274 AD – Roman Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple to Sol Invictus on the supposed day of the winter solstice and day of rebirth of the Sun. The early Roman Catholic Church appropriated this holiday and made it into what we celebrate as Christmas today. A more likely date for the birth of Jesus would be earlier, certainly no later than the fall.

1066 – Coronation of William the Conqueror as king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London. He was also known as “William the Bastard”. Sort of like out own “Barack the Pussy.”

1223 – St. Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene. ACLU gets the vapors.

1741 – Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces Centigrade temperature scale based on two easily reproducible natural standards, the freezing and boiling points of water.

1776 – George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack the Kingdom of Great Britain’s Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey. The moment is captured in a famous, although inaccurate, painting.

1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, second-oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance. The U.S. Marine Band (founded 1798) is the oldest. See 1896, below.

1818 – Handel’s Messiah makes its US premiere in Boston.

1896 – “Stars & Stripes Forever” written by John Philip Sousa.

1926 – Emperor Taisho of Japan dies. His son, Prince Hirohito succeeds him as Emperor Showa. Emperor Hirohito reigns until his death in 1989, seeing his country go from world power through WW II to an ashpile and then its resurrection as a world force again.

1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Coincidentally, two Japanese carriers from the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, the Akagi and Kaga arrive back in Japan. Six months later they’d be on the bottom of the Pacific near Midway Island.

1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces. Mighty gutsy there, Gaston! These islands are off the coast of CANADA! France’s greatest military victories in WW II are against other French.

1990 – The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web. Algore curiously absent.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union. The whole sintking mess just fell apart.

1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook. Can anyone tell me why they called it “Christmas Island”? Anyone?

1814 – Treaty of Ghent (end of US-Britain’s War of 1812) signed. The Battle of New Orleans will happen in a month. Apparently the email announcement went into the ‘spam’ folder…

1818 – “Silent Night” is composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; It is first sung next day. Muslims riot and several atheists are immediately offended, and the ACLU files suit.

1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy begins that night, wrapping up the following morning. college-aged young me and smuggled whiskey – always a prescription for merriment.

1942 – First powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, Peenemunde, Germany. This is the grand-daddy of the cruise missile.

1946 – France’s Fourth Republic is founded. This is a good idea since the Germans stomped a hole in the Third Republic as France moved from “fight” to “surrender” and well into “collaborate”. I think France is up to #5 now and the next one will feature sharia law instead of that “Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’” crap… And the quaint custom of beheading will make a resurgence.

1968 – Apollo Program: The AMERICAN crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed 10 lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures that became the famous Christmas Eve Broadcast, one of the most watched programs in history. They recite passages from the Bible. Muslims riot, several atheists are immediately offended, and the ACLU files suit.

1969 – The oil company Phillips Petroleum made the first oil discovery in the Norwegian sector of North Sea. Next thing you know, Scotland’s coast is crawling with Cajuns and Texans. “What’s this ‘haggis’ shit?!?”

1973 – District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government. This has the same joyous effect on good government as Britain turning Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.

1913 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.

1938 – Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa. Recipe book follows. Goes good with rice…

1941 – World War II: Japanese Imperial Army occupies Wake Island. It’s a heroic battle that the Marines, Navy, Army and US civilians lost. Out of 2080 Americans on the island, 120 were killed and two were MIA in the battle. The rest became POW’s. Five military and 98 civilian POW’s were deliberately killed and another fifteen military and 82 civilian POW’s died as a result of imprisonment.

1947 – The PNP point-contact germanium transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories by Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley.

1954 – First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray. The donor wakes up in an ice-filled bathtub in a New Orleans hotel.

1972 – The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism. Recipe book to follow…

1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without refueling. 3 B-52’s flew around the world non-stop in 1957 but they did several in-flight refuelings.

1808 – Ludwig von Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano). Where’s my stinkin’ time machine?!?

1920 – The GOELRO economic development plan is adopted by the 8th Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR. There’s a lesson: Just because a slick-talking leader at the head of a bunch of toadies and sycophants says something will happen according to his schedule does not make it so.

1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge–German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: “Nuts!” People said the same thing about Hillary Clinton as president.

1968 – Cultural Revolution: People’s Daily posted the instructions of Mao Zedong that it is “The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty.” a few million ‘eggs’ get broken while Mao makes his omelet.

1987 – In Zimbabwe, the political parties ZANU and ZAPU reach an agreement that ends the violence in the Matabeleland region known as the Gukurahundi. twenty or thirty thousand die in this demonstration of energetic politics.

1989 – After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceaucescu’s Communist dictatorship. On the same date, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany. All those years that thousands of us sat in Germany waiting for the Soviet hordes to come pouring through the Fulda Gap…

1989 – Global warming: Cold wave: -4 F in Oklahoma City, -6 F in Tulsa, -12 F in Pittsburgh, -18 F in Denver, -23 F in Kansas City Mo, -42 F in Scotts Bluff Nebraska -47 F in Hardin Montana & -60 F in Black Hills South Dakota. Down here in Lake Charles, Louisiana the temperature was +16 F, the lowest on record for the date and the lakes froze completely over. We had to buy gas-guzzlers in self-defense.

1990 – Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland’s first popularly elected president. He’s an electrician.

2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63. Now the TSA (Thousands Standing Around) wants to see everybody’s shoes. All I can say is I’m glad Reid wasn’t hiding a bomb up his a**.

1620 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Bad time of year to be showing up in Massachusetts, folks! (Half were dead by spring…)

1826 – American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion. This one doesn’t take root, but the next one…

1861 – Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. I’m surprised that Obama hasn’t given one to Hillary Clinton for her bravery under sniper fire in Bosnia.

1913 – Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross”, the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World. Working crossword puzzles (correctly) with a pen will create hard feelings among one’s workgroup. Don’t ask me how I know.

1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.

1958 – After single-handedly liberating Paris from the Germans in WW II, Charles de Gaulle wins 7 year term as first president of the French Fifth Republic. The NEXT ‘French Republic’ will probably have sharia law.

1969 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. And that settles the racial harmony problem forever, otherwise people would be led to believe that the UN is a useless assemblage of self-centered busybodies and idiots.

1979 – Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London by Lord Peter Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and S.C. Mundawarara. A year later, Rhodesia is ‘Zimbabwe’ and changes from ‘Africa’s Breadbasket’ to yet another African basket case. Whites flee the country, taking their magic dirt with them.

1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270. Can’t be racism, because the UN banned that in 1969. Instead, it’s just our good buddies of the Religion of Peace out sharing their gospel…