMaine]

Doesn't surprise me that there were many pro-German media voices in the US, let's not forget the "Bund". There's the remains of an actual Nazi children's camp only a short drive away in NJ, and let's not forget the Madison Square Gardens gathering.......

You could walk thru many Irish-American neighborhoods in New York and Boston during the late thirties, and see Nazi flags, photos of Hitler, etc. openly displayed. Father Coughlin's "Catholic Action" movement was a thinly disguised American version of the SA, minus the snappy uniforms, and it made life quite nasty for pedestrians who even looked Jewish, were known to have Communist or Socialist sympathies, and/or who simply didn't care to buy a copy of the Coughlinite paper. Despite that, though, the Dies Committee seemed only interested in looking leftward.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this day in 1837, Charles Darwin set sail from Plymouth aboard the HMS Beagle, on a 5 year surveying expedition. It was during this voyage that Darwin formulated his 'Theory of Evolution.'

On this day in 1968, Apollo 8, returned safely to Earth after a 6 day voyage.

Oh & on this day in 1932, The Radio City Music Hall was opened. I hesitated to mention this one as I've probably opened Lizzie's box there. Sorry.

Ah, the Music Hall, the ultimate expression of all that was Roxy. Roxy Rothafel himself took credit for establishing the Rockettes -- but all he really did was hire the Russell Markert Girls and slap a new name on them. You can see said troupe in all its pre-Roxy/pre-Music Hall glory, in Technicolor yet, in "The King of Jazz."

Another distinction for the Hall was that it was the first venue to use what would evolve into the legendary RCA 44 microphone -- the microphone you see usually Fred Allen, Jack Benny, and other radio luminaries clustering around in publicity photos. An early prototype version of the 44, the PB-31, was installed at the Hall when it was first opened -- and remained in use there until the 1980s. Only fifty PB-31s were ever made, and forty of them were installed at the Music Hall. Today all the surviving specimens come from that original RCMH installation, and are widely coveted by sound engineers and microphone collectors, who will gladly pay thousands of dollars for a specimen.

 

[MissMittens]

You could walk thru many Irish-American neighborhoods in New York and Boston during the late thirties, and see Nazi flags, photos of Hitler, etc. openly displayed. Father Coughlin's "Catholic Action" movement was a thinly disguised American version of the SA, minus the snappy uniforms, and it made life quite nasty for pedestrians who even looked Jewish, were known to have Communist or Socialist sympathies, and/or who simply didn't care to buy a copy of the Coughlinite paper. Despite that, though, the Dies Committee seemed only interested in looking leftward.

We're arguably seeing history repeat itself because people are so far removed from WW2 and nationalism is good for business ledgers

 

[LizzieMaine]

You can listen to Coughlin's broadcasts from 1938-40 -- which I have, all of them, since I was hired to annotate them for a research project -- and it's like they were taped off a current cable news channel. Even the Fascist dog-whistles are the same.

 

[MissMittens]

You can listen to Coughlin's broadcasts from 1938-40 -- which I have, all of them, since I was hired to annotate them for a research project -- and it's like they were taped off a current cable news channel. Even the Fascist dog-whistles are the same.

I believe you. It's insidious for sure

 

[MisterCairo]

You could walk thru many Irish-American neighborhoods in New York and Boston during the late thirties, and see Nazi flags, photos of Hitler, etc. openly displayed.

My father joined the British Army in April 1939 and was called up on 31 August for active service. His first tasking - guarding the gas works in London.

Not against Nazis or sympathizers of the German cause, but against the potential sympathy for the Germans by the Irish! It was thought by the higher ups they were the immediate risk. My dad said nothing ever happened, and shortly after he was guarding Luftwaffe PWs in the Tower during the Blitz.

 

[ChiTownScion]

You could walk thru many Irish-American neighborhoods in New York and Boston during the late thirties, and see Nazi flags, photos of Hitler, etc. openly displayed. Father Coughlin's "Catholic Action" movement was a thinly disguised American version of the SA, minus the snappy uniforms, and it made life quite nasty for pedestrians who even looked Jewish, were known to have Communist or Socialist sympathies, and/or who simply didn't care to buy a copy of the Coughlinite paper. Despite that, though, the Dies Committee seemed only interested in looking leftward.

Relying on my memories of family lore, I recall hearing that there also was a lot of sympathy for Falangist Franco among certain Chicago Irish relatives, because he was "defending the Church against the Communists." One great uncle wanted to go to Spain and take up arms DEFENDING Franco at one point-- or so I was told. You of all people know that you don't get to pick your relatives out of a mail order catalogue: I'd have felt much better if I'd had an uncle who was a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion.. but, those are the breaks in life. As it turned out the great uncle in question never went to Spain anyway. I doubt that he could have fought his way out of a paper bag.


The family's neighborhood at the time had a large percentage of German Americans. There were Bund rallies, I was told, at a local picnic grove that later became a city park. By and large, the German American population wanted no part of it. The vast majority of Bundists were fairly recent immigrants from Germany. Among the old German American families (those who'd been around for a few generations) there was little sympathy for Hitler. The German part of my own family had been here since the 1850's, and included several Union army soldiers. The notion of standing for liberty was part of the legacy: it was a big deal to be able to trace your family lineage back to the " '48er's"- radicals who fled what was to become Germany in 1848 after a failed revolution and the dashed dreams of a German Federal Republic. Took a century for that dream to come true, of course.

And of course the local Catholic Cardinal was a German American by the name of George Mundelein. In a 1937 speech he referred to Adolf Hitler as, "..an Austrian paper hanger, and a poor one at that.." He publicly criticized Coughlin until the latter was finally silenced in 1939.