Birthdays: Roman Emperor Servius Galba, English King John Lackland, Revolutionary Patriot Dr. Benjamin Rush, Kit Carson, Howard Hughes, Ava Gardner, Michael Curtiz, I.F. Stone, Robert Joffrey of the Joffrey Ballet, Mean Joe Green, John Matusak, Susan Lucci, Nicholas Meyer, Ricky Martin, Pixar animator Glen McQueen, Ryan Seacrest, Dr. Anthony Fauci is 82.
1247- Sir Robin of Loxley, called Robin Hood, died. Legend has it that he fired an arrow out his window with instructions to bury him where it fell.
1652- In England the Puritan Parliament of Oliver Cromwell forbade any celebration of Christmas. Their brethren the Puritans of Massachusetts would arrest anyone found making merry and fine them three shillings. But after the restoration of King Charles II ten years later, the partying came back.
1818- the song Silent Night first sung at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Obernsdorf, Austria. Its lyrics were written by the minister named Josef Mohr set to music by a teacher named Franz Gruber. Their little church could not afford an organ, so this first singing of Silent Night was accompanied on a guitar.
1888- Vincent Van Gogh cuts off most of his left ear after an argument with fellow artist Paul Gaugin over the affections of a prostitute named Rachel. He sent his ear to the prostitute. She fainted. In 2009 historians theorized his ear was sliced off by Gaugin drunkenly waving an antique sword. The two men agreed to keep the secret to not get Gaugin in trouble.
1889- Daniel Stover & W. Hance of Freeport Ill. invented the bicycle backpedal brake.
1922- The BBC presented it’s first radio play:" The truth about Father Christmas."
1925- The London Evening News published a story “In which we are introduced to Winnie the Pooh, and some Bees.” By A.A. Milne. The first book of stories came out the following year.
1937- Disney short Lonesome Ghosts premiered.
1951- Gina Carlo Menotti’s opera "Amal and the Night Visitors" premiered on NBC TV..
1952- First draft script completed on the MGM film Terror Planet, changed to “ Forbidden Planet.”
1964- First day shooting on the “Cage” a pilot for a new TV show called Star Trek. Jeffrey Hunter was the first captain, later replaced by William Shatner when Hunter’s wife advised him to skip the series. She was worried he’d be typecast.
1966- Local New York City TV station WPIX premiered The Yule Log. They ran a loop of 6 minutes of a closeup of a log burning in a fireplace in Gracie Mansion. The loop ran from 11:00PM to 1:00AM with Christmas carols playing. It made the TV the symbolic family hearth. New Yorkers loved their kitschy Yule Log tradition, and when WPIX tried to replace it in 1989 hundreds of complaints forced them to put it back. The log was videotaped once more in 1970, and that’s been the film ever since. Other places have picked playing the Yule Log like You Tube.
1968- Apollo 8 went into orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders become the first men to reach the moon and win the Space Race. They orbited but did not land, that was for Apollo 11 next year. Borman sent a message to Earth, Christmas night, by reading from Genesis, as they sent back the very first images of the Earthrise, our planet seen from another world. A little blue gem in a black cosmos. Borman read: " Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep… And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.…”
To a world exhausted by the riots, wars, political polarization and assassinations, Apollo 8’s message ended the year on a positive note. That humans could still dream to be better than they were.
1968- Twentieth Century Fox announced that legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa had been fired from the production of TORA-TORA-TORA. Producer Darryl Zanuck’s original concept was the story of the Pearl Harbor attack told by Kurosawa from the Japanese side and David Lean from the American side. But Lean passed and Richard Fleischer stepped in. Japanese sections were directed by Kinji Fukusaku and Toshio Masuda, whose previous credit was The Green Slime.
1990- Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman.
1997- The first Hanukkah menorah lit in Vatican City.
1997- 62 year old Film director Woody Allen married 27 year old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former lover Mia Farrow. When asked to explain himself the director said: " The Heart wants what it Wants.." They have stayed happily married ever since.
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