THIS WEEK IN #HISTORY ... Dec 20 - Dec 26

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Dec 20
1820 Missouri imposes a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 and 50
1879 Tom Edison privately demonstrated incandescent light at Menlo Park
1900 Giacobini discovers a comet (will be 1st comet visited by spacecraft)
1938 Vladimir K Zworykin receives patent on Iconoscope TV system
1963 Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners
1967 474,300 U.S. soldiers in Vietnam
1984 33 unknown Bach keyboard works found in Yale library
1999 Portugal returns Macau to China

Happy birthday to John Fletcher, Giovanni Battista Gagliano, Thomas Graham, John Geary, Ferdinand-Edouard Buisson, Dan Leno, Harvey S Firestone, Charley Grapewin, Walter S. Adams, Marius HLW "Max" Blokzijl, Susanne Langer, Robert Van de Graaff, Sidney Hook, Dick White, Audrey Totter, Nadine Gordimer, Charles Donald Adams, Gordon Getty, Dianne Arndt, Larry Willis, Robert L. Hayes, Robert Colomby, Patti Smith, Sergio Vastano, Jenny Agutter, Blanche Baker, Joanna Noelle Levesque.

Dec 21
1829 1st stone arch railroad bridge in U.S. dedicated, Baltimore
1909 1st junior high school established (Berkeley California)
1913 1st crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) printed in New York World
1914 1st feature-length silent film comedy, "Tillie's Punctured Romance" released. (Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin)
1919 J Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
1929 1st group hospital insurance plan offered (Dallas, TX)
1937 1st feature-length color and sound cartoon premieres (Snow White)
1968 Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell and Anders) 1st manned Moon voyage
1991 95 share in Madrid Spain $1.3 billion lottery (#47996)

Happy birthday to Johan III, Benjamin Disraeli, Thomas Couture, Lewis H. Morgan, Albert P. Terhune, Joseph Stalin, Ira S. Bowen, Guy Wilkerson, Oda Schaefer, Robin Irvine, Seicho Matsumoto, Heinrich Boll, Donald Regan, Gert Fredriksson, Joan Dickson, Ed Nelson, Jane Fonda, Wen Ho Lee, Frank Zappa, Albert Lee, Josh Mostel, Samuel L. Jackson, Carol Potter, Tina Brown, Betty Wright, Jane Kaczmarek, Ray Romano, Kiefer Sutherland, Mikhail Saakashvili, Michael Vitar

Dec 22
1870 Jules Janssen, flys in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse
1882 1st string of Christmas tree lights created by Thomas Edison
1910 U.S. postal savings stamps 1st issued
1962 1,000,000th NBA point scored
1963 Official 30-day mourning period for President John F. Kennedy ends
1989 After 23 years of dictatorial rule, Romania ousts Nicolea Ceausescu
1989 -18 degrees F in Denver, -23 degrees F in Kansas City, Missouri, -42 degrees F in Scottsbluff Nebraska -47 degrees F in Hardin Mont and -60 degrees F in Black Hills South Dakota

Happy birthday to Luca della Robbia, Rene-Robert Cavelier La Salle, James Oglethorpe, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, William Ellery, Dugald Stewart, Benedict Augustin Morel, Justin M'Carthy, Frank Kellogg, Giacomo Puccini, Erich Schaeder, Herman Harrell Horne, Charles Vildrac, Jacques-Philippe Leclerc, H Keffer Hartline, Barbara Moore, Peggy Ashcroft, Alan Carney, Grote Reber, Andrew Fielding Huxley, Heinz Bernard Lowenstein, Peggy Castle, Hector Elizondo, Barry Jenkins, Marianne van Wijnkoop, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Paradis, Heather Donahue

Dec 23
1672 Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
1834 Joseph Hansom of London receives patent for Hansom cabs
1867 1st self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove-hair straightner)
1920 Ireland divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament
1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley in Bell Labs
1951 1st coast-to-coast televised football game (Dumont paid $75,000) Los Angeles Rams beat Cleveland Browns 24-17 in NFL championship game
1975 Congress passes Metric Conversion Act

