December 25, in the 753rd year since the founding of the city of Rome – or so Dionysius Exiguus, working in AD 525, would have us believe – Yeshua ben Yoseph was born in Bethlehem, in what is now the West Bank, Palestinian Territories.
In Greek, his name (of which Joshua and Isaiah are also derivatives) became "Jesus." "Christ" is also a Greek word: "Christos" means "the anointed one."
Based on historical and astronomical evidence, and even passages in the Gospels themselves, this date is almost certainly incorrect. Besides, Jesus appears to be one of the last people in human history who would be concerned about people remembering his birthday. He'd rather we were good to each other.
December 25, 274: Christmas is still a minor celebration in Rome, not an official holiday. Instead, Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple for Sol Invictus: "The Unconquered Sun." Previously, the Romans had called the god of the Sun "Apollo," and the Greeks had called him "Helios" -- although, in modern pop culture (such as on the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?"), even when he's depicted as a Greek god, he's usually called Apollo.
The name Sol Invictus has passed into history, although in 1888, British poet William Ernest Henley published a poem titled "Invictus," with its classic closing lines, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Which would seem to fly in the face of any religion.
December 25, AD 336: The 1st recorded Christmas celebration in Rome occurs. Emperor Constantine the Great had legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313, and called the Council of Nicaea in 325.
December 25, AD 597: Augustine of Canterbury -- considered the 1st Archbishop of Canterbury, the founder of the Catholic Church in England, and not to be confused with St. Augustine (Augustine of Hippo) -- leads priests to baptize more than 10,000 Anglo-Saxons in Kent.
December 25, AD 800: Charles the Great (a.k.a. Charles Le Magne, Charlemagne and Carolus Magnus) is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome. Not that there was much about him that was holy.
December 25, AD 820: Emperor Leo V of the Byzantine Empire is assassinated inside the Hagia Sophia, the cathedral in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), by supporters of a rival, who becomes Emperor Michael II.
The new Emperor also orders the exile of Leo's mother and wife, and the castration and exile of Leo's 4 sons, to end Leo's family line and prevent descendants from trying to retake the throne. One of the sons dies soon thereafter, while the others live out their lives in exile.
December 25, 1000: The Kingdom of Hungary is founded by King Stephen I.
December 25, 1065: Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London. But the King of England, Edward the Confessor, who ordered and funded its building, is too ill to attend, and dies early the next year. Which leads us to…
December 25, 1066: William, Duke of Normandy, a.k.a. William the Bastard and William the Conqueror, is crowned King William I of England at Westminster Abbey.
As the saying goes, never go into battle with a man called "the Bastard," because he's probably got a chip on his shoulder. And never go into battle with a man called "the Conqueror," because, chances are, he earned that nickname.
December 25, 1184: In Santa Claus, A Biography, historian Gerry Bowler notes that the Yule Log was one of the most widespread Christmas traditions in early modern Europe, with the first recording of its appearance dating to this time.
Bowler notes that the tradition's roots are debated -- some saying it is an "enfeebled version of the ancient Celtic human sacrifices" and others saying it's simply related to a feudal obligation of acquiring firewood.
Nevertheless, the log was a huge block, lasting for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and it was not burned completely its first year: part of it was saved to light the following year's Yule Log. While the mostly burned wood waited for its duty to light a new Yule Log, it was kept around the house to ward off a range of misfortunes, including toothaches, mildew, lightning, housefires, hail and chilblains (an inflammation of small blood vessels brought on from exposure to cold).
December 25, 1492: La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción -- The Holy Mary of the Immaculate Conception -- runs aground in what's now Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.
Seeing that his flagship is irretrievably damaged, Christopher Columbus orders his men to strip the timbers from the ship. The timbers were later used to build a fort which Columbus called La Navidad (Nativity, or Christmas), at Limonade. Today, it is part of Université D'Etat D'Haiti, Campus Roi Henri Christophe.
Despite several claims over the last 500 years or so, the wreck of the Santa María has never been found. The Pinta would also be wrecked on the return voyage. The Niña made it back to Spain, and made a trading voyage to Venezuela in 1501, but nothing further is recorded of her.
December 25, 1526: King Henry VIII orders that the main course of his Christmas feast be not a goose, which was traditional in England, but a turkey, a bird first brought to England that year. The 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII, with Charles Laughton in the title role, popularized the image of the Tudor monarch as a fat old guy gorging himself, with a turkey leg in his hand, even though he would have been just 35 at this point.
Turkeys became popular feast meals in England because they didn't have the usefulness of traditional English livestock: Cows for milk and chickens for eggs. But up until the 1950s, a goose remained the traditional bird for the feast. A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, had Ebenezer Scrooge include as part of his redemption the ordering of the biggest goose in a butcher shop to be sent to the Crachit family. There's also an old song, going back at least that far:
Christmas is coming.
The goose is getting fat.
Please put a penny
in an old man's hat.
If you have no penny
a ha'penny (half-penny) will do.
If you have no ha'penny
then God bless you!
Other countries have their variations on Christmas dinner. Some English-speaking countries serve ham, which is also popular (as "hamón") in Spanish-speaking countries, including Mexico and the Philippines. Some use chicken: India, and the Japanese began a tradition of going to Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day in the 1970s. Northern Italy uses poultry, while Southern Italy uses lamb or fish.
In Eastern Europe, including Poland (where the meal is held on Christmas Eve and is known as Wigilia, "vigil") and Austria, fried fish is often the meal of choice. Seafood is also common in French-speaking places, including Québec and New Orelans: The meal is called réveillon, or "waking," because you stay awake until midnight on Christmas Eve, and then the meal is served after midnight, when it's the 25th. Portuguese-speaking places, including Brazil, also tend to use fish.
And in Britain, the meal ends with a pudding -- but it's not what Americans call "pudding," be it chocolate, rice or tapioca. Whether black pudding, white pudding, Yorkshire pudding, bread pudding, blood pudding, or, celebrated in song, figgy pudding, it's a cake -- often recognizable to Americans as a "fruitcake."
And if you don't like fruitcake -- especially if you remember Johnny Carson's joke that there is only one fruitcake, and it gets eternally passed around -- well, do what I did when confronted with that other English classic, fish and chips, as an adult: Presume that you didn't like it as a child because you'd never had it prepared and served the right way, and try it. You'll like it.
December 25, 1584: Princess Margaret of Austria is born in Graz, later to be the hometown of Arnold Schwarzenegger. She married King Philip III of Spain, and was thus Queen of Spain from 1598 until her death in 1611, from complications of childbirth, her 8th.
She was the mother of King Philip IV of Spain, Anne of Austria (later Queen of France under King Louis XIII, and mother of King Louis XIV), and Maria Anna of Spain (later Empress of Emperor Ferdinand III of the Holy Roman Empire).
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December 25, 1620: The Plymouth Pilgrims spend their 1st Christmas Day in the New World building their 1st structure in the New World, thus demonstrating their complete contempt for celebrating the birth of Jesus. To the Puritans, in America and in England, it was the death and Resurrection that mattered, not the birth.
December 25, 1635: Samuel de Champlain, the explorer known as "the Father of New France," dies from the effects of a stroke, at the city he founded, Québec -- which is still a capital, of the Province of Québec. He was 61.
December 25, 1642: Isaac Newton is born in Wolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, in the north of England. And, from what I've heard of his personality, Sir Isaac could be considered, as they say in English "football," a Dirty Northern Bastard. In other words, if you messed with him, clearly (Don't say it, Mike!) you didn't understand (Don't say it!) the gravity of the situation. (He said it... )
Actually, since England had not yet adopted the Gregorian Calendar, Newton spent his whole life believing that he was born on December 25, 1642, but science (which he did so much to advance) now shows him to have been born on January 4, 1643.
December 25, 1643: Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is found and named by Captain William Mynors of the English East India Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
December 25, 1647: The Puritan-led English Parliament bans the celebration of Christmas, considering it "a popish festival with no biblical justification," and "a time of wasteful and immoral behavior." They replace it with a day of fasting, although no one seems to have had the guts to tell Oliver Cromwell, "Um, yeah, real quick? That sounds like Yom Kippur. A Jewish holiday."
Protests followed, as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities. For weeks, Canterbury was controlled by rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.
The book The Vindication of Christmas, published in 1652, argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions: Dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants," carol singing, and old Father Christmas, the English version of St. Nicholas, who still bears as much of a resemblance to an old bishop as he does to the figure we have come to know as Santa Claus.
December 25, 1659: Christmas observance is outlawed in Boston. By this point, New Amsterdam (present-day New York) was a fully-functioning Dutch city, and, though also Protestant, celebrated Christmas. This is not the source of that classic New York phrase "Boston sucks," but, if the New World Dutch knew what was going on up in Boston, they would have understood the sentiment.
December 25, 1660: The Restoration of King Charles II ends England's ban on celebrating Christmas. Poor Robin's Almanack contained these lines:
Now thanks to God for Charles' return
Whose absence made old Christmas mourn
For then we scarcely did it know
Whether it Christmas were or no.
December 25, 1681: The Puritan ban on Christmas in Boston is finally revoked, by the English-appointed governor, Edmund Andros. However, it would not be until the middle of the 19th Century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.
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December 25, 1717: Giovanni Angelo Braschi is born in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The son of a count, in 1775 he was elected Pope, taking the name Pius VI. He was Pope throughout the War of the American Revolution, and oversaw the establishment of the 1st Archdiocese in the new nation, that of Baltimore, as Maryland, named for St. Mary, was the one State founded by Catholics. (Most of the places in this country founded by Catholic Frenchmen and Spaniards did not become States until taken by the English or the post-independence Americans.)
Pope Pius VI condemned the French Revolution, for suppressing the Gallican Church. This did not please Napoleon Bonaparte, and he sent troops to occupy the Papal States in 1796. Pius refused to renounce the throne, and in 1798 he was arrested, brought to France, and imprisoned in Valence, dying there a year later.
Oddly, despite what can be argued was having been martyred for his faith, the Church has made no move to canonize him.
December 25, 1719: "Joy to the World" debuts. Isaac Watts wrote the lyrics, and Georg Friedrich Händel wrote the melody.
December 25, 1739: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" debuts. It was written by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, and both brothers were prolific composers of hymns.
Charles' original opening lines were, "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings." Eventually, he changed this to, "Hark! the herald angels sing / Glory to the newborn King."
December 25, 1744: John Francis Wade debuts his carol, written in Latin: "Adeste Fidelis." In 1841, an English priest named Frederick Oakeley wrote English lyrics: "O Come, All Ye Faithful."
December 25, 1757: Benjamin Pierce is born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, outside Lowell. A hero of the American Revolution, he served as Governor of New Hampshire twice between 1827 and 1830. His son, Franklin Pierce, served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, and was the 14th President of the United States (serving from March 4, 1853 to March 4, 1857). Benjamin died in 1839, having lived long enough to see Franklin elected to the Senate.
Pope Pius VI condemned the French Revolution, for suppressing the Gallican Church. This did not please Napoleon Bonaparte, and he sent troops to occupy the Papal States in 1796. Pius refused to renounce the throne, and in 1798 he was arrested, brought to France, and imprisoned in Valence, dying there a year later.
Oddly, despite what can be argued was having been martyred for his faith, the Church has made no move to canonize him.
December 25, 1719: "Joy to the World" debuts. Isaac Watts wrote the lyrics, and Georg Friedrich Händel wrote the melody.
December 25, 1739: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" debuts. It was written by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, and both brothers were prolific composers of hymns.
Charles' original opening lines were, "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings." Eventually, he changed this to, "Hark! the herald angels sing / Glory to the newborn King."
December 25, 1744: John Francis Wade debuts his carol, written in Latin: "Adeste Fidelis." In 1841, an English priest named Frederick Oakeley wrote English lyrics: "O Come, All Ye Faithful."
December 25, 1757: Benjamin Pierce is born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, outside Lowell. A hero of the American Revolution, he served as Governor of New Hampshire twice between 1827 and 1830. His son, Franklin Pierce, served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, and was the 14th President of the United States (serving from March 4, 1853 to March 4, 1857). Benjamin died in 1839, having lived long enough to see Franklin elected to the Senate.
It is unknown if, when naming the character based on himself "Benjamin Franklin Pierce," Dr. Richard Hornberger (writing the book M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors under the name Richard Hooker) knew that Franklin Pierce's father was named Benjamin, although as a native of neighboring Maine, he might have known. (Franklin Pierce did go to Bowdoin College in Maine.)
December 25, 1760: "God Rest You, Merry Gnetlemen" (or "God Rest Ye... ") debuts in print, with lyrics by James Nares, although the melody goes back to at least the 16th Century.
December 25, 1776: George Washington, under cover of darkness, leads the Continental Army across the Delaware River. The next morning, when he's gotten all his troops across to the New Jersey side, he marches them 9 miles down the road, over which State Route 29 would eventually be built, and attacks the Hessians, German mercenaries fighting for Britain, who are sleeping off their Christmas revelry. Thus is won the Battle of Trenton, thus keeping the Patriot cause alive in the War of the American Revolution.
This crossing is memorialized in an 1851 painting by, with some irony, a German-born American, Emmanuel Leutze. In a further irony, the British got their revenge: In World War II, the Royal Air Force destroyed the original painting, by bombing its location, the Kunsthalle art museum in Bremen. Leutze also painted a copy that hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
But, like Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon, on a horse rearing back, leading his troops over the Alps, the painting is factually incorrect and logistically ridiculous. Just as Bonaparte, a brilliant military tactician, would have ridden a mule over the mountains (and there is a painting depicting that), a smart military veteran like Washington would never have stood up in his boat. It would have made him too easy a target, and it might have made the boat tip over.
The Pennsylvania location of the start of the crossing, then known as Taylorsville, is now known as Washington Crossing, in the Township of Upper Makefield. The New Jersey location where it finished is now known as Ewing, after one of Washington's aides, General James Ewing.
Among those who took part in the crossing were some future legends of American statecraft:
* Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury and, in a way, the father of American conservatism.
* Henry Knox, Washington's Secretary of War, for whom the Kentucky army base and gold depository Fort Knox and the seat of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is named.
* John Marshall, the longest-serving and most influential Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
* And James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, and who, under 4th President James Madison during the War of 1812, had the unenviable task of serving as Secretary of State and War (Defense) at the same time, probably doing his country a greater service in that war than he did in the Revolution or his Presidency.
Monroe, who was 25 at the time, is often cited as the young man sitting behind Washington in the painting, holding the flag. That's another error: If any flags made the crossing, they would have been kept hidden, so as not to give their bearers away. Washington was a big believer in the element of surprise, hence the night crossing.
December 25, 1799: Augustinam Hejnek is born in Germany, although it's not clear where. In 1870, at age 70, "Augusta" Hejnek moved to Chicago. Eventually, she moved to Casimir, Wisconsin, where she died on March 1, 1908, at age 108. She is believed to have been the last surviving person born in the 18th Century.
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December 25, 1806: A riot occurs in Lower Manhattan -- or what would have been considered "Midtown" at the time. Fifty members of the Hide Binders, a nativist gang of apprentices and propertyless journeyman butchers, gathers outside St. Peter's Church at 22 Barclay Street, to taunt Catholic worshipers leaving Midnight Mass.
The watch prevented a serious disorder on the Eve, but on Christmas Day, Irishmen fearing a Hide Binder attack armed themselves with cudgels, stones and brickbats. A skirmish breaks out, a watchman is killed, and the Hide Binders invade the Irishtown. The riot only ends when magistrates are able to restore order.
The only people to get arrested were Irish -- a far cry from the post-Civil War era, by which point the vast majority of the NYPD was Irish, and it remained so well into the 20th Century.
Traditionally, new groups have always been viewed suspiciously by the establishment in America. The Irish, the Germans, the blacks, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese, the Hispanics, and in more recent times the Arabs and South Asians have all, against their will, taken their turns as the targeted group.
In the early days of the United States, Irish Catholics were particularly targeted and barred from holding office through a series of laws and requirements, such as a 1777 naturalization clause. The 1806 Christmas Riots occurred less than a year following the election of the 1st Irish Catholic member to the New York State Assembly.
December 25, 1815: The Handel and Haydn Society, the oldest continually operating performing arts organization in America, hosts its 1st performance, at King's Chapel in Boston. Given that Handel had written "Joy to the World," this is appropriate.
December 25, 1818, 200 years ago: "Silent Night" is first performed, at (appropriately enough) the Church of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, a town outside Salzburg, on the Galzach River which separates Austria from Germany. (If you don't count Salzburg as a major city, the closest is Munich to the west, not Vienna to the east.)
Father Joseph Mohr (1792-1848) wrote the lyrics (in German: "Stille Nacht"), and Franz Gruber (1787-1863) composed the melody. That's Franz Gruber -- not Hans Gruber, the German terrorist played by Alan Rickman in Die Hard, a film that took place on Christmas Eve 1988.
December 25, 1821: Clara Barton is born in Oxford, Massachusetts, outside Worcester. She goes on to found the American Red Cross. She lived on until 1912.
December 25, 1822: Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian in New York, is asked by his children if there are any books about Santa Claus. He decides to find out, but discovers that no bookstore in town has any such book.
So he writes his own version of the story, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," which establishes so much of the Santa Claus legend that we know today. The story is published the following year. Moore was born in 1779 and lived until 1863.
December 25, 1823: "The First Noel" makes its debut, written by Davies Gilbert.
December 25, 1826: The Eggnog Riot, a.k.a. the Grog Mutiny, takes place at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Among the cadets who took part, but was not punished, was Jefferson Davis, future U.S. Senator from Mississippi. He later served as Secretary of War under the aforementioned Franklin Pierce, and President of the Confederate States of America. Twenty cadets were court-martialed.
No. I am not making that up. There was an Eggnog Riot at West Point.
December 25, 1831: The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt, also known as the Baptist War or the Christmas Rebellion, begins, led by the Reverend Samuel Sharpe. Up to 20 percent of Jamaica's slaves, 60,000 of them, mobilize. By January 4, British forces under the control of the inaptly-named Sir Willoughby Cotton put the rebellion down.
