Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 113

Today in History: The Eggnog Riot Gets Closer

On this night (December 24) in 1826, several cadets in the North Barracks at the United States Military Academy at West Point began drinking Eggnog spiked with whiskey and rum despite orders to keep the nog alcohol free. In a few hours early Christmas morning, their drinking would get out of control…

Today in History: Silent Night

On this day (December 24) in 1818, Silent Night was performed for the first time. The lyrics were written by a young parish priest named Joseph Mohr who asked schoolmaster, Franz Xaver Gruber, to compose the melody. It was publicly performed for the first time in Mohr’s church on Christmas Eve. The rest, as they say, is history.

Heart-Warming Christmas Tale: What Child Is This?

Looking for a sweet Christmas story to warm your heart for the holidays?

Is it a Christmas miracle? The little boy wanders by himself into town and directly into Agnes Hancock’s heart, resurrecting feelings she’d thought long dead with her son in the Great War. No one knows who the child is or where he comes from, but Agnes can’t turn her back on him. As the police begin their investigation, she brings the boy into her home and learns to love again. But will her new found happiness be destroyed when the police finally answer the question What Child Is This?

Today in History: An Amazing Rescue

On this day (December 23) in 1972 sixteen survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were rescued after spending 73 days in harsh frozen conditions at 11,800 feet in the Andes Mountain. Flight 571 had crashed in the Andes on October 23 with 45 crew and passengers (mostly a Rugby team and their friends and family). 18 people died in the initial crash and another 11 in an avalanche a few days later. The survivors did not have cold weather gear or food. They obtained water by placing snow on metal where the sun slowly melted it.

There was no food, either vegetation or animal life, at their altitude and after much soul searching, they decided to eat the bodies of their dead friends to survive. Efforts to explore their surroundings in search of help were frustrated by altitude sickness, snow blindness, dehydration, malnourishment and extreme cold. Many of the survivors had serious injuries such as broken legs and could not leave the crash site.

They determined that they had to send someone over the mountain or they would all die, so four of the survivors tried to make the trek. They almost froze to death at night but discovered the tail section of the plane and spent several days trying to power the radio with batteries they found there but their efforts failed.

To combat the freezing temperatures they jury rigged a sleeping bag and made a second effort to find help. Two of the survivors traveled for ten days before finally encountering humans who got word of the survivors to authorities who mounted a successful rescue operation.

Today in History: Preparations for the Great Egg Nog Riot

On this day (December 22) in 1826 cadets at West Point smuggled two gallons of whiskey and one gallon of rum into the U.S. Military Academy in preparation for the party that would result in the notorious Eggnog Riot two days later…

Today in History: Snow White

On this day (December 21) in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was shown in theaters for the first time. It was the world’s first full length animated movie. A critical success, Walt Disney won an Academy Honorary Award for the film—a full sized statuette with seven miniature ones.

 

Today in History: The Louisiana Purchase

On this day (December 20) in 1803 the Louisiana Purchase was finalized in New Orleans. The transaction added 828,000 square miles to the United States at a cost of roughly $15 million ($250 million in 2016 currency). The territory included land from fifteen states and two Canadian provinces: all of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and portions of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Louisiana, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Sixty thousand non-Native Americans lived in the territory, half of whom were African slaves.

Napoleon was willing to sell the Louisiana Territory in part because his failure to re-establish slavery in San Domingue (modern day Haiti) had created a great setback to his plans to establish a western hemisphere empire. When war with Britain threatened to resume, Napoleon realized that he could not defend his American possessions from Britain and decided to profit from them while he still could by selling them to the United States.

The U.S. Constitution did not grant the president the explicit right to purchase new territory, but Thomas Jefferson successfully argued that his power to negotiate treaties implied the authority. Interestingly enough, he had opposed the Doctrine of Implied Powers when Alexander Hamilton used it as justification to create the First Bank of the United States.

Today in History: A Christmas Carol

On this day (December 19) in 1843, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol creating one of the most famous fictional Christmas characters of all time. The first printing sold out by Christmas Eve. The haunting of Ebenezer Scrooge by ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future has been parodied in countless television shows and movies and the term “scrooge” has worked its way into the English language as a miser. Even Disney has gotten on the bandwagon with Scrooge McDuck and its own telling of A Christmas Carol. What’s your favorite remake or parody of A Christmas Carol?

Today in History: SCORE

On this day (December Eighteen) in 1958 the U.S. launched the first communications satellite into space. It was called SCORE—Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment—and was intended to counter the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2. SCORE could record a short message and replay it. President Eisenhower recorded a Christmas message to the world using the communication satellite.

Today in History: The Great Fire

On this day (December 17) in 1835 the Great Fire broke out in a five story warehouse in New York City. The temperature was -17 degrees and the East and Hudson Rivers were frozen solid. Firefighters had to drill holes in the ice to access the water—which froze in the hoses as they tried to extinguish the blaze. The flames were visible in Philadelphia 80 miles away. The fire was so hot that copper roofs melted and ran like liquid spilling in great drops to the streets below. Ultimately 17 city blocks (50 acres) and between 530 and 700 buildings were destroyed. Two people were killed. The damage was estimated at $20 million dollars. 23 of NYC’s 26 insurance companies went bankrupt because of the fire and the insurance industry in nearby Hartford expanded to dominate New York, putting that city on track to become the Insurance Capital of the World.