December 26th, 2010

THE CHIEFS ARE AFC WEST CHAMPIONS!

December 26

1871. Gilbert and Sullivan collaborate on their first piece, the now lost opera Thespis. It fares only moderately well, and they won't collaborate again until four years later.

1919. Babe Ruth is sold by Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee to the New York Yankees. After winning the WS 1918, they won't finish above .500 until 1934. Ironically, given the future long-running animosity between the teams, this deal helped seal an alliance of the Yankees and Red Sox, which also included the White Sox, against the American League Commissioner Ban Johnson and the so-called "Loyal Five", who basically did Johnson's bidding all the time (unlike the Yanks, WS and RS).

1933. FM radio is patented.

1944. Patton's Third Army penetrates the German forces encircling Bastogne.

1991. The Supreme Soviet meets for the last time and formally dissolves the Soviet Union.

1996. Six year old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in her family home basement.

I'll pretend to drink to that!

December 27

537. The Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, is completed. This is the third and final chruch built on the site, is one of the greatest churches of Christendom, and is later converted to a mosque after the capture of the city by the Ottoman Turks.

1831. Charles Darwin embarks upon the HMS Beagle.

1922. The Japanese complete the aircraft carrier Hosho, the first ship built expressly as an aircraft carrier in the world.

1932. Radio City Music Hall opens.

Congrats on the division young fella ;) are you enjoying the blizzard?

Are you sure you arent dreaming?

December 28

1065. Westminster Abbey is consecrated.

1612. Galileo becomes the first astronomer to view Neptune, though he mistakenly thinks its a fixed star.

1867. The United States claims Midway Atoll, the first claim the US makes to territory beyond North America itself.

1973. The Endangered Species Act is passed.

2000. Retail giant Montgomery Ward announces that, after 128 years, it is going out of business.

Sorry for asking a stupid question....

Are there parts of Westminster that are still actually standing that were put up in 1065?

December 29

1170. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, is murdered inside Canterbury Cathedral on the orders of King Henry II. Becket will be anointed a saint and matyr in the eyes of the Catholic, then Anglican, Church.

1778. The British capture Savannah Georgia without firing a shot.

1812. After a three hour battle, the USS Constitution captures the British HMS Java off the coast of Brazil. The Java had been rendered a complete hulk in the battle, utterly dismasted, and all the Constitution could do was sink her.

1845. Texas is admitted as the 28th US state, in furtherance of "manifest destiny."

1890. The Wounded Knee Massacre occurs when members of the US Seventh Cavalry Regiment kill over 150, and wound an additional 50, men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux. The key to the battle were four rapid fire "Hotchkiss Guns", or revolving cannons, shooting 37 mm bullets at a rate of 43 bullets per minute.

1911. Sun Yat-Sen becomes the provincial President of the Republic of China. In future years this instrumental leader will be cited by both the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong.

1934. The increasingly militaristic Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930, which limited the navies of the world.

Well, it's certainly not stupid in my book, as I had no idea what the answer was.

Some research indicates that the Church has been repeatedly enlarged and expanded, most importantly in the 1200s. As I find no evidence that the building was ever razed, as compared to the first and second Hagia Sophia, I'd imagine that there is at least some portion of the building that utilizes the original structure.

Apparently, the only existing depiction of the original Abbey is a part of the Bayeux Tapestry.

This one hurts.
1890. The Wounded Knee Massacre occurs when members of the US Seventh Cavalry Regiment kill over 150, and wound an additional 50, men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux. The key to the battle were four rapid fire "Hotchkiss Guns", or revolving cannons, shooting 37 mm bullets at a rate of 43 bullets per minute.

To me, history being told through the centuries is one thing, actually being able to go look at a structure built hundreds of years that is still standing is another.

For example we drove through parts of NE this fall, some based on your suggestions, and observed rock walls along the roads that had to have been a couple hundred years old. For some reason that just amazed me.

Heck, my folks were married in a church that was built in the early 1200s, and the "new" part was added in 1475.

Yeah well I'm from the midwest where stuff was built with mud for centuries. :doh!:

December 30

1853. The Gadsden Purchase is signed, by which the US buys about 30,000 square miles of land from Mexico in present-day New Mexico and Arizona to facilitate railroad building. The cities of Tucson and Yuma are in the area purchased.

1922. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.

1924. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Telescope is named, announces the existence of other galaxies.

2006. Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging.

2009. The last roll of Kodachrome film is processed by the last processor of such film, ending its 74 year run as a staple of photography.