Birthdays: The Persian prophet Zoroaster (1,000BC), Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Mao Zedong, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector, Fred Schepsi, Jared Leto is 51
St. Stephen’s Day- “Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen…” Wenceslas I of Bohemia (Svaty’ Vaclav in Czech) was a chieftain of the West Slavs 907AD-937. When Czechs accepted Christianity, part of the deal was that they would make their national hero Wenceslas a Saint. The English Christmas carol was written in 1853 by Thomas Helmore and John Mason Neal. Neal adapted it from a collection of Christmas tales from other lands.
First Day of the Kwanza Festival. Kwanza is from the Swahili words “Matunda ya kwanzaa” meaning “first fruits” of the harvest.
XIX Century England- Today was Boxing Day, a Victorian tradition where you boxed up the leftovers of your Christmas dinner and gave them to the poor.
1865- James Nason of Massachusetts invented the coffee percolator.
1909- Famous Western artist Frederick Remington died from an acute appendicitis operation that went badly. Today operations like that are routine and handled by anti-biotics, but back then no such drugs existed. He was 40.
1924- Baby Frances Gumm first appeared on a stage at 2 1/2 years old. Grown up she would change her name to Judy Garland.
1926- Young artist Al Hirschfeld had made his first caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. Al figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times. Al would keep doing caricatures of Broadway greats into the millennium and became a legend himself. In the American Theater, a Hirschfeld caricature of you meant you had arrived and were a real star. His style influenced the look of Walt Disney’s animated classic Aladdin. At age 94 Al remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.
1935- The premiere of the Warner Bros swashbuckler Captain Blood. Originally supposed to star Robert Donat, when he dropped out for health reasons, they cast a new actor, a debonair young rogue from Tasmania named Errol Flynn. The first teaming of Flynn, 19-year-old Olivia DeHaviland, director Michael Curtiz. Music by Eric Wolfgang Korngold. DeHaviland died in 2020 at age 104.
1938- Young playwright Thomas Williams moved from Saint Louis to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee Williams.
1939- Walt Disney Animation moved from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hit economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.
1941- Goofy cartoon, the Art of Self Defense, premiered.
1944- Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago.
1946- The Gala Opening day of the Flamingo Casino, the birth of modern Las Vegas. Mobster Bugsy Siegel's million-dollar gamble in the desert. Despite booking top talent like Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat, the promised Hollywood bigshots failed to materialize. The hotel part of the casino wasn't ready for guests yet, so the high rollers couldn't see making the long trip. A violent rainstorm kept still more people away. Also the casinos formal dress code discouraged the locals who liked to gamble in cowboy hats and blue jeans. Bugsy had to close down until the hotel was completed in March, $4 million in the red.
The Flamingo Casino eventually made a profit but not before the Mob riddled Bugsy Siegel with bullets, and cut the throat of the hotel’s manager, Moe Greenberg.
1956- The premiere of the Japanese monster movie Rodan. Released in Japan as Radon the Sky Monster. The name comes from a flying dinosaur called a Pteranodon.
1963- The death of Gorgeous George Wagner, the first pro wrestler to adopt a flamboyant character.
50 years ago 1973- The horror film The Exorcist starring Linda Blair premiered. Merry Christmas!
1985- Gorillas in the Mist author and ape anthropologist Diane Fossey was murdered by machete in her lab in Africa.
2003- As part of a promotion for a NJ Islanders-NY Rangers Hockey Game the Nassau Coliseum invited all the fans dressed as Santa Claus to parade on the ice. As the hundreds of Santas marched on to the rink several opened their coats to reveal they were actually Rangers supporters. The Islander Santas objected, some shoving ensued and pretty soon the Nassau Coliseum was packed with fist-fighting Santas.
2004-TSUNAMI- One of the strongest earthquakes 9.1, recorded in the last 100 years hit the Indian Ocean. The earthquake sent giant tidal waves covering the coastlines of Sumatra, Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, killing over 215,000. Whole beach communities were swept away without warning. Poor fisherman to wealthy vacationers like a Victoria Secret model had to run for their lives.
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