The "plantocracy" retaliates by killing 207 slaves during the revolt, and over 300 more through executions, including some for minor offenses such as theft. This infuriated the colonists' masters back in London, and the process of emancipation began. In 1838, slavery was banned in Jamaica.
December 25, 1835: Orville Elias Babcock is born in Franklin, Vermont. He went to West Point, and graduated 3rd in the Class of 1861. He was an aide to General Ulysses S. Grant during and after the American Civil War, and when Grant became President, he named Babcock his Secretary -- in modern terms, his White House Chief of Staff.
This was a mistake. He was indicted in 1875 as part of the Whiskey Ring, and again in 1876 as part of the Safe Burglary Committee. Both times, Grant's testimony gained him an acquittal, but damaged Grant's reputation. But the acquittals enabled him to serve as Inspector of Lighthouses in Florida under succeeding Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield and Chester Arthur. He died in 1884, still holding that job.
December 25, 1837: The Battle of Lake Okeechobee is fought in Florida, as part of the Second Seminole War. The Seminoles, under the command of Holata Micco (known to the U.S. government as Billy Bowlegs), defeats U.S. troops under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor.
The problem was that Taylor's subcommander, Colonel Richard Gentry, was too timid to face the enemy, and was one of the American soldiers killed. Taylor's report back to Washington said so, and he was promoted to Brigadier General, and won the nickname "Old Rough and Ready." Though he lost the battle, it put him on the path to become the leading U.S. hero of the Mexican-American War of 1846-47, and to be elected President in 1848.
Eventually, the U.S. Army would win the war, and force the resettlement of the Seminoles to "the Indian Territory," present-day Oklahoma. Nonetheless, the name survives in Florida's Seminole County, and in the name of the sports teams at Florida State University, the Seminoles.
Holata Micco would live on until 1859, long enough to visit Washington, and to see a portrait of Taylor, who died in office in 1850, in the Capitol Building. Recognizing his old opponent, he pointed and said, "Me whip!"
December 25, 1843, 175 years ago: With Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol having debuted earlier in the year, art shop owner Henry Cole prints up the first Christmas cards, costing one shilling each -- rather expensive by the standards of the time. But the debut in 1840 of the penny post -- a stamp costing 1 penny, 1/240th of a pound sterling at the time, could get your letter sent anywhere in the United Kingdom -- made the mailing, and thus the popularization, of Christmas cards possible.
December 25, 1847: "Minuit, Chretiens" debuts, written in French by Adolphe Adam. In 1855, Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight wrote English lyrics, making it "O Holy Night."
In 1973, Harry Chapin would write "Mr. Tanner," and his bass guitarist, John Wallace, would sing the song as the title character -- as Harry wrote, "He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole" -- even though the song "Mr. Tanner" makes no mention of Christmas itself.
December 25, 1849: "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" debuts, written by Edmund Sears, pastor of a Unitarian Church in the Boston suburb of Wayland, Massachusetts.
Also on this day, James Rees, a Christian missionary from Philadelphia, publishes the short story "A Christmas legend." This is the 1st literature to explicitly say that Santa Claus has a wife.
Two years later, the Yale Literary Magazine prints a story that gives Mrs. Claus a name -- sort of. She's listed as simply "Mrs. Santa Claus." In 1889, Katharine Lee Bates, composer of "American the Beautiful," published the poem "Goody Santa Claus On a Sleigh Ride" -- "Goody" being short for "Goodwife," an old New England term with the same meaning as "Mrs." This fleshed out her character as a bespectacled, chubby old woman.
She has since become part of the legend, helped by the Rankin-Bass TV specials, from 1964 and Rudolph onward. Yet she is rarely given a first name. In Rankin-Bass' 1970 special Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, she is Jessica. In 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie, she is Anya. In the 2011 animated Arthur Christmas, she is Margaret.
December 25, 1851: James J. Thomson is born in Annan, Dumfries, Scotland. A halfback, he was one of the founding players for Glasgow soccer team Queen's Park, who stood as the Scotland national team in the 1st international soccer game, against England, at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground at Hamilton Crescent, in the Partick section of the west side of Glasgow. The game ended in a 0-0 draw. Thomson lived until 1915.
December 25, 1852: Henry Tifft Gage is born in Geneva, in Central New York, grows up in Saginaw, Michigan, and becomes a lawyer in California. He was the State's Governor at the turn of the 20th Century, serving from 1899 to 1903, as a Republican. This included the founding of baseball's Pacific Coast League. He died in 1924.
December 25, 1853: "Good King Wenceslas" debuts, written by John Mason Neale, who took it from a 13th Century song. The song takes place "on the feast of Stephen." St. Stephen's Day is actually the day after Christmas, December 26, a.k.a. Boxing Day.
December 25, 1856: James Francis Galvin is born in St. Louis. The Hall of Fame pitcher was nicknamed "Pud" because he was said to have "reduced hitters to pudding." No word on whether it was figgy pudding.
He won 365 games -- a total topped by only 4 pitchers ever -- for the Buffalo Bisons (who went out of business in 1885) and the Pittsburgh team that would be renamed the Pirates before he retired, in a career that lasted from 1875 to 1892. That career curiously stopped right before the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was extended from 50 feet to the now-traditional 60 feet, 6 inches, thus making it harder on pitchers.
A 2006 National Public Radio article refers to Galvin as "the first baseball player to be widely known for using a performance enhancer." The Washington Post reported that Galvin used the Brown-Séquard elixir, which contained monkey testosterone, before a game in 1889. However, no one then seemed bothered by his use of the elixir, and the Post practically endorsed it after the game, saying that Galvin's performance was "the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery."
He was poor, and couldn't afford to take care of himself, and died in 1902. He was only 45 years old. I can't find a reference to the cause of his death, so I can neither confirm nor deny that the steroid he took had anything to do with it.
December 25, 1857: The most familiar Christmas song of all debuts, even though its lyrics have nothing to do with Christmas, and it was originally intended for the earlier holiday of Thanksgiving. James Lord Pierpoint, of the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts, published it under the title of "One Horse Open Sleigh" -- not "Shay," as my mother always told me was correct. By 1859, it was better known as "Jingle Bells."
Also debuting is "We Three Kings," written by the Rev. John Henry Hopkins Jr., the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He wrote it for a Christmas pageant in Manhattan.
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December 25, 1862: Two of the most familiar Christmas songs debut. One is "Angels We Have Heard On High," written by James Chadwick, then Bishop of Hexam and Newcastle in the North-East of England.
The other is "Deck the Hall," which later became "Deck the Halls." The melody dates to 16th Century Wales, and was written in the Welsh language, Cyrmraeg. The English lyrics were written by Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant.
December 25, 1864: Thomas W. Cahill -- I can find no record of what the W stands for -- is born in Manhattan, and grows up in St. Louis. He loved baseball and track, but when a soccer team from Toronto visited St. Louis, he got hooked on the sport.
On April 5, 1913, at the Astor House hotel in New York, Tom Cahill founded the United States Football Association, which later became and remains the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), the governing body of American soccer. He served as its 1st Executive Secretary, until 1921, when he left to merge 2 regional leagues into the American Soccer League. The Great Depression killed it in 1931, and he died in 1951, forgotten.
He would later be elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and should be remembered as the father of American soccer.
December 25, 1865: William Chatterton Dix writes Christmas-themed lyrics to the familiar song "Greensleeves," turning it into "What Child Is This?"
This was also the Christmas season featuring the debut in published form of "Go Tell It On the Mountain," an African-American spiritual, included in a book of songs published by John Wesley Work Jr. (He did not claim authorship for himself, suggesting that it predates his own lifetime.) His son, John Wesley Work III, was also a well-known black songwriter in his time. Neither, though, was related to a popular white folksinger and writer of the time, Henry Clay Work.
"Go Tell It On the Mountain" would also be the title of James Baldwin's 1st novel, published in 1953. The song would regain popularity in 1963, when it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel would include it on their all-acoustic 1st album in 1964, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
Also on this day, Fay Templeton is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a prominent American stage actress of the turn of the 20th Century.
This was also the Christmas season featuring the debut in published form of "Go Tell It On the Mountain," an African-American spiritual, included in a book of songs published by John Wesley Work Jr. (He did not claim authorship for himself, suggesting that it predates his own lifetime.) His son, John Wesley Work III, was also a well-known black songwriter in his time. Neither, though, was related to a popular white folksinger and writer of the time, Henry Clay Work.
"Go Tell It On the Mountain" would also be the title of James Baldwin's 1st novel, published in 1953. The song would regain popularity in 1963, when it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel would include it on their all-acoustic 1st album in 1964, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
Also on this day, Fay Templeton is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a prominent American stage actress of the turn of the 20th Century.
December 25, 1868: In one of his last official acts as President, Andrew Johnson pardons all Confederate soldiers from the American Civil War, for any crimes they may have committed against the United States.
This date is also the Christmas debut of "O Little Town of Bethlehem," written by Phillips Brooks, then rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia.
December 25, 1870: This was the 1st year in which December 25 was officially a federal holiday in America, thanks to a bill passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.
Also on this day, Chaja Rubinstein is born in Krakow, Poland. Better known as Helena Rubinstein, she becomes a cosmetics tycoon, and lives on until 1965. Those of us who grew up on PBS' childrens' programming in the 1970s and '80s know her name from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which contributed funding for Sesame Street, The Electric Company, et al.
December 25, 1871: Reading Football Club is founded in Reading, Berkshire, England. They played at Elm Park from 1896 to 1999, and since then at the 24,161-seat Madejski Stadium.
"The Royals" have not been particularly successful. They have won England's 4th division once, its 3rd division 3 times, and its 2nd division twice, but their best 1st division finish has been 8th place in 2007. Their best finish in the FA Cup has been the Semifinals, in 1927 and 2015, although they've gotten to at least the Quarterfinals 6 times, including 4 times since 2010. Their best finish in the League Cup is the Quarterfinals in 1996 and 1998.
They won the Football league Third Division South Cup in 1938, the London War Cup in 1941, and the Full Members Cup in 1988. This was a competition created after English clubs were banned from European play after the Heysel Stadium disaster of 1985, to give them some extra competition. It lasted a little longer than the ban did, until 1992.
December 25, 1875: "Young Tom Morris," an early golf legend, and the son of an early golf legend known as Old Tom Morris, dies in his native St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He is only 24. He had recently played a match in terrible weather, and probably caught pneumonia.
Although it would be a Scotsman, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, it would be decades before it could have saved Young Tom, who had also recently lost his wife and child in childbirth, and, between his grief and his illness, may have lost the will to live.
Old Tom Morris, born in 1821, lived on until 1908. St. Andrews, home of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the site of 27 British Opens (but never, as yet, a Ryder Cup), is still "the Home of Golf," partly because of the legacy of the Tom Morrises.
December 25, 1876: Muhammad Ali Jinnah is born in Karachi, British India. He becomes the founder of the nation of Pakistan in 1947, but lives only a year after its establishment.
December 25, 1877: Henry Judah Trihey is born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario. A center, Harry Trihey won the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Shamrocks in 1899 and 1900. Regarded as the best forward of his era, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and died in 1942.
December 25, 1878, 140 years ago: Louis Chevrolet is born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. A pioneer of auto racing, he founded the car company that bears his name. Which may also make his company the source of Eartha Kitt's Christmas 1953 request: "Santa baby, a '54 convertible, too, light blue." He did not live to hear that song, dying in 1941.
December 25, 1882: "Away in a Manger" debuts. Its composer is William J. Kirkpatrick.
December 25, 1884: Evelyn Nesbit is born outside Pittsburgh in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. She became a popular Broadway actress after getting on the "casting couch" of architect, and friend of theater producers, Stanford White.
After marrying playboy Harry Thaw, a fellow Pittsburgher, she saw Thaw murder White, in the roof garden of the second Madison Square Garden (which White had designed), on June 25, 1906, resulting in "the Trial of the Century," making her the most familiar woman in America thanks to the era's "yellow journalism."
Her life was a disaster after that. Before her death in 1967, she said of the only man she truly loved, "Stanny White died. My fate was worse: I lived."
December 25, 1886: According to club legend, a meeting of workers of the Dial Square Shop of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, Kent (now part of Southeast London) is held at the nearby Royal Oak pub. The men involved had played football under the name Dial Square 2 weeks earlier, on December 11, defeating Eastern Wanderers 6-0 at Millwall's ground on the Isle of Dogs.
Now, the legend says, they formalize themselves, calling themselves Royal Arsenal Football Club. They will play their home games at the Manor Ground in nearby Plumstead.
We now know, thanks to research by the Arsenal History Society, that this story is not true. They uncovered a publication dated January 2, 1887, with an advertisement seeking matches under the Dial Square F.C. name, meaning that the change of name to Royal Arsenal had not occurred. But on January 8, just 6 days later, they used the Royal Arsenal name in a 6-1 win over Erith at Plumstead Common, not far from the Royal Arsenal itself.
They would turn professional in 1893, necessitating a name change, since a professional sports team was not permitted to have "royal" in its name. So they renamed themselves for their locality: Woolwich Arsenal. In 1913, they moved across the River Thames to the Highbury section of North London, and became simply Arsenal Football Club.
When they play at home right before Christmas, their fans are known to sing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Santa is an Arsenal fan, and at Highbury today!" This is despite the fact that, in 2006, they moved from the old Arsenal Stadium, nicknamed Highbury, and into the Emirates Stadium. When their last game before Christmas is on the road, the fans sing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh what fun it is to see The Arsenal win away!"
December 25, 1887: Conrad Nicholson Hilton is born in Socorro County, New Mexico Territory -- it wouldn't become a State until 1912. Sadly, the hotel icon, who lived until 1979, is now best known for his socialite great-granddaughters, Paris and Nicky. He was recently played by Chelcie Ross on Mad Men. (You may remember Ross as the hypocritical grizzled veteran pitcher in Major League.)
Also on this day, Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whiskey is first produced. Merry Christmas, indeed. Of course, this may also bring us back to the subject of the Hilton sisters.
December 25, 1889: Royal Arsenal play on Christmas Day for the 1st time, at the Manor Ground. They defeat Preston Hornets 5-0.
Also on this day, Lila Bell Acheson is born in Virdon, Manitoba, Canada. In 1921, she married DeWitt Wallace, born 6 weeks before she was. In 1922, they founded Reader's Digest magazine. He lived until 1981, she until 1984.
December 25, 1890: Oklahoma Territorial Agricultural and Mechanical College is founded in Stillwater, a year after the former Indian Territory was taken over and settled by white people. In 1907, with the coming of Statehood, it became Oklahoma A&M. In 1958, the name was changed to Oklahoma State University.
The school was known for a basketball team that won the 1944 and 1945 National Championships under coach Henry Iba, and for building perhaps the greatest college wrestling program. Its football team has been considerably less successful.
OSU athletes have included: Baseball players Allie Reynolds, Joe Horlen, Jerry Adair, Gary WArd, Robin Ventura, Mickey Tettleton, Pete Incaviglia, Jeromy Burnitz, Matt Holliday, Josh Fields, and Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell; football players Sonny Keys, Walt Garrison, Jim Turner, Jerry Sherk, Dexter Manley, Thurman Thomas, Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders, Leslie O'Neal, Charlie Johnson, Jason Gildon and Dez Bryant, and coach Buddy Ryan (Rex' father); basketball players, Bob Kurland, John Starks, Bryant Reeves and Joey Graham, Kansas coach Bill Self, and Don Haskins, coach of the 1966 National Champion Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) team; and the current wrestling coach, Olympic Gold Medalist John Smith. And, if you count golf, Bob Tway, Rickie Fowler and Scott Verplank.
Other alumni include: Oklahoma Senators Henry Bellmon, Don Nickles and Tom Coburn; Governors Bellmon and Mary Fallin; astronaut Stuart Roosa; oilman T. Boone Pickens, who donated enough money to the school to get the football stadium named after him; law professor and political figure Anita Hill; Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould; singers Hoyt Axton and Garth Brooks; and actors Gary Busey and James Marsden. It's also the alma mater of fictional character Ellie Bishop, part of the Special Agent team on CBS' drama NCIS.
Also on this day, in Lancashire, England, soccer hooliganism, if not "invented," is first exposed to a wide audience. Blackburn Rovers play a home match at Ewood Park against nearby team Darwen. Rovers were due to play West Midlands club Wolverhampton Wanderers the following day, Boxing Day, and so they field a weakened team. This infuriates the Blackburn fans, particularly as ticket prices had been increased for the game.
When the Darwen team appears, the fans urge them to leave the pitch, which they do, later re-emerging with their second eleven. Eventually, Blackburn and Darwen fans invade the pitch, pulling up the goal posts and threatening to wreck the press box. The police intervene, and finally manage to control the situation.
Also on this day, Robert LeRoy Ripley is born in Santa Rosa, California. Yes, he was born on a Christmas Day – believe it or not!
Actually, a lot of the items he put in Ripley's Believe It Or Not were stone-cold lies that he just liked. But some of them were true. He died in 1949.
December 25, 1891: Royal Arsenal come from a 3-0 deficit to draw 3-3 with Sheffield United, at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, Yorkshire.
December 25, 1893, 125 years ago: The newly-professional, newly-in-the-Football-League, newly-renamed Woolwich Arsenal host Burslem Port Vale, later just "Port Vale." Today, they are the only 2 teams in the 92-team Football League who are not named after a specific locality. Arsenal win, 4-1.
December 25, 1894: In a manner of speaking, the 1st holiday-season college bowl game is played on this day. Certainly, it was the 1st game between teams from 2 different parts of the country. And it was the 2 men most responsible for the development of American football who set it up and opposed each other in it.
Walter Camp had been one of the 1st great college football players, at Yale University in the late 1870s. In 1888, he became Yale's head coach, and one of his players on that great team was Amos Alonzo Stagg. Between them, they invented pretty much every feature that turned American football from a game resembling soccer and rugby to the game that became so popular in the 20th Century.
Both men went West to start college football programs, Stagg at the University of Chicago, Camp at the newly-founded Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area. They played at the Haight Street Grounds in San Francisco. Chicago beat Stanford 24-4.
