Happy Holidays everyone!!
Don't be alarmed by Gollum, he's still mad he didn't get his 'precious' returned to him for Xmas.
Hopefully, you had a great Xmas and you didn't receive any lumps of coal.
You were nice this year weren't you?
Happy Kwanzaa today for those of you who celebrate. You've got 'til January 1st to get into the swing of things. If you don't know about Kwanzaa, here's your chance to learn what it is.
History of December 26th (shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia)
- 1481 - Battle of Westbroek - Holland defeats troops of Utrecht.
- 1620 - Elizabeth Báthory's crimes are uncovered.
- 1620 - Pilgrim Fathers land at what becomes New Plymouth in Massachusetts.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: The British are defeated in the Battle of Trenton.
- 1790 - Louis XVI of France gives his public assent to Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution.
- 1792 - The final trial of Louis XVI of France begins in Paris.
- 1793 - Battle of Geisberg: French defeat Austrians.
- 1793 - The wedding of Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia and Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz takes place.
- 1805 - Austria and France signed the Treaty of Pressburg.
- 1806 - Battles of Pultusk and Golymin: Russian forces hold French forces under Napoleon.
- 1825 - Several Imperial Russia army officers lead circa 3000 soldiers on the Senate Square in the failed Decembrist uprising.
- 1825 - The Erie Canal opens.
- 1848 - The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is founded.
- 1860 - The first ever inter-club football match takes place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at Sandygate in Sheffield, England.
- 1861 - American Civil War: Confederate diplomatic envoys James M. Mason and John Slidell are freed by the United States government, thus heading off a possible war between the United States and Britain.
- 1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou begins.
- 1862 - Four nuns who were volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover were the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship.
- 1862 - The largest mass-hanging in US history took place in Mankato, Minnesota, killing 39.
- 1870 - The 12.8-km long Fréjus Rail Tunnel through the Alps is completed.
- 1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.
- 1908 - Jack Johnson becomes the first African American heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.
- 1916 - Joseph Joffre is made Marshal of France.
- 1925 - The Communist Party of India is founded.
- 1925 - Turkey adopts the Gregorian Calendar.
- 1931 - Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity is founded.
- 1933 - The Nissan Motor Company is organized in Tokyo, Japan.
- 1933 - FM radio is patented.
- 1943 - World War II: The German warship Scharnhorst sinks off the coast of North Cape in Norway after being attacked by the Royal Navy late the previous evening.
- 1944 - The play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is first publicly performed.
- 1944 - World War II: U.S. troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
- 1945 - CFP franc and CFA franc are created.
- 1946 - The Flamingo Hotel opens in Las Vegas.
- 1947 - Twenty-six inches of snow falls in 16 hours in New York City.
- 1948 - Cardinal Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary and accused of treason and conspiracy.
- 1966 - The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach.
- 1973 - Comet Kohoutek reaches perihelion but is not such a display as expected.
- 1973 - Soyuz 13 lands on earth after a week in orbit.
- 1974 - Salyut 4 is launched.
- 1975 - The Tupolev Tu-144 goes into service in Soviet Union.
- 1976 - The Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) is founded.
- 1979 - Soviet Special forces troops take over presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan.
- 1979 - Opening night of the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea at the Hammersmith Odeon; a benefit concert for the citizens of Cambodia who were victims of dictator Pol Pot
- 1980 - Aeroflot puts the Ilyushin Il-86 into service.
- 1982 - TIME magazine's Man of the Year was for the first time given to a non-human, the personal computer.
- 1986 - The first long-running American television soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, airs its final episode after thirty-five years on the air.
- 1988 - The Nanjing Anti-African protests in Nanjing, the People's Republic of China begin.
- 1991 - Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolves the USSR.
- 1996 - Start of the largest strike in South Korean history.
- 1996 - The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification goes into force.
- 1998 - Iraq announced its intention to fire upon U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern no-fly zones.
- 1998 - Severe gales over Ireland, northern England, and southern Scotland cause widespread disruption and widespread power outages in Northern Ireland and southern Scotland.
- 1999 - Severe weather in France kills over 100 people and causes extensive damage to property and trees and the French national power grid (see Lothar).
- 2002 - French Raelian scientist Brigitte Boisselier says Clonaid has delivered the first of a supposed five clone babies through cesarean section.
- 2003 - A major earthquake devastates southeast Iranian city of Bam, killing tens of thousands and destroying the citadel of Arg-é Bam.
- 2004 - An earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter magnitude scale creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing more than 300,000.
- 2006- A major earthquake near Taiwan at 7.1 Richter scale generated a tsunami 3 feet height.
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