Happy birthday to Martin Opitz, Richard Arkwright, Frederik Augustus I, Aleksandr I P Romanov, Jean-Francois Champollion, Samuel Smiles, Emmanuel-Persillier Lachapelle, John Cromwell, Eric Blore, Julien Carette, Maurice Denham, Gerald S O'Loughlin, Ruth Roman, Leonard Stern, Bob Barker, Harry Guardino, Paul Hornung, Esther Phillips, James Stacy, Karol Joseph Bobko, Elizabeth Hartman, Stephen Wallace, Harry Shearer, Tony Craig, Susan Lucci, John Callahan, Dave Murray, Eddie Vedder, Corey Haim, Estella Warren, Summer Altice

Dec 24
1818 "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; 1st sung next day
1893 Henry Ford completes his 1st useful gas motor
1936 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered, Berkeley, California
1942 1st powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, Peenemunde, Germany
1946 4th French republic established
1951 1st televised opera (Amahl and Night Visitor)
1997 1st time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City

Happy birthday to French van Mieris, Rainieri De Calzabigi, Selam III, James Prescott Joule, Charles Hermite, Sissi, Henriette Georgia Roland Holst-van der Schalk, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Louis Jouvet, Ruth Chatterton, Herbert D Riley, Fritz [Reuter] Leiber, Jr., Betty Ann Davies, Ad Reinhardt, Dorothy Hyson, Dave Bartholomew, Ava Gardner, Mary Higgins Clark, Tarja Halonen, Nicholas Meyer, Clarence Gilyard, Jr., Mark Millar, Ryan Seacrest

Dec 25
1 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus
352 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
1223 St. Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene (Greccio, Italy)
1492 Columbus' ship Santa Maria docks at Dominican Republic
1818 1st known Christmas carol ("Silent Night, Holy Night") sung (Austria)
1843 1st theatre matinee (Olympic Theatre, New York City)
1848 New Haven Railroad opens
1914 Legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place (Brits and Germans)
1922 Lenin dictates his "Political testament"
1950 Coronation Stone, taken from Scone in Scotland by Edward I in 1296, stolen from Westminster Abbey and smuggled back to Scotland
1983 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade
1997 For 1st time U.S. movie box office receipts pass $6 billion

Happy birthday to Pius VI, Wilhelm E Freiherr von Ketteler, Clara Harlowe Barton, Alfred Kerr, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, W Starling Burgess, John Davidson, Conrad Hilton, Earle Foxe, Fred Hillebrand, Bert Bertram, Humphrey Bogart, Barton Maclane, J Edward Bromberg, Lew Grade, Cab Calloway, Marguerite Churchill, Nora Dunfee, Anwar Sadat, Noel Vandernotte, Chris Kenner, John Ashley, David Borden, Pete Brown, Noel Redding, Barbara Mandrell, Michael P. Anderson, Helena Christensen, Dido Armstrong

Dec 26
1620 Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, MA
1860 Maiden voyage of 1st steamship owned by 1 man (C Vanderbilt)
1862 1st U.S. Navy hospital ship enters service
1865 James H Mason (Mass) patents 1st U.S. coffee percolator
1941 Winston Churchill becomes 1st British Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of Congress, warning that Axis would "stop at nothing"
1982 TIME's Man of the Year is a computer

Happy birthday to Charles E Biset, Anthony Ziesenis, Thomas Nelson, Dion Boucicault, Samuel E "Sam" van Beem, Johan F van Bemmelen, Friedrich Engel, Alexander V Amfiteatrov, Elton Mayo, Jean Galtier-Boissiere, Henry Miller, Mao Zedong, Una Mae Carlisle, Steve Allen, Alan King, Walter Leblanc, John Walsh, Chris Chambliss, Valeri Yuriyevich Sharov, Walter & Ullrich Diessner, David Sedaris, Lars Ulrich, Colleen Dion, Jared Leto

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