The Haight Street Grounds stood from 1887 to 1895. It was actually not at Haight Street, but at the southeastern corner of Stanyan and Waller Streets, in the Haight-Ashbury district that would become the seat of the Hippie movement in the 1960s, at the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, about a block from where Kezar Stadium would later be built.
Also on this day, Woolwich Arsenal again host Burslem Port Vale, and win 7-0. Patrick O'Brien scores 3 goals -- not yet known as a "hat trick" in either ice hockey or association football.
December 25, 1895: The legend of "Stagger Lee" is born. Lee Shelton, a black pimp known as "Stack" or "Stacker" Lee, ran an, um, entertainment venue called the Four Hundred Club in St. Louis. He and William Lyons, also involved in the St. Louis underworld, were drinking in the Bill Curtis Saloon. They began to argue, and Lyons took Shelton's Stetson hat off his head. For this offense, Shelton shot Lyons, killing him. Shelton was convicted, served 12 years for murder, was imprisoned again for robbery, and died in prison in 1912.
As early as 1897, during Shelton's trial, the 1st song about the murder was performed. It spread throughout American music, black and white alike, and, depending on the singer's accent, the perpetrator (and thus the title) could be "Stack-o-Lee," "Stag-o-Lee," "Stacker Lee," "Stagger Lee," and so on. The legendary New Orleans pianist Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack claimed that there were so many versions, he could sing the song for half an hour and never repeat a verse.
Eventually, "Stagger Lee" became the best-known version. But the song, as most people know it now, gets the details wrong: In most versions, "Stagger Lee" and "Billy" are shooting dice in an alley late at night, and Billy, having already won Stagger Lee's Stetson hat, tries to cheat him. So Stagger Lee goes home, gets his gun, goes to the bar, and, despite Billy pleading for his life -- "I got three little children and a very sickly wife" -- shoots him.
Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians became the 1st white act to record it, in 1923. Lloyd Price hit Number 1 with it in 1959, but there was a problem: It was on ABC-Paramount Records, and ABC not only owned the label, but aired American Bandstand. That show couldn't have the Number 1 song in the country played for teenagers, on live national daytime television, with the words, "Stagger Lee shot Billy, oh, he shot that poor boy so bad, 'til the bullet came through Billy and it broke the bartender's glass!" (How did it get past 1950s censors in the first place?)
So they had Lee record a cleaned-up version, in which Billy stole Stagger Lee's girlfriend, but he feels bad and gives her back, and the guys make up, and are both alive at the end. The way to tell the difference at the beginning: In the original version, Price sings, in his New Orleans accent, "The night was Claire," while in the cleaned-up version, he sings it straight, "The night was clear." In both versions, "the Moon was yellow, and the leaves came tumbling down."
Also on this day, Woolwich Arsenal again host Burslem Port Vale, and win 2-1.
December 25, 1896: Woolwich Arsenal host Lincoln City, and win 6-2.
December 25, 1897: Actually, the "Yes, Virginia" editorial was published in the New York Sun on September 21 of this year. Laura Virginia O'Hanlon was then 8 years old. She married briefly, keeping the name Laura Douglas after her divorce. She had a daughter with her brief husband, got a doctorate from Fordham University, taught in New York's public schools from 1912 to 1935, was a principal from then until 1959, and lived on until 1971, always answering letters from kids who asked about the story.
Also on this day, Arsenal lose on Christmas for the 1st time. It is against Tottenham Hotspur, then in Middlesex -- the Tottenham area wouldn't be brought into London, North or otherwise, until the municipal boundaries were redrawn in 1963, effective 1965. Until Arsenal moved to North London in 1913, they considered "Spurs" to be just another opponent. This time, though, Spurs win, 3-2 at the Manor Ground.
December 25, 1899: Humphrey DeForest Bogart is born in Manhattan. Listen, sweetheart, if you don't show some Christmas spirit, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.
Bogie died from smoking in 1957, but he may still be the most beloved actor in American history. "Here's looking at you, kid."
Also on this day, Woolwich Arsenal travel to Lincoln City, and lose 5-0.
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December 25, 1900: Woolwich Arsenal host East London club West Ham United, and win 1-0.
Also on this day, Albert J. Trace is born in Chicago. A musician who played minor-league baseball, he wrote songs with his brother Ben Trace, including "You Call Everybody Darlin'" and "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake." He died in 1993.
December 25, 1901: Woolwich Arsenal host Lancashire club Blackpool. The game ends in a 0-0 draw.
Also on this day, Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott is born at Montagu House in Central London. The daughter of Scotland's largest landowner, the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, she married Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and son of King George V.
This made her the mother of Prince Richard, the current Duke of Gloucester -- a title once held by the villainous King Richard III -- the sister-in-law of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and an aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. One of several long-lived women in the House of Windsor, she lived until October 29, 2004, nearly 103.
December 25, 1902: Woolwich Arsenal travel to Staffordshire, and lose 2-1 to Burton United.
Also on this day, Barton MacLane (no middle name) is born in Columbia, South Carolina. Like Bogie, he developed a reputation for playing tough guys, especially cowboys and cops. He died in 1969.
December 25, 1903: Woolwich Arsenal host Yorkshire club Bradford City, and win 4-1. At the conclusion of the 1903-04 season, Arsenal will be promoted to the Football League Division One for the 1st time.
December 25, 1905: Woolwich Arsenal host the defending Football League Champions, North-East club Newcastle United, and win 4-3.
December 25, 1906: Woolwich Arsenal host the defending Champions of the Scottish Football League, Celtic of Glasgow, and lose 2-0 in front of 15,000 fans, a big crowd for that era.
December 25, 1907: John R. Rosenblatt (I can find no record of what the R stands for) is born in Omaha, Nebraska. Good enough in baseball to win a scholarship to the University of Iowa, he had to drop out to support his family. He went on to play semipro ball in Omaha for 20 years, played in a 1927 exhibition game with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and, in another, batted against Satchel Paige.
In 1948, he was elected City Commissioner, and got a stadium built. The College World Series would be held at his stadium, named for him in 1964, from 1950 until 2010, when a replacement was built. In 1954 and again in 1957, he was elected Mayor. Although Jewish, he was called "the supreme gentleman" by the city's Archbishop, Gerald T. Bergan. He lived until 1979.
Also on his day, Cabell Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. "Minnie the Moocher" is not exactly a Christmas carol, but on December 25, Cab Calloway might've sung it, "Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho-ho-ho!" The jazz legend of the 1930s, introduced to a new generation in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, died in 1994.
Also on this day, Woolwich Arsenal again host Newcastle United, again the defending Champions, and play to a 2-2 draw.
December 25, 1908, 110 years ago: Woolwich Arsenal visit Leicester Fosse, the club now known as Leicester City, and draw 1-1. In those days, it was a common practice for teams to play each other at one's ground on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and then travel to the other's ground to play again on December 26, Boxing Day. This was the 1st time that Arsenal did it, and they won the rematch in Plumstead, 2-1.
Also on this Day, William Benjamin Chapman is born in Nashville. A left fielder, he debuted for the Yankees in 1930, helped them win the World Series in 1932, played in the 1st 4 All-Star Games from 1933 to 1936, and led the American League in stolen bases in 1931, '32, '33 and '37.
By the last of those years, he was with the Washington Senators, as the dark side of his personality had surfaced. When the Nazis took over Germany in 1933, he took it as a sign that it was okay to yell anti-Semitic slurs and throw fascist salutes at Jewish fans. That season, sliding into 2nd base, he intentionally spiked Senators 2nd baseman Buddy Myer -- of Jewish descent but not raised in the faith. Myer fought back, and it grew into a 20-minute brawl, and both men were suspended for 5 games and fined $100.
It wasn't just bigotry that was wrong with him: In 1935, his 1st wife, Mary Elizabeth, filed for divorce, claiming what we would now call domestic abuse. In 1936, his hitting declining and Joe DiMaggio having arrived, Chapman was traded to Washington -- Myer's team. If there were any further incidents between them, they were not publicized. Ironically, one of the players the Yankees got in the trade was Jake Powell, who also turned out to be a nasty bigot.
Chapman managed in the minor leagues in 1942, but punched an umpire, and was suspended for the entire 1943 season. In 1944, with World War II having taken so many players, the 35-year-old Chapman was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers -- which would retroactively become another irony. They traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1945, and they named him their manager, and he continued to play until 1946, finishing with a lifetime batting average of .302.
But in 1947, when the Phillies went to Brooklyn to play the Dodgers, Chapman launched a fusillade of racial epithets at the Dodgers' new signing, Jackie Robinson. At the time, the press wouldn't get specific, only saying that it was bad enough that even the Southerners on the Dodgers rallied around Jackie. The 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story, with Jackie playing himself, showed a santized version of events. But the 2013 film 42 shows Alan Tudyk playing Chapman, and may well have set a record for the most utterances of "the N-word" by a white actor in movie history.
Commissioner Happy Chandler warned the Phillies that there had better not be any incidents during the Dodgers upcoming roadtrip to Philadelphia. It was suggested that a photograph be taken of Chapman and Robinson shaking hands. Chapman refused, so they posed together holding a bat.
Chapman was fired in the middle of the 1948 season -- not for the kind of person he was, but for losing. Only once more did he wear a major league uniform, as a coach with the Cincinnati Reds in 1952. Interviewed by Ray Robinson (a journalist working on a biography of Chapman's long-ago teammate, Lou Gehrig) in 1993, shortly before his death, he expressed regret over his actions, and pointed out that his son was coaching an integrated high school football team in Alabama: "Look, I'm real proud I've raised my son different. And he gets along well with them. They like him. That's a nice thing, don't you think?"
Also on this day, Joe Gregg Moore is born in Gause, Texas, outside Houston. A left fielder,"Jo-Jo" Moore played for the New York Giants from 1930 to 1941, helping them win 3 National League Pennants and the 1933 World Series. He was a 6-time All-Star, and retired with a lifetime batting average of .298. He lived until 2001.
Also on this day, Denis Charles Pratt was born in Sutton, Surrey, England, outside London. He was better known as the author Quentin Crisp. He lived until 1999.
December 25, 1909: Woolwich Arsenal, by now in a financial meltdown that will see them just barely saved from going out of business in the Spring, against host Newcastle United, finishing up what is still the most productive decade in their history, and lose 3-0.
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December 25, 1911: Not that most people then rooting for Woolwich Arsenal cared about who the opponent was, but the Gunners lose 5-0 to Tottenham at White Hart Lane, in front of a huge crowd for the time, 47,000. The next day, the clubs meet again at the Manor Ground, and Arsenal win 3-1.
December 25, 1912: Arsenal host Nottingham club Notts County, and draw 0-0. The 1912-13 season will be the worst in Arsenal's history, the only time they will ever be relegated to the 2nd division. Team owner Henry Norris decided that the location in Southeast London, then having poor transportation links, was a problem.
So he bought land in Islington, in North London, and built a new stadium, officially named the Arsenal Stadium, but nicknamed Highbury after the neighborhood. It was much easier to reach for clubs both inside and outside London. Alas, it would begin life outside the top flight.
In 1987, the Docklands Light Railway began service, including to the area that was once home to Arsenal. That didn't help the team. But in 1913, the Highbury area included a stop on the London Underdround's Piccadilly Line.
In 1932, Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman convinced the company then running the Underground (what we would call a subway system) to rename the station closest to the stadium "Arsenal." To this day, Arsenal are the only London-area team to have a stop named for them. The old tiles reading "GILLESPIE ROAD" can still be seen on the wall of the station, and motormen who are fans of arch-rival Tottenham will, inevitably, use the train's public-address system to identify the station as "Gillespie Road" instead of Arsenal.
December 25, 1913: Woolwich Arsenal travel to Yorkshire and beat Bradford Park Avenue (not to be confused with Bradford City) 3-2. At the conclusion of the season, Norris, noting that the club no longer plays in Woolwich, drops the locality from the name, and it becomes simply "Arsenal Football Club." Many fans will continue to call the club what they've been calling it: "The Arsenal." Many still do.
Also on this day, Alvin Morris is born in San Francisco. Known professionally as singer and actor Tony Martin, he starred on the Burns & Allen radio show, and married Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse. He and Charisse were married from 1948 until she died in 2008. He died in 2012.
December 25, 1914: Upon hearing German soldiers sing Christmas carols in their trench on the Western Front of what was then called The Great War (later World War I), the British soldiers start to do so in theirs. Soon, the men on both sides come out of their trenches, and stop treating each other as enemies for a few hours, exchanging food, drinks, and trinkets. It becomes known as the Christmas Truce.
Legend has it that there was even a soccer game. Sorry, forgot to "speak English" there: A football match. It's not clear which side produced the ball, but according to most accounts that discuss the match, the Germans beat the English, 3-2.
This is the 1st time, but not the last, that Englishmen would be defeated by Germans at their national game. But, as England manager Alf Ramsey pointed out before the 1966 World Cup Final, twice in the 20th Century, the English (well, the British, and their allies) would beat the Germans at their national game (war), and on their soil no less.
Military historian Andrew Robertshaw (a technical advisor for the film version of the World War I story War Horse) says such a truce would have been unthinkable a year later: "This was before the poisoned gas, before aerial bombardment. By the end of 1915, both sides were far too bitter for this to happen again."
In 1997, Garth Brooks and Joe Henry wrote a song titled "Belleau Wood" for Brooks' album Sevens. It describes a Christmas truce between American and German soldiers at Belleau Wood in 1917. But this is fiction, as the battle of Belleau Wood took place in June 1918, in Aisne, Picardy, France.
The Football League did not suspend operations until the conclusion of the 1914-15 season. On Christmas, Arsenal began a home-and-home series, defeating Leicester Fosse away 4-1 on the 25th, and 6-0 at home on the 26th.
December 25, 1915: With rosters depleted by the war, Arsenal travel to Upton Park in East London for what is, essentially, a reserve match, and lose 8-2 to West Ham United.
December 25, 1916: Arsenal travel to the Park Royal Ground in West London, then the stadium of Queens Park Rangers. They beat QPR 3-2.
Also on this day, Ahmed Ben Bella is born in Maghnia, in what was then French Algeria. He served in the French Army during World War II, and was personally decorated by Charles de Gaulle. But France's abuses in his homeland led to his joining the resistance, and in 1954 to the Algerian War, a bitter period for both sides.
Independence was achieved in 1962, and he was elected the country's 1st President in 1963, but was deposed and imprisoned in 1965. He essentially lived under house arrest until 1980, and remained leader of one political party or another until 1997, opposing one tyrannical government after another. He lived until 2012.
December 25, 1917: Arsenal travel to Craven Cottage in West London, home of Fulham, and play to a 1-1 draw.
Also on this day, the similarly-named Arseny Mironov (no middle name) is born in Vladimir, Russia. He designed planes for the Soviet Union during World War II, and was still active in flight direction in 1985. He is still alive, age 101.
December 25, 1918, 100 years ago: The war finally over, but the League deciding not to re-establish play until the following season (September 1919), Arsenal travel to East London, and lose 3-2 to Clapton Orient, the club now known as Leyton Orient.
It's a big day for Arsenal for another reason, as Bertram Mee (no middle name) is born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire. A winger, he played for Mansfield Town and Southampton, but his playing career was cut short by injury.
This had also been the case for Arsenal players Tom Whittaker and Billy Milne, and Bertie Mee followed the path that each of those men took, taking what he'd learned in treating his injury and putting it to work as a physiotherapist, becoming Arsenal's, and in 1966 becoming Arsenal's manager. But before going to Arsenal, World War II intervened, and he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps.
He rose to the rank of Sergeant, but after succeeding Milne as physiotherapist in 1960 and being named manager in 1966, he remained a Sergeant through and through. He instilled discipline in an Arsenal side that was nearly relegated in 1966, a team that was not only terrible, but was perhaps the least interesting in London, what with Tottenham and West Ham having won major trophies in the decade, and Chelsea, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers all having gotten favorable notices in the media for their play.
In 1966-67, he handled the personnel management and the discipline, while assistant manager Dave Sexton trained the offense. After that season, Sexton was named manager at Chelsea, but former star right back Don Howe, another whose career ended too soon by injury, was named assistant manager, and he straightened out the defense. Arsenal reached the Final of the League Cup in 1968 and 1969, won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1970, and then, with a few adjustments due to injury that turned out to be very fortuitous, won both the Football League and the FA Cup -- "The Double" -- in 1971.
In 1972, with Howe having left for the manager's job at West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal finished 5th in a tight 5-team race, and lost the FA Cup Final. In 1973, they finished a close 2nd and lost the FA Cup Semifinal. Unfortunately, Mee saw every challenge to his authority, even minor ones, as betrayal, and acted the Sergeant too often. And he started a tradition followed by Terry Neill in 1980, George Graham in 1991, and Arsène Wenger in 2005: Breaking up a great Arsenal team too soon. Both of these problems manifested themselves in his sale of Captain Frank McLintock after the 1973 season.
Arsenal fell apart, and nearly got relegated in the 1975 and 1976 seasons, barely staying up both times. Mee was finally let go. He later served as Graham Taylor's assistant at Watford, and lived until 2001. He won 241 games as Arsenal manager, a record that stood until surpassed by Wenger in 2006.
Also on this day, Muhammad Anwar e-Sadat is born in Monufia, in what was then the Sultanate of Egypt. He was an officer that participated in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, overthrowing King Farouk and installing Gamal Abdel Nasser as military dictator. He became part of Nasser's Cabinet in 1954, served as Vice President briefly in 1964, and was named Vice President again in 1969. When Nasser died on September 28, 1970, Sadat became President.
He was the leading figure against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, but lost. His brother Atef Sadat, a pilot, was killed. This seems to have changed him: Not only did he begin to reform Egypt domestically, making the nation more free than it had ever been, but by 1977 he was making overtures to Israel for a permanent peace between their nations.
With the assistance of President Jimmy Carter, Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978. That peace has now held for 40 years, and he and Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. But, as he well knew he might, he paid for it with his life, being assassinated at a military parade in Cairo on October 6, 1981, the 8th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War. He was 62.
December 25, 1919: Arsenal, back in League play and promoted back to Division One, travel to Derbyshire, and lose 3-2 to Derby County. The next day, the teams meet at Highbury, and Arsenal win 1-0.
Also on this day, Cliftonhill Stadium opens in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the home of Albion Rovers Football Club. They have won Scottish soccer's 2nd division in 1934, its 3rd in 1989, and its 4th in 2015. But they have rarely been in the 1st division, under any name. They have never won the Scottish Cup, but in that 1st season, 1919-20, they got to the Final. They have won 8 Lanarkshire Cups, but the last was in 1987.
In the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons, Hamilton Academical F.C. groundshared there, while their Douglas Park was rebuilt. Today, it is known as The Reigart Stadium for sponsorship purposes, and only the 1,572-seat Airdrie Stand remains open.
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December 25, 1920: The one Christmas carol familiar in English but originating in Poland makes its English debut: "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly" ("W Żłobie Leży"). It dates back to the 13th Century, when Poland was what passed for a world power at the time, and was translated into English by Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed, a British musician and playwright.
Also on this day, Arsenal go to Goodison Park in Liverpool, and beat Everton 4-2.
December 25, 1921: Melvin Anthony Maceau is born in Milwaukee. A center, he played for the Cleveland Browns, and helped them win the All-America Football Conference in 1946, 1947 and 1948, the last of these an undefeated season. He was cut before the 1949 season, when the Browns again won the AAFC title, before joining the NFL. Mel Maceau died in 1981.
December 25, 1922: Arsenal go to Burnden Park in Bolton, Lancashire, and lose to Bolton Wanderers 4-1.
Also on this day, Julius Neal Watlington is born in Yanceyville, North Carolina. A catcher, he arrived in professional baseball in 1941, then went off to World War II, and was wounded and received a Purple Heart. He appeared in 21 major league games, all with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1953, and remained at the Triple-A level until retiring after the 1958 season. He is still alive, 1 of 12 surviving players for that team before its 1954-55 move to Kansas City.
Also on this day, Félix Loustau (no middle name) is born in Avellaneda, in the state of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A left wing, he starred on the Buenos Aires soccer team River Plate. With Juan Carlos Muñoz, José Manuel Moreno, Adolfo Pedernera and Ángel Amadeo Labruna, he formed a 5-man forward line known as La Máquina, "the Machine." They won Argentine league titles in 1941, 1942, 1945 and 1947.
Loustau also helped Argentina win the Copa América, South America's continental championship for national teams, in 1945, 1946 and 1947. He died in 2003. Muñoz was the last survivor of La Máquina, living until 2009.
December 25, 1923: James Gamble Nippert dies from blood poisoning, the result of an injury he suffered a month earlier playing football at the University of Cincinnati, in a win over arch-rival Miami University of Ohio. The son of a judge, and of an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune, he had survived serving in World War I, only to face this fate. He was only 23 years old.
UC's stadium, built the following year, is named for him. His brother Louis Nippert would later own the Cincinnati Reds.
December 25, 1924: Arsenal go to St. Andrews Stadium in Birmingham, and lose to Birmingham City 2-1.
Also on this day, Submitted for your approval: Rodman Edward Serling is born in Syracuse, New York, and grows up in Binghamton. Rod Serling died in 1975, at age 50, from smoking-induced heart attacks. But he hopes you have a Merry Christmas. He sends you this greeting… from The Twilight Zone. (His opinion of the "Twilight Saga" books and films is unrecorded.)
Also on this day, Atal Bihair Vajpayee is born in Gwalior, in what is now the State of Madhya Pradesh, India. He served as his country's Prime Minister from 1998 to 2004, including its entry into "the Nuclear Club." He died this past August 16, at age 93.
Christmas 1925: Arsenal host Notts County at Highbury, and win 3-0.
Also on this day, Ned Franklin Garver is born in Ney, Ohio, outside Toledo. In 1951, he went 20-12 pitching for the St. Louis Browns, the team that became the Baltimore Orioles 3 years later. This was quite a feat, considering that the Browns went 52-102 that year. Garver was the starting pitcher for the American League in that year's All-Star Game in Detroit.
Pitching in the major leagues from 1948 to 1961, with mostly bad teams, Garver finished with a career record of 129-157. But he must have had some talent, above and beyond his remarkable 1951 season, because the great Ted Williams said, "He could throw anything up there and get me out." He died on February 26, 2017, age 91.
Also on this day, Samuel Patterson Smyth Pollock is born in Montreal. Hired by the Montreal Canadiens' front office in 1959, he was general manager from 1963 to 1978, helping to build 12 Stanley Cup winners. He is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and died in 2007.
Also on this day, Carlos Castaneda (no middle name) is born in Cajamarca, Peru. The anthropologist and author lived until 1998.
December 25, 1926: Emperor Yoshihito of Japan dies of a heart attack, brought on by pneumonia. He was only 47. He is succeeded by his son, who becomes Emperor Hirohito.
Also on this day, Richard Wesley Manville is born in Des Moines, Iowa. A man brilliant enough to earn degrees from both Harvard and Yale, he was also a major league pitcher -- briefly. He pitched 1 game, 2 innings, for the Boston Braves in 1950; and 11 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1952. He is still alive.
December 25, 1927: Jacob Nelson Fox is born in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. Nellie Fox, a diminutive but crafty 2nd baseman, had his Number 2 retired by the Chicago White Sox, whom he led to an American League Pennant in 1959, resulting in his being named the AL's Most Valuable Player. Yankee pitching legend Whitey Ford called him the toughest out he ever faced, and author, radio show host and White Sox fan Jean Shepherd called him his favorite player of all time.
Along with his contemporaries Phil Rizzuto, Gil Hodges and Richie Ashburn, and the younger Ron Santo, Fox was one of those guys that everyone hoped would one day get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but wondered why it was taking so long. Rizzuto lived long enough to make it, in 1994. So did Ashburn, in 1995. Fox didn't, dying of skin cancer in 1975 and getting elected in 1997. Santo didn't, either, dying in 2010 and being elected in 2012. Hodges died in 1972, and his supporters are still waiting.
Also on this day, Leo R. Kubiak (I can find no record of what the R stands for) is born in Toledo, Ohio. He played professional baseball, but didn't make the major leagues. He did make them in basketball, playing for the Waterloo Hawks of Iowa from 1948 to 1950. He is one of the last surviving players from the founding days of the NBA.
December 25, 1928, 90 years ago: Arsenal play their 1st Christmas Day match under manager Herbert Chapman. They lose 5-2, away to Blackburn Rovers.
Also on this day, Nellie Elizabeth McCalla is born in Pawnee City, Nebraska, and grows up in Iowa. Known professionally as Irish McCalla, she was a model, one of pinup artist Alberto Vargas' "Varga Girls." She got into movies in the early 1950s, and in the 1955-56 season starred in Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. By her own admission, "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees."
She left acting for art, her last role being on an 1963 episode of 77 Sunset Strip, and became an accomplished painter. But her status as an action-adventure hero -- the female one on TV -- kept her in demand at nostalgia and sci-fi/fantasy conventions. She died in 2002.
Also on this day, Walter Earl Brown is born in Salt Lake City. He wrote songs for TV shows in the 1960s and '70s, including "If I Can Dream" for Elvis Presley's 1968 NBC "Comeback Special." He died in 2008.
December 25, 1929: Arsenal, on the way to their 1st major trophy (the 1930 FA Cup), travel to Fratton Park, and beat Hampshire team Portsmouth 1-0 on a goal by their diminutive but prolific inside left Alex James.
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December 25, 1930: Arsenal travel to Manchester, and beat Manchester City at Maine Road, 4-1. Goals by Joe Hulme, David Jack, Jack Lambert (no relation to the later Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker of the same name), and a penalty by Cliff Bastin. This is the start of a 3-game stretch where Arsenal score 14 goals, on the way to their 1st League title in April 1931.
Also on this day, Emanoul Aghassian is born in Salma, in the Persian Empire, present-day Iran. He represented Iran as a boxer in the Olympics of 1948 in London and 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After the 1952 Games, he and his brother Samuel moved to Chicago. Emanoul changed his name to the more American-sounding Mike Agassi. He later took a job at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, where he raised his children, including his son Andre Agassi.
Andre not only won "the career Grand Slam," winning 4 Australian Opens, 2 U.S. Opens, and Wimbledon and the French Open once each, but, in Atlanta in 1996, won what had eluded his father: An Olympic Gold Medal. Mike is still alive, age 88.
December 25, 1931: Arsenal travel to Yorkshire, and lose to Sheffield United 4-1 at Bramall Lane. They go on to a dubious near-Double, finishing 2nd in the League and losing the FA Cup Final.
December 25, 1932: King George V delivers a Royal Christmas Message to the British Empire, broadcast live over the BBC and its Worldwide Service, thus beginning a tradition.
Also on this day, Charles Grice Driesell is born in Norfolk, Virginia. Although naturally lefthanded, he was nicknamed for country singer William "Lefty" Frizzell, a star in his youth. He played basketball at Duke University before that became a big deal, then became a coach, starting at his alma mater in Norfolk, Granby High School.
In 1960, he got his 1st college job, at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, getting them to what we would now call the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in 1966 and the Elite Eight in 1968. That got the attention of the University of Maryland, and they hired him in 1969.
On July 12, 1973, Lefty Driesell and 2 friends were surf fishing in Bethany Beach, Delaware, when they saw a fire at a resort building. They rushed to shore, and Driesell broke down a door and rescued at least 10 children. It would be another half an hour before the firemen arrived. He said he wasn't a hero: "It was just lucky that we were fishing right in front of the houses."
He built a pretty good coaching record in College Park, too. He reached the Sweet Sixteen 5 times, and the Elite Eight in 1973 and 1975. He won them Atlantic Coast Conference Championships in the regular season in 1975 and 1980, and in the Tournament in 1984, led by a powerful sophomore forward named Len Bias. Other star players of his included Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, John Lucas, Albert King and Buck Williams.
In 1986, Bias had a chance to be taken as the Number 1 pick in the NBA Draft. He wasn't: Brad Daugherty of North Carolina was, by the Cleveland Cavaliers. But the Boston Celtics had traded up for the Number 2 pick, and chose Bias. When asked about him, Driesell said, "Leonard's only vice is ice cream." This turned out not to be the case. It was also revealed, after Bias' cocaine-induced death, that he'd used up his eligibility. The scandal forced Driesell to resign.
He returned to the coaching ranks in 1988, with James Madison University of Harrisonburg, Virginia. He led them to 5 Conference Championships. He closed his career at Georgia State University, and led them to 4 Conference Championships. In so doing, he became the 1st coach to win more than 100 games at 4 different NCAA Division I schools. His final record, from 1960 to 2003, was 786-394. He is still alive, and was just elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
December 25, 1932: Mabel Elizabeth Washington is born in Charleston, South Carolina. We knew her as Mabel King -- although, as an American, it is a little odd that she went from being named Washington to being named King. Then again, it would have been even odder had her birthday been not Christmas but the 4th of July.
She played Mabel Thomas, a.k.a. Mama, on What's Happening!! and Evillene the Witch in The Wiz. She died in 1999.
December 25, 1933: Having won the League the season before, Arsenal travel to Yorkshire, and beat Leeds United 1-0 at Elland Road. Bastin scores. Despite Chapman's death 2 weeks after Chritmas, they win the League again under interim manager Joe Shaw.
Also on this day, Benjamin Basil Heatley is born in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England. On June 13, 1964, Basil Heatley won the Polytechnic Marathon in London, running it in 2 hours, 13 minutes, 55 seconds to break the world record for the marathon. But he would only win a Silver Medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, as the man whose record he broke, 1960 Olympic Gold Medalist Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, reclaimed the Gold and the record. Heatley is still alive.
December 25, 1934: Now managed by George Allison, Arsenal defeat Lancashire club Preston North End 5-3, at Highbury. Hulme scores 2, Bastin 1, Ray Bowden 1, and they also get the benefit of an own goal by Preston. The next day, Preston get revenge, 2-1 at their home ground of Deepdale. Arsenal go on to make it 3 straight League titles.
In the 1st season of the Football League, 1888-89, Preston went unbeaten, winning 18 games, drawing 4 and losing none. They also won the FA Cup, making the 1st "Double." An unbeaten League season would not happen again until Arsenal in 2003-04: As broadcaster Alan Parry said, "They were, quite literally, unbeatable: Played 38, won 24, drawn 12, lost exactly none!"
Also on this day, Santa Anita Park opens in Los Angeles. Still the West Coast's premier thoroughbred horse racing track, it annually hosts the Santa Anita Derby, one of the warmup races for the Triple Crown. It has also hosted the Breeders' Cup more times than any other track. How many times, Ed Rooney? "Nine times!": 1986, 1993, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016.
December 25, 1935: Arsenal travel to Anfield in Liverpool, and beat Liverpool 1-0 on a goal by Joe Hulme. But the next day, Liverpool win at Highbury, 2-1. Arsenal go on to win the 1936 FA Cup.
Anne Roth is born in Manhattan. We know her as Anne Roiphe, a novelist whose works include the "feminist classic" Up the Sandbox, published in 1970. She is still alive.
Also on this day, Sadiq al-Mahdi is born in Al-Abasya, Sudan. He was twice his country's Prime Minister, from 1966 to 1967 and again from 1986 to 1989. He is still alive.
December 25, 1936: Arsenal host Preston, and win 4-1, on goals by Jackie Milne, Alf Kirchen, and 2 by Ted Drake.
Also on this day, Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel Windsor is born in Belgrave Square, West London. She is the daughter of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and thus a niece of King George VI. Thus also a 1st cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
She served as one of the future Queen's bridemaids when she married Prince Philip in 1947. She later married a son of the Earl of Airlie, and became known as Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy. She is still alive.
December 25, Christmas 1937: Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the 1st time, beginning an iconic tenure that lasts 17 years. His selections include works by Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Johannes Brahms.
Also on this day, Arsenal travel to Lancashire, and blow a 1-0 halftime lead on a penalty by Bastin, and lose to Blackpool 2-1. They go on to win the 1938 League title anyway.
Also on this day, Newton Baker dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in the Cleveland suburbs. He was 66 years old. He was Mayor of Cleveland from 1912 to 1915. He served as Secretary of War under President Woodrow Wilson from 1916 to 1921, including the entire U.S. contribution to World War I. At 44 at the time of his appointment, he was the youngest member of the Cabinet.
He was so well-regarded that subsequent Republican Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover crossed party lines to appoint him to commissions. He was seriously considered as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1932, but refused to run, preferring to work, successfully as it turned out, for the nomination of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, whom he had known as Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy. A law firm he founded, Baker Hostetler, is still considered one of the top firms in America.
Also on this day, O'Kelly Isley Jr. is born in Cincinnati. A very different kind of musical legend from Toscanini, he was the eldest of the singing Isley Brothers, he grew up and go their start in Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey -- eventually starting T-Neck Records.
He and his brothers Ronald and Rudolph (no, he wasn't born on Christmas, and didn't have a red nose) wrote "Shout!" (As in, "We-e-e-e-e-e-ll... You know you make me wanna shout!") They also wrote "Nobody But Me" (as in, "No no, no, no no, no no no no no... Nobody can do the shing-a-ling! like I do... "), which didn't chart for them, but became a hit a few years later for a Cleveland-based band called the Human Beinz. O'Kelly died in 1986, Ronald is now 77, and Rudolph (Isley, that is, not the reindeer) is 79.
December 25, 1938, 80 years ago: Karel Capek dies of pneumonia in Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia. The science fiction pioneer was only 48. His 1922 play, Rossum's Universal Robots, contained the first published example of the use of the word "robot." He claimed the word was coined by his brother Josef, meaning "serf labor," essentially labor without any choice, as a robot could be programmed to do.
Karel had refused to leave his homeland after the Nazis annexed it, and this stress, combined with a spinal condition that made life very painful, may have contributed to his early death. Josef, a painter and a writer in his own right, didn't live much longer, as the Nazis sent him to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945, age 58.
Also on this day, Jack Edwin Hamilton is born in Burlington, Iowa. He went 32-40 in 8 seasons as a major league pitcher, including for the Mets in 1966 and 1967. However, the Mets traded him to the California Angels, and on August 18, 1967, he hit Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Sox in the head, ruining his career.
It was not intentional: He had no reputation for hitting batters, hit only 1 other batter during the course of the season, and someone had thrown a smoke bomb onto the field a few minutes earlier, and the smoke hadn't fully cleared, making it harder to see the ball during a night game.
Hamilton never recovered from the stigma of having hit Tony C, and retired after 2 more seasons. He later ran restaurants in his native Iowa, and in Branson, Missouri, where he died this past February 22, at age 79.
Also on this day, Joseph Jean-Noel Yves Picard in Montréal, Québec. A defenseman, he won the Stanley Cup with the 1965 Montreal Canadiens, and reached the Stanley Cup Finals 3 more times, with the 1968, 1969 and 1970 St. Louis Blues.
He is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to trip Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins up in overtime of Game 4 of the 1970 Finals, allowing Orr to score the Cup-winning goal, and putting Picard into perhaps the most famous photograph in the history of hockey.
Noel Picard was a member of 2 1st-year NHL expansion teams, the 1967-68 Blues and the 1972-73 Atlanta Flames. He later became a broadcaster for the Blues, and ran a restaurant in the suburbs of St. Louis. He died in 2017.
December 25, 1939: With World War II underway, the Football League has again suspended operations, and won't start again until the 1946-47 season (although the Football Association will play a full FA Cup tournament in 1945-46). Arsenal host East London team Clapton Orient, and win 3-0. Kirchen, Jack Crayston and Reg Lewis score the goals. Clapton Orient is now known as Leyton Orient, nicknamed just "Orient," or "The O's."
Also on this day, Robert McElhiney James is born in Marshall, Missouri. A jazz pianist, Bob James has been repeatedly sampled by hip-hop performers, but is best known for his composition "Angela," which was taken as the theme song for the TV sitcom Taxi. He is still alive, and should not be confused with his contemporary, the saxophonist Bob James, who played on several hits, including Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are."
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December 25, 1940: Pal Joey, a musical based on the novel by John O'Hara, premieres at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre at 243 West 47th Street in New York. It includes the songs "Chicago" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." It stars Gene Kelly, Vivienne Segal, June Havoc, Van Johnson and Stanley Donen.
It's better known for the 1957 film version, starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. In spite of Sinatra having done the best-known versions of both "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" and "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)," the song "Chicago" in this musical is neither one of those.
The last surviving theatre built by the Shubert organization, the Ethel Barrymore is currently hosting the musical The Band's Visit.
Also on this day, South Side Park burns down in Chicago. As far as anyone knows, the fire is not purposely set. It was the 1st home of the American League's Chicago White Sox (1901 to 1910), and of the Negro Leagues' Chicago American Giants (1910 to 1940). The American Giants won 7 Pennants while playing there, the White Sox 2.
Also on this day, under the wartime conditions of depleted rosters, Tommy Lawton plays for Everton against Liverpool at Anfield in the morning. Liverpool win, 3-1. Then he is asked to play as a guest player for Merseyside club Tranmere Rovers at nearby Cheshire club Crewe Alexandra in the afternoon. As he recalled, "The Tranmere people came into the dressing room, and asked if anyone wanted to play, as they were two men short. I said, 'Go on, I'll help you out.' And I did."
I can't find a record of the result of the Tranmere-Crewe match, but Lawton played a full 90 minutes in the afternoon, after having already done so on Christmas morning. Given the heavy leather balls and ragged pitches (especially in Winter) of the era, this may qualify as a Christmas miracle.
Just 4 days later, the Luftwaffe bombed the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe, which had been making Spitfire planes for the Royal Air Force.
Also on this day, Arsenal lose 4-2 away to West Ham United.
Also on this day, Agnes Ayres dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was only 42, and had been one of the top actresses of the silent film era, starring opposite Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik and Son of the Sheik.
Also on this day, Peter Edward Brown is born in Ashtead, Surrey, England. A singer, and a cousin of actor Marty Feldman (What hump?), he is best remembered for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, both in the band Cream and in Bruce's solo career. He and Bruce wrote "I Feel Free," "Sunshine of Your Love," and one of my favorite rock songs of all time, "White Room" -- which is definitely not to be confused with "White Christmas." He is still alive.
Also on this day, Jonathan Edwards (no middle name) is born in St. Louis. In 1977, John Edwards became the lead singer of the soul group The Spinners. A stroke forced him to retire in 2000. Nevertheless, he is still alive.
December 25, 1945: With World War II over and victory belonging to the Allies, Arsenal travel to Wales, and lose 2-1 to Newport County at Rodney Parade in Newport.
Also on this day, David Noel Redding is born in Folkestone, Kent, England. Noel Redding was the guitarist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He died in 2003.
Also, Richard Keith Berman is born in Manhattan. Rick Berman became the keeper of the Star Trek
flame after Gene Roddenberry died, until it was foolishly given to J.J. "Jar-Jar" Abrams. He is still alive.
Also, Kenneth Michael Stabler is born in Foley, Alabama. "The Snake" was backup quarterback to Joe Namath at the University of Alabama in their 1964 National Championship season, then led them to another title in 1965. He guided the Oakland Raiders to victory in Super Bowl XI in 1977.
He once said, "There's nothing wrong with reading a playbook by the light of a jukebox." The writer Jack London, also a noted party animal in Oakland, once wrote, "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor than a sleepy, permanent planet." Someone once read those words to Stabler, and asked him what he thought they meant. Stabler paused a moment, then said, "Throw deep." He may have been reckless, but he was smart.
Somehow, in spite of all his carousing, Ken Stabler lived until 2015 -- but not long enough to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which elected him in a sympathy vote right after his death.
Also, Gary Lee Sandy is born in Dayton, Ohio. Not far from Cincinnati, where he played radio station manager Andy Travis on WKRP in Cincinnati – not to be confused with country singer Randy Travis. Gordon Jump, who played station operator Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson, was also from Dayton, but no other castmember was from anywhere near Cincy. Sandy is alive.
December 25, 1946: The Buffalo Bisons of the National Basketball League announce that they're moving to the "Tri-Cities" of Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa, and becoming the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. Later, Bettendorf, Iowa will be added to the region's traditional name, making it the "Quad Cities."
The Blackhawks -- like the Chicago hockey team, named for the famous early 19th Century Native chief of the region -- play in Moline for 5 years, but in 1951, they moved again, becoming the Milwaukee Hawks. In 1955, they became the St. Louis Hawks, reaching 4 NBA Finals including winning the 1958 NBA Championship. In 1968, despite having won a Division title, they moved again, becoming the Atlanta Hawks. Given their attendance problems lately, they may have to move again.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Portsmouth, and win 2-1 on goals by Jimmy Logie and Ronnie Rooke. Rooke was 35, old for a forward and very old for a good one. But in 1947-48, the season in which he turned 36, he scored 33 goals to help Arsenal win the League.
That total remains the most any Arsenal player has scored in a post-World War II season, and only 2 Arsenal players since have scored 30 in a League season: Thierry Henry in 2003-04 and Robin van Persie in 2011-12. Rookie did not live to see either achievement, dying in 1985.
Also on this day, legendary comedian W.C. Fields dies from the long-term effects of alcoholism. He was 66. In a 1941 film, titled Never Give a Sucker an Even Break after another quote of his, he said, "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I am indebted to her for." This saying was eventually mixed up, and has become popularly known as, "'Twas a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the decency to thank her for it."
He might have agreed with quirky singer Jimmy Buffett, born James William Buffett on this same day in Pascagoula, Mississippi: "Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame."
Also born on this day, in Stow, Ohio, is football legend Lawrence Richard "Larry" Csonka. So is former baseball manager Gene William Lamont, in Rockford, Illinois.
Also born on this day, in Motherwell, Scotland, is John Boyle (no middle name), a star in that other kind of "football." A midfielder, he reached the 1967 FA Cup Final with West London team Chelsea, but lost; and was injured for their 1970 FA Cup Final win. But he got a winner's medal for their 1971 win in the European Cup Winners' Cup.
He later came to America, and both played for and managed the Tampa Bay Rowdies, winning the NASL Championship as a player in 1975, Tampa Bay's 1st title in any sport. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Gene Autry, dressed as Santa Claus, rides Champion Jr. the Wonder Horse in the Santa Claus Lane Parade, now known as the Hollywood Christmas Parade. He heard children yelling, "Here comes Santa Claus!" So he writes a song with that title.
Also, this may be a landmark day in film history. As far as I know, this is the 1st time film companies premiered movies on Christmas Day, starting a tradition in which Jewish families would have something to do on a day when most places would be closed.
The biggest such film is The Road to Rio. Of the 7 "Road Pictures" starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, this was the most successful at the box office.
December 25, 1948, 70 years ago: Arsenal host East Midlands team Derby County, and the teams play to a 3-3 draw.
Also on this day, Barbara Ann Mandrell is born in Houston. She, and her singing sisters Louise and Irlene, were country when country wasn't cool. And when it was.
Also on this day, Joel Natalino Santana is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, his middle name coming from his birth on Christmas (Natal in Portuguese). A centreback, he starred for hometown team Vasco da Gama, winning the national league (Campeonato Brasileiro) in 1974.
He moved around a lot as a manager, leading Al Wasl to the league title in the United Arab Emirates in 1982, 1983 and 1985. He returned home and won Brazilian State Championships for Vasco in 1992 and 1993, Bahia in 1994, for Rio team Fluminense (or "Flu") in 1995, for Flu's arch-rivals Flamengo (or "Fla") in 1996, for Rio team Botafogo in 1997, for Bahia again in 1999, Vitória in 2003, Fla again in 2008, and Botafogo again in 2010.
But his biggest achievement was leading Vasco to the league title in 2000, making him one of the few managers in any country to win a league title for the same team as a player and a manager. He now manages an amateur team in the Los Angeles suburbs.
December 25, 1949: Leon Schlesinger dies of a viral infection at age 65. A film producer, he was a relative of the Warner Brothers, and founded their cartoon division, leading to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and all the others. Including Porky Pig. So he died on a Christmas Day. Dare I say it? I dare: "Abadee, abadee, abadee, aba, That's all, folks!"
Also on this day, Mary Elizabeth Spacek is born in Quitman, Texas. "Sissy" Spacek also sang country music, playing Loretta Lynn in the film version of Lynn’s memoir Coal Miner’s Daughter.
Also on this day, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is born in Lahore, Pakistan. Known as Nawaz Sharif, he has been his homeland's Prime Minister 3 times: 1990 to 1993, 1997 to 1999, and 2013 to 2017. He is still alive.
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Also on this day, Albert J. Trace is born in Chicago. A musician who played minor-league baseball, he wrote songs with his brother Ben Trace, including "You Call Everybody Darlin'" and "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake." He died in 1993.
December 25, 1901: Woolwich Arsenal host Lancashire club Blackpool. The game ends in a 0-0 draw.
Also on this day, Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott is born at Montagu House in Central London. The daughter of Scotland's largest landowner, the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, she married Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and son of King George V.
This made her the mother of Prince Richard, the current Duke of Gloucester -- a title once held by the villainous King Richard III -- the sister-in-law of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and an aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. One of several long-lived women in the House of Windsor, she lived until October 29, 2004, nearly 103.
December 25, 1902: Woolwich Arsenal travel to Staffordshire, and lose 2-1 to Burton United.
Also on this day, Barton MacLane (no middle name) is born in Columbia, South Carolina. Like Bogie, he developed a reputation for playing tough guys, especially cowboys and cops. He died in 1969.
December 25, 1903: Woolwich Arsenal host Yorkshire club Bradford City, and win 4-1. At the conclusion of the 1903-04 season, Arsenal will be promoted to the Football League Division One for the 1st time.
December 25, 1905: Woolwich Arsenal host the defending Football League Champions, North-East club Newcastle United, and win 4-3.
December 25, 1906: Woolwich Arsenal host the defending Champions of the Scottish Football League, Celtic of Glasgow, and lose 2-0 in front of 15,000 fans, a big crowd for that era.
December 25, 1907: John R. Rosenblatt (I can find no record of what the R stands for) is born in Omaha, Nebraska. Good enough in baseball to win a scholarship to the University of Iowa, he had to drop out to support his family. He went on to play semipro ball in Omaha for 20 years, played in a 1927 exhibition game with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and, in another, batted against Satchel Paige.
In 1948, he was elected City Commissioner, and got a stadium built. The College World Series would be held at his stadium, named for him in 1964, from 1950 until 2010, when a replacement was built. In 1954 and again in 1957, he was elected Mayor. Although Jewish, he was called "the supreme gentleman" by the city's Archbishop, Gerald T. Bergan. He lived until 1979.
Also on his day, Cabell Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. "Minnie the Moocher" is not exactly a Christmas carol, but on December 25, Cab Calloway might've sung it, "Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho-ho-ho!" The jazz legend of the 1930s, introduced to a new generation in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, died in 1994.
Also on this day, Woolwich Arsenal again host Newcastle United, again the defending Champions, and play to a 2-2 draw.
December 25, 1908, 110 years ago: Woolwich Arsenal visit Leicester Fosse, the club now known as Leicester City, and draw 1-1. In those days, it was a common practice for teams to play each other at one's ground on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and then travel to the other's ground to play again on December 26, Boxing Day. This was the 1st time that Arsenal did it, and they won the rematch in Plumstead, 2-1.
Also on this Day, William Benjamin Chapman is born in Nashville. A left fielder, he debuted for the Yankees in 1930, helped them win the World Series in 1932, played in the 1st 4 All-Star Games from 1933 to 1936, and led the American League in stolen bases in 1931, '32, '33 and '37.
By the last of those years, he was with the Washington Senators, as the dark side of his personality had surfaced. When the Nazis took over Germany in 1933, he took it as a sign that it was okay to yell anti-Semitic slurs and throw fascist salutes at Jewish fans. That season, sliding into 2nd base, he intentionally spiked Senators 2nd baseman Buddy Myer -- of Jewish descent but not raised in the faith. Myer fought back, and it grew into a 20-minute brawl, and both men were suspended for 5 games and fined $100.
It wasn't just bigotry that was wrong with him: In 1935, his 1st wife, Mary Elizabeth, filed for divorce, claiming what we would now call domestic abuse. In 1936, his hitting declining and Joe DiMaggio having arrived, Chapman was traded to Washington -- Myer's team. If there were any further incidents between them, they were not publicized. Ironically, one of the players the Yankees got in the trade was Jake Powell, who also turned out to be a nasty bigot.
Chapman managed in the minor leagues in 1942, but punched an umpire, and was suspended for the entire 1943 season. In 1944, with World War II having taken so many players, the 35-year-old Chapman was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers -- which would retroactively become another irony. They traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1945, and they named him their manager, and he continued to play until 1946, finishing with a lifetime batting average of .302.
But in 1947, when the Phillies went to Brooklyn to play the Dodgers, Chapman launched a fusillade of racial epithets at the Dodgers' new signing, Jackie Robinson. At the time, the press wouldn't get specific, only saying that it was bad enough that even the Southerners on the Dodgers rallied around Jackie. The 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story, with Jackie playing himself, showed a santized version of events. But the 2013 film 42 shows Alan Tudyk playing Chapman, and may well have set a record for the most utterances of "the N-word" by a white actor in movie history.
Commissioner Happy Chandler warned the Phillies that there had better not be any incidents during the Dodgers upcoming roadtrip to Philadelphia. It was suggested that a photograph be taken of Chapman and Robinson shaking hands. Chapman refused, so they posed together holding a bat.
Chapman was fired in the middle of the 1948 season -- not for the kind of person he was, but for losing. Only once more did he wear a major league uniform, as a coach with the Cincinnati Reds in 1952. Interviewed by Ray Robinson (a journalist working on a biography of Chapman's long-ago teammate, Lou Gehrig) in 1993, shortly before his death, he expressed regret over his actions, and pointed out that his son was coaching an integrated high school football team in Alabama: "Look, I'm real proud I've raised my son different. And he gets along well with them. They like him. That's a nice thing, don't you think?"
Also on this day, Joe Gregg Moore is born in Gause, Texas, outside Houston. A left fielder,"Jo-Jo" Moore played for the New York Giants from 1930 to 1941, helping them win 3 National League Pennants and the 1933 World Series. He was a 6-time All-Star, and retired with a lifetime batting average of .298. He lived until 2001.
Also on this day, Denis Charles Pratt was born in Sutton, Surrey, England, outside London. He was better known as the author Quentin Crisp. He lived until 1999.
December 25, 1909: Woolwich Arsenal, by now in a financial meltdown that will see them just barely saved from going out of business in the Spring, against host Newcastle United, finishing up what is still the most productive decade in their history, and lose 3-0.
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December 25, 1911: Not that most people then rooting for Woolwich Arsenal cared about who the opponent was, but the Gunners lose 5-0 to Tottenham at White Hart Lane, in front of a huge crowd for the time, 47,000. The next day, the clubs meet again at the Manor Ground, and Arsenal win 3-1.
December 25, 1912: Arsenal host Nottingham club Notts County, and draw 0-0. The 1912-13 season will be the worst in Arsenal's history, the only time they will ever be relegated to the 2nd division. Team owner Henry Norris decided that the location in Southeast London, then having poor transportation links, was a problem.
So he bought land in Islington, in North London, and built a new stadium, officially named the Arsenal Stadium, but nicknamed Highbury after the neighborhood. It was much easier to reach for clubs both inside and outside London. Alas, it would begin life outside the top flight.
In 1987, the Docklands Light Railway began service, including to the area that was once home to Arsenal. That didn't help the team. But in 1913, the Highbury area included a stop on the London Underdround's Piccadilly Line.
In 1932, Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman convinced the company then running the Underground (what we would call a subway system) to rename the station closest to the stadium "Arsenal." To this day, Arsenal are the only London-area team to have a stop named for them. The old tiles reading "GILLESPIE ROAD" can still be seen on the wall of the station, and motormen who are fans of arch-rival Tottenham will, inevitably, use the train's public-address system to identify the station as "Gillespie Road" instead of Arsenal.
December 25, 1913: Woolwich Arsenal travel to Yorkshire and beat Bradford Park Avenue (not to be confused with Bradford City) 3-2. At the conclusion of the season, Norris, noting that the club no longer plays in Woolwich, drops the locality from the name, and it becomes simply "Arsenal Football Club." Many fans will continue to call the club what they've been calling it: "The Arsenal." Many still do.
Also on this day, Alvin Morris is born in San Francisco. Known professionally as singer and actor Tony Martin, he starred on the Burns & Allen radio show, and married Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse. He and Charisse were married from 1948 until she died in 2008. He died in 2012.
December 25, 1914: Upon hearing German soldiers sing Christmas carols in their trench on the Western Front of what was then called The Great War (later World War I), the British soldiers start to do so in theirs. Soon, the men on both sides come out of their trenches, and stop treating each other as enemies for a few hours, exchanging food, drinks, and trinkets. It becomes known as the Christmas Truce.
Legend has it that there was even a soccer game. Sorry, forgot to "speak English" there: A football match. It's not clear which side produced the ball, but according to most accounts that discuss the match, the Germans beat the English, 3-2.
This is the 1st time, but not the last, that Englishmen would be defeated by Germans at their national game. But, as England manager Alf Ramsey pointed out before the 1966 World Cup Final, twice in the 20th Century, the English (well, the British, and their allies) would beat the Germans at their national game (war), and on their soil no less.
Military historian Andrew Robertshaw (a technical advisor for the film version of the World War I story War Horse) says such a truce would have been unthinkable a year later: "This was before the poisoned gas, before aerial bombardment. By the end of 1915, both sides were far too bitter for this to happen again."
In 1997, Garth Brooks and Joe Henry wrote a song titled "Belleau Wood" for Brooks' album Sevens. It describes a Christmas truce between American and German soldiers at Belleau Wood in 1917. But this is fiction, as the battle of Belleau Wood took place in June 1918, in Aisne, Picardy, France.
The Football League did not suspend operations until the conclusion of the 1914-15 season. On Christmas, Arsenal began a home-and-home series, defeating Leicester Fosse away 4-1 on the 25th, and 6-0 at home on the 26th.
December 25, 1915: With rosters depleted by the war, Arsenal travel to Upton Park in East London for what is, essentially, a reserve match, and lose 8-2 to West Ham United.
December 25, 1916: Arsenal travel to the Park Royal Ground in West London, then the stadium of Queens Park Rangers. They beat QPR 3-2.
Also on this day, Ahmed Ben Bella is born in Maghnia, in what was then French Algeria. He served in the French Army during World War II, and was personally decorated by Charles de Gaulle. But France's abuses in his homeland led to his joining the resistance, and in 1954 to the Algerian War, a bitter period for both sides.
Independence was achieved in 1962, and he was elected the country's 1st President in 1963, but was deposed and imprisoned in 1965. He essentially lived under house arrest until 1980, and remained leader of one political party or another until 1997, opposing one tyrannical government after another. He lived until 2012.
December 25, 1917: Arsenal travel to Craven Cottage in West London, home of Fulham, and play to a 1-1 draw.
Also on this day, the similarly-named Arseny Mironov (no middle name) is born in Vladimir, Russia. He designed planes for the Soviet Union during World War II, and was still active in flight direction in 1985. He is still alive, age 101.
December 25, 1918, 100 years ago: The war finally over, but the League deciding not to re-establish play until the following season (September 1919), Arsenal travel to East London, and lose 3-2 to Clapton Orient, the club now known as Leyton Orient.
It's a big day for Arsenal for another reason, as Bertram Mee (no middle name) is born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire. A winger, he played for Mansfield Town and Southampton, but his playing career was cut short by injury.
This had also been the case for Arsenal players Tom Whittaker and Billy Milne, and Bertie Mee followed the path that each of those men took, taking what he'd learned in treating his injury and putting it to work as a physiotherapist, becoming Arsenal's, and in 1966 becoming Arsenal's manager. But before going to Arsenal, World War II intervened, and he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps.
He rose to the rank of Sergeant, but after succeeding Milne as physiotherapist in 1960 and being named manager in 1966, he remained a Sergeant through and through. He instilled discipline in an Arsenal side that was nearly relegated in 1966, a team that was not only terrible, but was perhaps the least interesting in London, what with Tottenham and West Ham having won major trophies in the decade, and Chelsea, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers all having gotten favorable notices in the media for their play.
In 1966-67, he handled the personnel management and the discipline, while assistant manager Dave Sexton trained the offense. After that season, Sexton was named manager at Chelsea, but former star right back Don Howe, another whose career ended too soon by injury, was named assistant manager, and he straightened out the defense. Arsenal reached the Final of the League Cup in 1968 and 1969, won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1970, and then, with a few adjustments due to injury that turned out to be very fortuitous, won both the Football League and the FA Cup -- "The Double" -- in 1971.
In 1972, with Howe having left for the manager's job at West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal finished 5th in a tight 5-team race, and lost the FA Cup Final. In 1973, they finished a close 2nd and lost the FA Cup Semifinal. Unfortunately, Mee saw every challenge to his authority, even minor ones, as betrayal, and acted the Sergeant too often. And he started a tradition followed by Terry Neill in 1980, George Graham in 1991, and Arsène Wenger in 2005: Breaking up a great Arsenal team too soon. Both of these problems manifested themselves in his sale of Captain Frank McLintock after the 1973 season.
Arsenal fell apart, and nearly got relegated in the 1975 and 1976 seasons, barely staying up both times. Mee was finally let go. He later served as Graham Taylor's assistant at Watford, and lived until 2001. He won 241 games as Arsenal manager, a record that stood until surpassed by Wenger in 2006.
Also on this day, Muhammad Anwar e-Sadat is born in Monufia, in what was then the Sultanate of Egypt. He was an officer that participated in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, overthrowing King Farouk and installing Gamal Abdel Nasser as military dictator. He became part of Nasser's Cabinet in 1954, served as Vice President briefly in 1964, and was named Vice President again in 1969. When Nasser died on September 28, 1970, Sadat became President.
He was the leading figure against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, but lost. His brother Atef Sadat, a pilot, was killed. This seems to have changed him: Not only did he begin to reform Egypt domestically, making the nation more free than it had ever been, but by 1977 he was making overtures to Israel for a permanent peace between their nations.
With the assistance of President Jimmy Carter, Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978. That peace has now held for 40 years, and he and Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. But, as he well knew he might, he paid for it with his life, being assassinated at a military parade in Cairo on October 6, 1981, the 8th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War. He was 62.
December 25, 1919: Arsenal, back in League play and promoted back to Division One, travel to Derbyshire, and lose 3-2 to Derby County. The next day, the teams meet at Highbury, and Arsenal win 1-0.
Also on this day, Cliftonhill Stadium opens in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the home of Albion Rovers Football Club. They have won Scottish soccer's 2nd division in 1934, its 3rd in 1989, and its 4th in 2015. But they have rarely been in the 1st division, under any name. They have never won the Scottish Cup, but in that 1st season, 1919-20, they got to the Final. They have won 8 Lanarkshire Cups, but the last was in 1987.
In the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons, Hamilton Academical F.C. groundshared there, while their Douglas Park was rebuilt. Today, it is known as The Reigart Stadium for sponsorship purposes, and only the 1,572-seat Airdrie Stand remains open.
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December 25, 1920: The one Christmas carol familiar in English but originating in Poland makes its English debut: "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly" ("W Żłobie Leży"). It dates back to the 13th Century, when Poland was what passed for a world power at the time, and was translated into English by Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed, a British musician and playwright.
Also on this day, Arsenal go to Goodison Park in Liverpool, and beat Everton 4-2.
December 25, 1921: Melvin Anthony Maceau is born in Milwaukee. A center, he played for the Cleveland Browns, and helped them win the All-America Football Conference in 1946, 1947 and 1948, the last of these an undefeated season. He was cut before the 1949 season, when the Browns again won the AAFC title, before joining the NFL. Mel Maceau died in 1981.
December 25, 1922: Arsenal go to Burnden Park in Bolton, Lancashire, and lose to Bolton Wanderers 4-1.
Also on this day, Julius Neal Watlington is born in Yanceyville, North Carolina. A catcher, he arrived in professional baseball in 1941, then went off to World War II, and was wounded and received a Purple Heart. He appeared in 21 major league games, all with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1953, and remained at the Triple-A level until retiring after the 1958 season. He is still alive, 1 of 12 surviving players for that team before its 1954-55 move to Kansas City.
Also on this day, Félix Loustau (no middle name) is born in Avellaneda, in the state of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A left wing, he starred on the Buenos Aires soccer team River Plate. With Juan Carlos Muñoz, José Manuel Moreno, Adolfo Pedernera and Ángel Amadeo Labruna, he formed a 5-man forward line known as La Máquina, "the Machine." They won Argentine league titles in 1941, 1942, 1945 and 1947.
Loustau also helped Argentina win the Copa América, South America's continental championship for national teams, in 1945, 1946 and 1947. He died in 2003. Muñoz was the last survivor of La Máquina, living until 2009.
December 25, 1923: James Gamble Nippert dies from blood poisoning, the result of an injury he suffered a month earlier playing football at the University of Cincinnati, in a win over arch-rival Miami University of Ohio. The son of a judge, and of an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune, he had survived serving in World War I, only to face this fate. He was only 23 years old.
UC's stadium, built the following year, is named for him. His brother Louis Nippert would later own the Cincinnati Reds.
December 25, 1924: Arsenal go to St. Andrews Stadium in Birmingham, and lose to Birmingham City 2-1.
Also on this day, Submitted for your approval: Rodman Edward Serling is born in Syracuse, New York, and grows up in Binghamton. Rod Serling died in 1975, at age 50, from smoking-induced heart attacks. But he hopes you have a Merry Christmas. He sends you this greeting… from The Twilight Zone. (His opinion of the "Twilight Saga" books and films is unrecorded.)
Also on this day, Atal Bihair Vajpayee is born in Gwalior, in what is now the State of Madhya Pradesh, India. He served as his country's Prime Minister from 1998 to 2004, including its entry into "the Nuclear Club." He died this past August 16, at age 93.
Christmas 1925: Arsenal host Notts County at Highbury, and win 3-0.
Also on this day, Ned Franklin Garver is born in Ney, Ohio, outside Toledo. In 1951, he went 20-12 pitching for the St. Louis Browns, the team that became the Baltimore Orioles 3 years later. This was quite a feat, considering that the Browns went 52-102 that year. Garver was the starting pitcher for the American League in that year's All-Star Game in Detroit.
Pitching in the major leagues from 1948 to 1961, with mostly bad teams, Garver finished with a career record of 129-157. But he must have had some talent, above and beyond his remarkable 1951 season, because the great Ted Williams said, "He could throw anything up there and get me out." He died on February 26, 2017, age 91.
Also on this day, Samuel Patterson Smyth Pollock is born in Montreal. Hired by the Montreal Canadiens' front office in 1959, he was general manager from 1963 to 1978, helping to build 12 Stanley Cup winners. He is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and died in 2007.
Also on this day, Carlos Castaneda (no middle name) is born in Cajamarca, Peru. The anthropologist and author lived until 1998.
December 25, 1926: Emperor Yoshihito of Japan dies of a heart attack, brought on by pneumonia. He was only 47. He is succeeded by his son, who becomes Emperor Hirohito.
Also on this day, Richard Wesley Manville is born in Des Moines, Iowa. A man brilliant enough to earn degrees from both Harvard and Yale, he was also a major league pitcher -- briefly. He pitched 1 game, 2 innings, for the Boston Braves in 1950; and 11 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1952. He is still alive.
December 25, 1927: Jacob Nelson Fox is born in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. Nellie Fox, a diminutive but crafty 2nd baseman, had his Number 2 retired by the Chicago White Sox, whom he led to an American League Pennant in 1959, resulting in his being named the AL's Most Valuable Player. Yankee pitching legend Whitey Ford called him the toughest out he ever faced, and author, radio show host and White Sox fan Jean Shepherd called him his favorite player of all time.
Along with his contemporaries Phil Rizzuto, Gil Hodges and Richie Ashburn, and the younger Ron Santo, Fox was one of those guys that everyone hoped would one day get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but wondered why it was taking so long. Rizzuto lived long enough to make it, in 1994. So did Ashburn, in 1995. Fox didn't, dying of skin cancer in 1975 and getting elected in 1997. Santo didn't, either, dying in 2010 and being elected in 2012. Hodges died in 1972, and his supporters are still waiting.
Also on this day, Leo R. Kubiak (I can find no record of what the R stands for) is born in Toledo, Ohio. He played professional baseball, but didn't make the major leagues. He did make them in basketball, playing for the Waterloo Hawks of Iowa from 1948 to 1950. He is one of the last surviving players from the founding days of the NBA.
December 25, 1928, 90 years ago: Arsenal play their 1st Christmas Day match under manager Herbert Chapman. They lose 5-2, away to Blackburn Rovers.
Also on this day, Nellie Elizabeth McCalla is born in Pawnee City, Nebraska, and grows up in Iowa. Known professionally as Irish McCalla, she was a model, one of pinup artist Alberto Vargas' "Varga Girls." She got into movies in the early 1950s, and in the 1955-56 season starred in Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. By her own admission, "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees."
She left acting for art, her last role being on an 1963 episode of 77 Sunset Strip, and became an accomplished painter. But her status as an action-adventure hero -- the female one on TV -- kept her in demand at nostalgia and sci-fi/fantasy conventions. She died in 2002.
Also on this day, Walter Earl Brown is born in Salt Lake City. He wrote songs for TV shows in the 1960s and '70s, including "If I Can Dream" for Elvis Presley's 1968 NBC "Comeback Special." He died in 2008.
December 25, 1929: Arsenal, on the way to their 1st major trophy (the 1930 FA Cup), travel to Fratton Park, and beat Hampshire team Portsmouth 1-0 on a goal by their diminutive but prolific inside left Alex James.
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December 25, 1930: Arsenal travel to Manchester, and beat Manchester City at Maine Road, 4-1. Goals by Joe Hulme, David Jack, Jack Lambert (no relation to the later Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker of the same name), and a penalty by Cliff Bastin. This is the start of a 3-game stretch where Arsenal score 14 goals, on the way to their 1st League title in April 1931.
Also on this day, Emanoul Aghassian is born in Salma, in the Persian Empire, present-day Iran. He represented Iran as a boxer in the Olympics of 1948 in London and 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After the 1952 Games, he and his brother Samuel moved to Chicago. Emanoul changed his name to the more American-sounding Mike Agassi. He later took a job at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, where he raised his children, including his son Andre Agassi.
Andre not only won "the career Grand Slam," winning 4 Australian Opens, 2 U.S. Opens, and Wimbledon and the French Open once each, but, in Atlanta in 1996, won what had eluded his father: An Olympic Gold Medal. Mike is still alive, age 88.
December 25, 1931: Arsenal travel to Yorkshire, and lose to Sheffield United 4-1 at Bramall Lane. They go on to a dubious near-Double, finishing 2nd in the League and losing the FA Cup Final.
December 25, 1932: King George V delivers a Royal Christmas Message to the British Empire, broadcast live over the BBC and its Worldwide Service, thus beginning a tradition.
Also on this day, Charles Grice Driesell is born in Norfolk, Virginia. Although naturally lefthanded, he was nicknamed for country singer William "Lefty" Frizzell, a star in his youth. He played basketball at Duke University before that became a big deal, then became a coach, starting at his alma mater in Norfolk, Granby High School.
In 1960, he got his 1st college job, at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, getting them to what we would now call the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in 1966 and the Elite Eight in 1968. That got the attention of the University of Maryland, and they hired him in 1969.
On July 12, 1973, Lefty Driesell and 2 friends were surf fishing in Bethany Beach, Delaware, when they saw a fire at a resort building. They rushed to shore, and Driesell broke down a door and rescued at least 10 children. It would be another half an hour before the firemen arrived. He said he wasn't a hero: "It was just lucky that we were fishing right in front of the houses."
He built a pretty good coaching record in College Park, too. He reached the Sweet Sixteen 5 times, and the Elite Eight in 1973 and 1975. He won them Atlantic Coast Conference Championships in the regular season in 1975 and 1980, and in the Tournament in 1984, led by a powerful sophomore forward named Len Bias. Other star players of his included Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, John Lucas, Albert King and Buck Williams.
In 1986, Bias had a chance to be taken as the Number 1 pick in the NBA Draft. He wasn't: Brad Daugherty of North Carolina was, by the Cleveland Cavaliers. But the Boston Celtics had traded up for the Number 2 pick, and chose Bias. When asked about him, Driesell said, "Leonard's only vice is ice cream." This turned out not to be the case. It was also revealed, after Bias' cocaine-induced death, that he'd used up his eligibility. The scandal forced Driesell to resign.
He returned to the coaching ranks in 1988, with James Madison University of Harrisonburg, Virginia. He led them to 5 Conference Championships. He closed his career at Georgia State University, and led them to 4 Conference Championships. In so doing, he became the 1st coach to win more than 100 games at 4 different NCAA Division I schools. His final record, from 1960 to 2003, was 786-394. He is still alive, and was just elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
December 25, 1932: Mabel Elizabeth Washington is born in Charleston, South Carolina. We knew her as Mabel King -- although, as an American, it is a little odd that she went from being named Washington to being named King. Then again, it would have been even odder had her birthday been not Christmas but the 4th of July.
She played Mabel Thomas, a.k.a. Mama, on What's Happening!! and Evillene the Witch in The Wiz. She died in 1999.
December 25, 1933: Having won the League the season before, Arsenal travel to Yorkshire, and beat Leeds United 1-0 at Elland Road. Bastin scores. Despite Chapman's death 2 weeks after Chritmas, they win the League again under interim manager Joe Shaw.
Also on this day, Benjamin Basil Heatley is born in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England. On June 13, 1964, Basil Heatley won the Polytechnic Marathon in London, running it in 2 hours, 13 minutes, 55 seconds to break the world record for the marathon. But he would only win a Silver Medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, as the man whose record he broke, 1960 Olympic Gold Medalist Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, reclaimed the Gold and the record. Heatley is still alive.
December 25, 1934: Now managed by George Allison, Arsenal defeat Lancashire club Preston North End 5-3, at Highbury. Hulme scores 2, Bastin 1, Ray Bowden 1, and they also get the benefit of an own goal by Preston. The next day, Preston get revenge, 2-1 at their home ground of Deepdale. Arsenal go on to make it 3 straight League titles.
In the 1st season of the Football League, 1888-89, Preston went unbeaten, winning 18 games, drawing 4 and losing none. They also won the FA Cup, making the 1st "Double." An unbeaten League season would not happen again until Arsenal in 2003-04: As broadcaster Alan Parry said, "They were, quite literally, unbeatable: Played 38, won 24, drawn 12, lost exactly none!"
Also on this day, Santa Anita Park opens in Los Angeles. Still the West Coast's premier thoroughbred horse racing track, it annually hosts the Santa Anita Derby, one of the warmup races for the Triple Crown. It has also hosted the Breeders' Cup more times than any other track. How many times, Ed Rooney? "Nine times!": 1986, 1993, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016.
It's yet another location which, due to its proximity to Hollywood, has frequently served as a filming location for its usual subject: The Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races and the original version of A Star Is Born in 1937, and The Story of Seabiscuit in 1949. Seabiscuit had famously won his last race there, the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap. The ill-fated 2012 TV series Luck was also filmed there.
It also includes statues of several horses, including Seabiscuit, John Henry and Zenyatta; and jockeys such as Johnny Longden, Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr.
It also includes statues of several horses, including Seabiscuit, John Henry and Zenyatta; and jockeys such as Johnny Longden, Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr.
Anne Roth is born in Manhattan. We know her as Anne Roiphe, a novelist whose works include the "feminist classic" Up the Sandbox, published in 1970. She is still alive.
Also on this day, Sadiq al-Mahdi is born in Al-Abasya, Sudan. He was twice his country's Prime Minister, from 1966 to 1967 and again from 1986 to 1989. He is still alive.
December 25, 1936: Arsenal host Preston, and win 4-1, on goals by Jackie Milne, Alf Kirchen, and 2 by Ted Drake.
Also on this day, Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel Windsor is born in Belgrave Square, West London. She is the daughter of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and thus a niece of King George VI. Thus also a 1st cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
She served as one of the future Queen's bridemaids when she married Prince Philip in 1947. She later married a son of the Earl of Airlie, and became known as Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy. She is still alive.
December 25, Christmas 1937: Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the 1st time, beginning an iconic tenure that lasts 17 years. His selections include works by Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Johannes Brahms.
Also on this day, Arsenal travel to Lancashire, and blow a 1-0 halftime lead on a penalty by Bastin, and lose to Blackpool 2-1. They go on to win the 1938 League title anyway.
Also on this day, Newton Baker dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in the Cleveland suburbs. He was 66 years old. He was Mayor of Cleveland from 1912 to 1915. He served as Secretary of War under President Woodrow Wilson from 1916 to 1921, including the entire U.S. contribution to World War I. At 44 at the time of his appointment, he was the youngest member of the Cabinet.
He was so well-regarded that subsequent Republican Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover crossed party lines to appoint him to commissions. He was seriously considered as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1932, but refused to run, preferring to work, successfully as it turned out, for the nomination of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, whom he had known as Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy. A law firm he founded, Baker Hostetler, is still considered one of the top firms in America.
Also on this day, O'Kelly Isley Jr. is born in Cincinnati. A very different kind of musical legend from Toscanini, he was the eldest of the singing Isley Brothers, he grew up and go their start in Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey -- eventually starting T-Neck Records.
He and his brothers Ronald and Rudolph (no, he wasn't born on Christmas, and didn't have a red nose) wrote "Shout!" (As in, "We-e-e-e-e-e-ll... You know you make me wanna shout!") They also wrote "Nobody But Me" (as in, "No no, no, no no, no no no no no... Nobody can do the shing-a-ling! like I do... "), which didn't chart for them, but became a hit a few years later for a Cleveland-based band called the Human Beinz. O'Kelly died in 1986, Ronald is now 77, and Rudolph (Isley, that is, not the reindeer) is 79.
December 25, 1938, 80 years ago: Karel Capek dies of pneumonia in Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia. The science fiction pioneer was only 48. His 1922 play, Rossum's Universal Robots, contained the first published example of the use of the word "robot." He claimed the word was coined by his brother Josef, meaning "serf labor," essentially labor without any choice, as a robot could be programmed to do.
Karel had refused to leave his homeland after the Nazis annexed it, and this stress, combined with a spinal condition that made life very painful, may have contributed to his early death. Josef, a painter and a writer in his own right, didn't live much longer, as the Nazis sent him to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945, age 58.
Also on this day, Jack Edwin Hamilton is born in Burlington, Iowa. He went 32-40 in 8 seasons as a major league pitcher, including for the Mets in 1966 and 1967. However, the Mets traded him to the California Angels, and on August 18, 1967, he hit Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Sox in the head, ruining his career.
It was not intentional: He had no reputation for hitting batters, hit only 1 other batter during the course of the season, and someone had thrown a smoke bomb onto the field a few minutes earlier, and the smoke hadn't fully cleared, making it harder to see the ball during a night game.
Hamilton never recovered from the stigma of having hit Tony C, and retired after 2 more seasons. He later ran restaurants in his native Iowa, and in Branson, Missouri, where he died this past February 22, at age 79.
Also on this day, Joseph Jean-Noel Yves Picard in Montréal, Québec. A defenseman, he won the Stanley Cup with the 1965 Montreal Canadiens, and reached the Stanley Cup Finals 3 more times, with the 1968, 1969 and 1970 St. Louis Blues.
He is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to trip Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins up in overtime of Game 4 of the 1970 Finals, allowing Orr to score the Cup-winning goal, and putting Picard into perhaps the most famous photograph in the history of hockey.
Noel Picard was a member of 2 1st-year NHL expansion teams, the 1967-68 Blues and the 1972-73 Atlanta Flames. He later became a broadcaster for the Blues, and ran a restaurant in the suburbs of St. Louis. He died in 2017.
December 25, 1939: With World War II underway, the Football League has again suspended operations, and won't start again until the 1946-47 season (although the Football Association will play a full FA Cup tournament in 1945-46). Arsenal host East London team Clapton Orient, and win 3-0. Kirchen, Jack Crayston and Reg Lewis score the goals. Clapton Orient is now known as Leyton Orient, nicknamed just "Orient," or "The O's."
Also on this day, Robert McElhiney James is born in Marshall, Missouri. A jazz pianist, Bob James has been repeatedly sampled by hip-hop performers, but is best known for his composition "Angela," which was taken as the theme song for the TV sitcom Taxi. He is still alive, and should not be confused with his contemporary, the saxophonist Bob James, who played on several hits, including Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are."
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December 25, 1940: Pal Joey, a musical based on the novel by John O'Hara, premieres at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre at 243 West 47th Street in New York. It includes the songs "Chicago" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." It stars Gene Kelly, Vivienne Segal, June Havoc, Van Johnson and Stanley Donen.
It's better known for the 1957 film version, starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. In spite of Sinatra having done the best-known versions of both "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" and "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)," the song "Chicago" in this musical is neither one of those.
The last surviving theatre built by the Shubert organization, the Ethel Barrymore is currently hosting the musical The Band's Visit.
Also on this day, South Side Park burns down in Chicago. As far as anyone knows, the fire is not purposely set. It was the 1st home of the American League's Chicago White Sox (1901 to 1910), and of the Negro Leagues' Chicago American Giants (1910 to 1940). The American Giants won 7 Pennants while playing there, the White Sox 2.
Also on this day, under the wartime conditions of depleted rosters, Tommy Lawton plays for Everton against Liverpool at Anfield in the morning. Liverpool win, 3-1. Then he is asked to play as a guest player for Merseyside club Tranmere Rovers at nearby Cheshire club Crewe Alexandra in the afternoon. As he recalled, "The Tranmere people came into the dressing room, and asked if anyone wanted to play, as they were two men short. I said, 'Go on, I'll help you out.' And I did."
I can't find a record of the result of the Tranmere-Crewe match, but Lawton played a full 90 minutes in the afternoon, after having already done so on Christmas morning. Given the heavy leather balls and ragged pitches (especially in Winter) of the era, this may qualify as a Christmas miracle.
Just 4 days later, the Luftwaffe bombed the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe, which had been making Spitfire planes for the Royal Air Force.
Also on this day, Arsenal lose 4-2 away to West Ham United.
Also on this day, Agnes Ayres dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was only 42, and had been one of the top actresses of the silent film era, starring opposite Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik and Son of the Sheik.
Also on this day, Peter Edward Brown is born in Ashtead, Surrey, England. A singer, and a cousin of actor Marty Feldman (What hump?), he is best remembered for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, both in the band Cream and in Bruce's solo career. He and Bruce wrote "I Feel Free," "Sunshine of Your Love," and one of my favorite rock songs of all time, "White Room" -- which is definitely not to be confused with "White Christmas." He is still alive.
December 25, 1941: The British surrender Hong Kong to the Japanese, who had begun a siege of it on December 8, a day after bombing Pearl Harbor and other American targets in the Pacific region. The people of Hong Kong remembered it as "Black Christmas," and control would not return to Britain until August 30, 1945.
With China in control since July 1, 1997, and remembering its status as Britain's ally at the time and Japan's enemy at nearly all times, the "Black Christmas" continues.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Fulham and win 2-0, on goals by Kirchen and Lewis. Although both men's best years happened during The War (always Capital T, Capital W), Lewis would score twice to win Arsenal the 1950 FA Cup Final.
Also on this day, Katherine Kennicott Davis publicly debuts her song "Carol of the Drum." It would not be recorded until 1951, by the Trapp Family Singers -- the real-life version of the kids from The Sound of Music. The most familiar version would be made in 1958, by the Harry Simeone Chorale.
Also on this day, David Wayne Parks is born outside Dallas in Muenster, Texas. He starred as an end at Texas Tech, and was the 1st pick in the 1964 NFL Draft, the 1st receiver so honored, by the San Francisco 49ers. In 1965, he led the NFL in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, the "receiving triple crown."
He played pro ball until 1974, making 3 Pro Bowls, catching 360 passes for 5,619 yards and 44 touchdowns. He is in the College Football and Texas Sports Halls of Fame. He went on to work in law enforcement, and invented a garden tool, the Speedy Weedy. (UPDATE: He died on August 7, 2019.)
Also on this day, Noël Le Graët is born in Bourbriac, Côtes-d'Armor, France. Since 2011, he has been President of the French Football Federation (FFF), the governing body of French soccer. Under his leadership, France has advanced to the Final of Euro 2016, losing to Portugal.
December 25, 1942: Arsenal travel to Stamford Bridge in West London, and lose 5-2 to Chelsea.
Also on this day, Françoise Dürr is born in Algiers, in what was then French Algeria. She was one of the top women's tennis players of the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in doubles. In singles, she won the 1967 French Open. She is still alive.
December 25, 1943, 75 years ago: Arsenal travel to The Den in South London, and beat Millwall 5-1. Lewis scores twice. Goals are also scored by Drake, Denis Compton and Bobby Flavell.
The brothers Leslie and Denis Compton were accomplished athletes, both of whom played soccer for Arsenal (Les was better at that sport) and cricket for Middlesex County Cricket Club (Denis was better at that one).
Also on this day, Howard James Twilley Jr. is born in Houston. In 1965, playing wide receiver for the University of Tulsa, he was runner-up to USC running back Mike Garrett for the Heisman Trophy. He became an original 1966 Miami Dolphin, and was the only one to make it to their undefeated 1972 team that won Super Bowl VII, also winning Super Bowl VIII.
He later ran a string of Athlete's Foot sporting-goods stores, and then an investment firm, and is in the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. He is still alive.
December 25, 1944: Arsenal travel to Griffin Park in West London, and draw 1-1 with Brentford.
Also on this day, Jair Ventura Filho is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Known as Jairzinho and nicknamed O Furacão (The Hurricane), he starred with hometown club Botafogo and the Brazilian national soccer team, and won World Cups for his country in 1962 and 1970. He is still alive, and currently manages a Rio-based team in the lower divisions of Brazil's league system.
With China in control since July 1, 1997, and remembering its status as Britain's ally at the time and Japan's enemy at nearly all times, the "Black Christmas" continues.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Fulham and win 2-0, on goals by Kirchen and Lewis. Although both men's best years happened during The War (always Capital T, Capital W), Lewis would score twice to win Arsenal the 1950 FA Cup Final.
Also on this day, Katherine Kennicott Davis publicly debuts her song "Carol of the Drum." It would not be recorded until 1951, by the Trapp Family Singers -- the real-life version of the kids from The Sound of Music. The most familiar version would be made in 1958, by the Harry Simeone Chorale.
Also on this day, David Wayne Parks is born outside Dallas in Muenster, Texas. He starred as an end at Texas Tech, and was the 1st pick in the 1964 NFL Draft, the 1st receiver so honored, by the San Francisco 49ers. In 1965, he led the NFL in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, the "receiving triple crown."
He played pro ball until 1974, making 3 Pro Bowls, catching 360 passes for 5,619 yards and 44 touchdowns. He is in the College Football and Texas Sports Halls of Fame. He went on to work in law enforcement, and invented a garden tool, the Speedy Weedy. (UPDATE: He died on August 7, 2019.)
Also on this day, Noël Le Graët is born in Bourbriac, Côtes-d'Armor, France. Since 2011, he has been President of the French Football Federation (FFF), the governing body of French soccer. Under his leadership, France has advanced to the Final of Euro 2016, losing to Portugal.
December 25, 1942: Arsenal travel to Stamford Bridge in West London, and lose 5-2 to Chelsea.
Also on this day, Françoise Dürr is born in Algiers, in what was then French Algeria. She was one of the top women's tennis players of the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in doubles. In singles, she won the 1967 French Open. She is still alive.
December 25, 1943, 75 years ago: Arsenal travel to The Den in South London, and beat Millwall 5-1. Lewis scores twice. Goals are also scored by Drake, Denis Compton and Bobby Flavell.
The brothers Leslie and Denis Compton were accomplished athletes, both of whom played soccer for Arsenal (Les was better at that sport) and cricket for Middlesex County Cricket Club (Denis was better at that one).
Also on this day, Howard James Twilley Jr. is born in Houston. In 1965, playing wide receiver for the University of Tulsa, he was runner-up to USC running back Mike Garrett for the Heisman Trophy. He became an original 1966 Miami Dolphin, and was the only one to make it to their undefeated 1972 team that won Super Bowl VII, also winning Super Bowl VIII.
He later ran a string of Athlete's Foot sporting-goods stores, and then an investment firm, and is in the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. He is still alive.
December 25, 1944: Arsenal travel to Griffin Park in West London, and draw 1-1 with Brentford.
Also on this day, Jair Ventura Filho is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Known as Jairzinho and nicknamed O Furacão (The Hurricane), he starred with hometown club Botafogo and the Brazilian national soccer team, and won World Cups for his country in 1962 and 1970. He is still alive, and currently manages a Rio-based team in the lower divisions of Brazil's league system.
Also on this day, Jonathan Edwards (no middle name) is born in St. Louis. In 1977, John Edwards became the lead singer of the soul group The Spinners. A stroke forced him to retire in 2000. Nevertheless, he is still alive.
December 25, 1945: With World War II over and victory belonging to the Allies, Arsenal travel to Wales, and lose 2-1 to Newport County at Rodney Parade in Newport.
Also on this day, David Noel Redding is born in Folkestone, Kent, England. Noel Redding was the guitarist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He died in 2003.
Also, Richard Keith Berman is born in Manhattan. Rick Berman became the keeper of the Star Trek
flame after Gene Roddenberry died, until it was foolishly given to J.J. "Jar-Jar" Abrams. He is still alive.
Also, Kenneth Michael Stabler is born in Foley, Alabama. "The Snake" was backup quarterback to Joe Namath at the University of Alabama in their 1964 National Championship season, then led them to another title in 1965. He guided the Oakland Raiders to victory in Super Bowl XI in 1977.
He once said, "There's nothing wrong with reading a playbook by the light of a jukebox." The writer Jack London, also a noted party animal in Oakland, once wrote, "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor than a sleepy, permanent planet." Someone once read those words to Stabler, and asked him what he thought they meant. Stabler paused a moment, then said, "Throw deep." He may have been reckless, but he was smart.
Somehow, in spite of all his carousing, Ken Stabler lived until 2015 -- but not long enough to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which elected him in a sympathy vote right after his death.
Also, Gary Lee Sandy is born in Dayton, Ohio. Not far from Cincinnati, where he played radio station manager Andy Travis on WKRP in Cincinnati – not to be confused with country singer Randy Travis. Gordon Jump, who played station operator Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson, was also from Dayton, but no other castmember was from anywhere near Cincy. Sandy is alive.
December 25, 1946: The Buffalo Bisons of the National Basketball League announce that they're moving to the "Tri-Cities" of Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa, and becoming the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. Later, Bettendorf, Iowa will be added to the region's traditional name, making it the "Quad Cities."
The Blackhawks -- like the Chicago hockey team, named for the famous early 19th Century Native chief of the region -- play in Moline for 5 years, but in 1951, they moved again, becoming the Milwaukee Hawks. In 1955, they became the St. Louis Hawks, reaching 4 NBA Finals including winning the 1958 NBA Championship. In 1968, despite having won a Division title, they moved again, becoming the Atlanta Hawks. Given their attendance problems lately, they may have to move again.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Portsmouth, and win 2-1 on goals by Jimmy Logie and Ronnie Rooke. Rooke was 35, old for a forward and very old for a good one. But in 1947-48, the season in which he turned 36, he scored 33 goals to help Arsenal win the League.
That total remains the most any Arsenal player has scored in a post-World War II season, and only 2 Arsenal players since have scored 30 in a League season: Thierry Henry in 2003-04 and Robin van Persie in 2011-12. Rookie did not live to see either achievement, dying in 1985.
Also on this day, legendary comedian W.C. Fields dies from the long-term effects of alcoholism. He was 66. In a 1941 film, titled Never Give a Sucker an Even Break after another quote of his, he said, "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I am indebted to her for." This saying was eventually mixed up, and has become popularly known as, "'Twas a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the decency to thank her for it."
He might have agreed with quirky singer Jimmy Buffett, born James William Buffett on this same day in Pascagoula, Mississippi: "Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame."
Also born on this day, in Stow, Ohio, is football legend Lawrence Richard "Larry" Csonka. So is former baseball manager Gene William Lamont, in Rockford, Illinois.
Also born on this day, in Motherwell, Scotland, is John Boyle (no middle name), a star in that other kind of "football." A midfielder, he reached the 1967 FA Cup Final with West London team Chelsea, but lost; and was injured for their 1970 FA Cup Final win. But he got a winner's medal for their 1971 win in the European Cup Winners' Cup.
He later came to America, and both played for and managed the Tampa Bay Rowdies, winning the NASL Championship as a player in 1975, Tampa Bay's 1st title in any sport. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Gene Autry, dressed as Santa Claus, rides Champion Jr. the Wonder Horse in the Santa Claus Lane Parade, now known as the Hollywood Christmas Parade. He heard children yelling, "Here comes Santa Claus!" So he writes a song with that title.
December 25, 1947: Arsenal, now managed by former player and physiotherapist Tom Whittaker, beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield, on 2 goals by Rooke and 1 by Don Roper. As I said, Arsenal go on to win the 1948 League title.
Also, this may be a landmark day in film history. As far as I know, this is the 1st time film companies premiered movies on Christmas Day, starting a tradition in which Jewish families would have something to do on a day when most places would be closed.
The biggest such film is The Road to Rio. Of the 7 "Road Pictures" starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, this was the most successful at the box office.
December 25, 1948, 70 years ago: Arsenal host East Midlands team Derby County, and the teams play to a 3-3 draw.
Also on this day, Barbara Ann Mandrell is born in Houston. She, and her singing sisters Louise and Irlene, were country when country wasn't cool. And when it was.
Also on this day, Joel Natalino Santana is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, his middle name coming from his birth on Christmas (Natal in Portuguese). A centreback, he starred for hometown team Vasco da Gama, winning the national league (Campeonato Brasileiro) in 1974.
He moved around a lot as a manager, leading Al Wasl to the league title in the United Arab Emirates in 1982, 1983 and 1985. He returned home and won Brazilian State Championships for Vasco in 1992 and 1993, Bahia in 1994, for Rio team Fluminense (or "Flu") in 1995, for Flu's arch-rivals Flamengo (or "Fla") in 1996, for Rio team Botafogo in 1997, for Bahia again in 1999, Vitória in 2003, Fla again in 2008, and Botafogo again in 2010.
But his biggest achievement was leading Vasco to the league title in 2000, making him one of the few managers in any country to win a league title for the same team as a player and a manager. He now manages an amateur team in the Los Angeles suburbs.
December 25, 1949: Leon Schlesinger dies of a viral infection at age 65. A film producer, he was a relative of the Warner Brothers, and founded their cartoon division, leading to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and all the others. Including Porky Pig. So he died on a Christmas Day. Dare I say it? I dare: "Abadee, abadee, abadee, aba, That's all, folks!"
Also on this day, Mary Elizabeth Spacek is born in Quitman, Texas. "Sissy" Spacek also sang country music, playing Loretta Lynn in the film version of Lynn’s memoir Coal Miner’s Daughter.
Also on this day, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is born in Lahore, Pakistan. Known as Nawaz Sharif, he has been his homeland's Prime Minister 3 times: 1990 to 1993, 1997 to 1999, and 2013 to 2017. He is still alive.
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December 25, 1950: Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart, students at the University of Glasgow, steal the Stone of Scone (that doesn't rhyme: It's pronounced "stoan of skoon"), a.k.a. the Stone of Destiny, a symbol of Scottish heritage, from the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey in London.
The klutzy Jocks broke the Stone in two. Incredibly, they managed to get the pieces back to Scotland. On April 11, 1951, the culprits were caught, and the Stone was returned to Westminster.
The Crown declined to prosecute the thieves, and so they got away with it. With some irony, Hamilton became a lawyer, and is still alive. He is the last survivor: Vernon and Stuart died in 2004. while Matheson, the only woman in the plot, died in 2013.
In 1996, the British government elected to keep the Stone in Scotland, until necessary to crown a new British monarch. So far, Queen Elizabeth II (whose mother was Scottish) remains on the throne, for nearly 67 years now, a record, and the Stone's transport back to Westminster has not been necessary.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Stoke City and their legendary midfielder, Stanley Matthews, the man known as the Wizard of Dribble. Stoke win 3-0.
Also on this day, Jesus Manuel Marcano Trillo is born in Caripito, Venezuela. A child born on December 25, and named Jesus? Not just Jesus, but Jesus Manuel -- as in short for "Emmanuel," meaning "God with us"? He's better known as Manny Trillo, the 2nd baseman of the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.
Also on this day, Kyle Rote Jr. is born in Dallas. The son of Southern Methodist University (SMU) running back Kyle Rote, soon to become a pro star with the Giants, Kyle Jr. played the original football. He starred for the Dallas Tornadoes, becoming one of the earliest American-born soccer players to be widely known. Indeed, he was the 1st American-born, and the 1st American-trained, player to lead the North American Soccer League in scoring for a season, in 1973.
However, he only played 5 games for the national team. He also won ABC's Superstars competition 3 times in 4 years in the late 1970s. He now runs an athletes' agent service.
Unfortunately for all of humanity, on the same day, Karl Christian Rove is born in Denver, and grows up to prove himself Christian, literally, in name only.
December 25, 1951: Arsenal host Portsmouth, and win 4-1 on goals by Lewis, Logie, Freddie Cox and Peter Goring.
Also on this day, a bomb explodes at the home of Harry T. Moore, President of the Florida branch of the NAACP, in Houston, Florida. Harry is killed instantly, at age 46. His wife Harriette is badly hurt as well, and dies of her injuries on January 3, 1952, age 49.
December 25, 1952: Arsenal beat Bolton Wanderers 6-4 at Burnden Park. The goals are scored by Logie, Roper, Ray Daniel, Arthur Milton, and 2 by Cliff Holton. Milton, who lived until 2007, was the last survivor of the 12 men to have played for England at the senior level in both soccer and cricket. The Compton Brothers had also done so. Arsenal would win the 1953 League title, the closest race in the League's history.
Also on this day, Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder is born in Georgetown, Guyana in South America. She became the actress CCH Pounder. (Like the Yankees' CC Sabathia, she does not use periods.) She played Dr. Angela Hicks on ER, Detective Claudette Wyms on The Shield, Irene Frederic on Warehouse 13, and District Attorney Thyne Patterson on Sons of Anarchy. She now plays medical examiner Dr. Loretta Wade, a.k.a. "Miz Loretta," on NCIS: New Orleans.
And the Number 1 song in America is the original version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," by Jimmy Boyd, then about to turn 14, much older than the character he's playing. Once married to "Batgirl" Yvonne Craig, and not to be confused with the actor of the same name who played J. Arthur Crank and Paul the Gorilla on The Electric Company, this Jimmy Boyd continued singing and doing standup comedy, often opening for the various members of the Rat Pack in Las Vegas, and died in 2009.
December 25, 1953: Patrick "Patsy" Donovan dies at age 88. The native of Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland was one of the top baseball players of his time, the 1890s and 1910s. A right fielder, he batted .307 for his career, collecting 2,253 hits, playing mainly for the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals. He led the National League in stolen bases in 1900.
He also managed both teams, as well as the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. But the only Pennant he was involved in was in his rookie year, with the Dodgers (or, as they were then known -- I swear, I am not making this up, it came from several of their players having gotten married in a single off-season -- the Bridegrooms) in 1890.
Also on this day, Carter Harrison Jr. dies in Chicago at age 93. The son of a Mayor, he was elected Mayor in 1897, 1901 and 1911. His tenure included the end of the era of Cap Anson as 1st baseman and manager of the team that became the Chicago Cubs, the turn of the 20th Century, and the birth and 1st Pennant of the Chicago White Sox.
December 25, 1954: Arsenal host Chelsea at Highbury, and win 1-0 on a goal by 1940 Merseyside hero Tommy Lawton, now playing out the string at age 36.
But Chelsea will go on to win the League title for the 1st time in their 50-year history -- the only time they will do so until 2005, when corrupt Russian energy boss Roman Abramovich has taken them over. They win this 1955 title with the 1st man ever to win the League as both a non-managing player and a non-playing manager. And he's an Arsenal man: Ted Drake.
The klutzy Jocks broke the Stone in two. Incredibly, they managed to get the pieces back to Scotland. On April 11, 1951, the culprits were caught, and the Stone was returned to Westminster.
The Crown declined to prosecute the thieves, and so they got away with it. With some irony, Hamilton became a lawyer, and is still alive. He is the last survivor: Vernon and Stuart died in 2004. while Matheson, the only woman in the plot, died in 2013.
In 1996, the British government elected to keep the Stone in Scotland, until necessary to crown a new British monarch. So far, Queen Elizabeth II (whose mother was Scottish) remains on the throne, for nearly 67 years now, a record, and the Stone's transport back to Westminster has not been necessary.
Also on this day, Arsenal host Stoke City and their legendary midfielder, Stanley Matthews, the man known as the Wizard of Dribble. Stoke win 3-0.
Also on this day, Jesus Manuel Marcano Trillo is born in Caripito, Venezuela. A child born on December 25, and named Jesus? Not just Jesus, but Jesus Manuel -- as in short for "Emmanuel," meaning "God with us"? He's better known as Manny Trillo, the 2nd baseman of the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.
Also on this day, Kyle Rote Jr. is born in Dallas. The son of Southern Methodist University (SMU) running back Kyle Rote, soon to become a pro star with the Giants, Kyle Jr. played the original football. He starred for the Dallas Tornadoes, becoming one of the earliest American-born soccer players to be widely known. Indeed, he was the 1st American-born, and the 1st American-trained, player to lead the North American Soccer League in scoring for a season, in 1973.
However, he only played 5 games for the national team. He also won ABC's Superstars competition 3 times in 4 years in the late 1970s. He now runs an athletes' agent service.
Unfortunately for all of humanity, on the same day, Karl Christian Rove is born in Denver, and grows up to prove himself Christian, literally, in name only.
December 25, 1951: Arsenal host Portsmouth, and win 4-1 on goals by Lewis, Logie, Freddie Cox and Peter Goring.
Also on this day, a bomb explodes at the home of Harry T. Moore, President of the Florida branch of the NAACP, in Houston, Florida. Harry is killed instantly, at age 46. His wife Harriette is badly hurt as well, and dies of her injuries on January 3, 1952, age 49.
December 25, 1952: Arsenal beat Bolton Wanderers 6-4 at Burnden Park. The goals are scored by Logie, Roper, Ray Daniel, Arthur Milton, and 2 by Cliff Holton. Milton, who lived until 2007, was the last survivor of the 12 men to have played for England at the senior level in both soccer and cricket. The Compton Brothers had also done so. Arsenal would win the 1953 League title, the closest race in the League's history.
Also on this day, Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder is born in Georgetown, Guyana in South America. She became the actress CCH Pounder. (Like the Yankees' CC Sabathia, she does not use periods.) She played Dr. Angela Hicks on ER, Detective Claudette Wyms on The Shield, Irene Frederic on Warehouse 13, and District Attorney Thyne Patterson on Sons of Anarchy. She now plays medical examiner Dr. Loretta Wade, a.k.a. "Miz Loretta," on NCIS: New Orleans.
And the Number 1 song in America is the original version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," by Jimmy Boyd, then about to turn 14, much older than the character he's playing. Once married to "Batgirl" Yvonne Craig, and not to be confused with the actor of the same name who played J. Arthur Crank and Paul the Gorilla on The Electric Company, this Jimmy Boyd continued singing and doing standup comedy, often opening for the various members of the Rat Pack in Las Vegas, and died in 2009.
December 25, 1953: Patrick "Patsy" Donovan dies at age 88. The native of Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland was one of the top baseball players of his time, the 1890s and 1910s. A right fielder, he batted .307 for his career, collecting 2,253 hits, playing mainly for the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals. He led the National League in stolen bases in 1900.
He also managed both teams, as well as the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. But the only Pennant he was involved in was in his rookie year, with the Dodgers (or, as they were then known -- I swear, I am not making this up, it came from several of their players having gotten married in a single off-season -- the Bridegrooms) in 1890.
Also on this day, Carter Harrison Jr. dies in Chicago at age 93. The son of a Mayor, he was elected Mayor in 1897, 1901 and 1911. His tenure included the end of the era of Cap Anson as 1st baseman and manager of the team that became the Chicago Cubs, the turn of the 20th Century, and the birth and 1st Pennant of the Chicago White Sox.
December 25, 1954: Arsenal host Chelsea at Highbury, and win 1-0 on a goal by 1940 Merseyside hero Tommy Lawton, now playing out the string at age 36.
But Chelsea will go on to win the League title for the 1st time in their 50-year history -- the only time they will do so until 2005, when corrupt Russian energy boss Roman Abramovich has taken them over. They win this 1955 title with the 1st man ever to win the League as both a non-managing player and a non-playing manager. And he's an Arsenal man: Ted Drake.
Also on this day, singer Johnny Ace kills himself while fooling around with a gun backstage at a concert at the City Auditorium in Houston. According to witnesses, he was not, as the legend says, playing Russian roulette, just goofing off, not intending to harm anyone, including himself. He was only 25.
Some have called him "the first dead rock star," although that title has also been given to country music icon Hank Williams, who died nearly 2 years earlier.
But the world of music breaks even, as Annie Lennox is born in Aberdeen, Scotland. With The Tourists, Eurythmics and on her own, she is one of the world's most beloved living singers.
Also on this day, Margaret Ann Williams is born in Kansas City, Missouri. She began her political career as an aid to Congressman Morris "Mo" Udall of Arizona, who finished 2nd to Jimmy Carter in the race for the 1976 Democratic Presidential nomination. Around here, she was an aide to Congressman, later Senator, Bob Torricelli of New Jersey.
She worked for the Children's Defense Fund, which was how she met Hillary Clinton, which was how she met Bill Clinton, which is how she got to be on his Presidential campaign staff in 1992. She joined Hillary's staff, and was alleged to have removed folders from the office of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster on the night of his suicide in 1993, in order to protect Bill and/or Hillary from suspicion. She has always denied this.
In 2008, she was Hillary's campaign manager in the Democratic Primaries. She is now a partner in Griffin Williams, a management-consulting firm.
December 25, 1955: Queen Elizabeth II delivers the 1st televised Royal Christmas Message, although it is in sound only, with only the royal coat of arms being seen by the television audience.
Also in 1955, but not on Christmas Day, C.S. Lewis published Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus. It is a satire of the observance of two simultaneous holidays in "Niatirb" (that's "Britain" spelled backwards), from the supposed view of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. He lived in the 5th Century BC, about 400 years before the Roman invasion of Britain, so this is a total fantasy.
One of the holidays, "Exmas," is observed by a flurry of compulsory commercial activity and expensive indulgence in alcoholic beverages. The other, "Crissmas," is observed in Niatirb's temples. Lewis' narrator asks a priest why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas:
It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.
And when Lewis/Herodotus asked the priest why they endured the Rush, the priest replied, "It is, O Stranger, a racket... "
December 25, 1956: Arsenal play Chelsea to a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. Whittaker had died earlier in the year, and the club had gone into a long decline that wouldn't be reversed for 10 years.
This remains the last game that Arsenal have played on a Christmas Day. By the 1970s, England's Football Association would stop allowing Football League games to be played on Christmas Day. To this day, however, they are still played on the day after, a.k.a. Boxing Day, usually neighboring rivals to save on travel costs.
December 25, 1957: Charles Pathé, a pioneer in film and recorded sound, dies in Monaco, one day short of his 94th birthday.
The films premiering on this day include Old Yeller. Nice movie to take the family to on Christmas, right?
Also on this day, Queen Elizabeth II appears on television to deliver the Royal Christmas Message. Previously, she had only been heard, not seen, even in the TV broadcast.
Also on this day, Christopher Kamara (no middle name) is born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. A midfielder, Chris Kamara helped Wiltshire team Swindon Town win England's 4th division in 1986, and get them promoted from the 3rd to the 2nd division the next year.
In 1990, he went back to Yorkshire, and helped Leeds United win the 2nd division and get promoted to the 1st. However, they sold him to Bedfordshire team Luton Town in 1991-92, and when Leeds won the League that year, Kamara didn't get a winner's medal.
He managed Yorkshire team Bradford City, and got them promoted from the 3rd to the 2nd division in 1996. He has since gone into the broadcasting side of soccer.
Someone born this day who moved a bit better was Hanford Dixon, born in Mobile, Alabama. The All-Pro cornerback for the Cleveland Browns would bark like a dog at his teammates to get them psyched up, and fans in the bleachers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium would start barking along with him. Soon, he started calling that section the Dawg Pound, and they would respond by wearing dog masks and throwing dog biscuits.
Someone born this day who moved even better still was Rickey Nelson Henley, born in Chicago. His mother, who had named him after singer Eric Hilliard "Ricky" Nelson, remarried and took him to her husband's hometown of Oakland, California, and the boy was renamed Rickey Henley Henderson. A Baseball Hall-of-Famer and by far the all-time leader in stolen bases, Rickey is a legend. Just ask him.
Also on this day, Cheryl Hudock (no middle name) is born in Manville, Somerset County, New Jersey. She uses her married name, Cheryl Chase. You may not know her name, her face, or her real voice, but she's the voice of Angelica Pickles on Rugrats.
December 25, 1959: Robert Washington Jones is born in Demopolis, Alabama. A linebacker, Robbie Jones was a member of the University of Alabama team that won the 1979 National Championship, and was special teams captain of the Giants when they won Super Bowl XXI.
Also on this day, Michael Phillip Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York, not far from the Canadian border. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1998. Unfortunately, he also flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia, and was 1 of the 7 astronauts killed on re-entry on February 1, 2003. He was only 43 years old.
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December 25, 1961: Owen Brewster dies of cancer at age 73. Governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, and serving in both houses of Congress from 1935 to 1952, he was an ally of Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, and nearly as reckless with his charges. His challenges to industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes allowed for his corruption to be publicly revealed, ruining his career.
In the film The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes -- and premiering on Christmas Day 2004 -- Brewster is played by Alan Alda, who once again plays a native of Maine, but one whose politics are diametrically opposed to those of his real-life self and those of Hawkeye Pierce.
December 25, 1962: The film version of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird premieres, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and, in their film debuts, 10-year-old Mary Badham (sister of film director John Badham, and now an art restorer), William Windom, Alice Ghostley, and, as the mysterious Arthur "Boo" Radley, Robert Duvall, about to turn 32 but with a lot of stage work to his name.
Also on this day, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" makes its Christmas debut, written by Gloria Shayne Baker and her husband at the time, the appropriately-named Noël Regney. They wrote it 2 months earlier, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as a plea for peace.
December 25, 1963: Although it's not specified, a Christmas party could be the "Oh What a Night" that produced the Four Seasons song "December 1963," a Number 1 hit in March 1976. In real life, at Christmas '63, the Seasons -- Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito -- had a hit with their version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
This was also the year of A Christmas Gift for You, a.k.a. The Phil Spector Christmas Album, featuring several acts produced by Spector. Unfortunately, it was released on November 22, 1963, mere hours before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and didn't sell well in the dreariest Christmas season in American history. It would be "rediscovered" in the 1970s.
December 25, 1964: The movies released on this day aren't exactly family-friendly. The Pleasure Seekers, essentially a remake of Three Coins in the Fountain, stars Ann-Margret. It is also the last film for Gene Tierney. And Sex and the Single Girl stars Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis. Wood plays a fictionalized version of Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote the book of the same title, published 2 years earlier.
Also on this day, Gary McAllister (no middle name) is born in Motherwell, Scotland. A midfielder, he helped hometown soccer club Motherwell gain promotion to Scotland's 1st division in 1985, was bought by English club Leicester City, helped Leeds United win England's Football League in 1992, played for Coventry City, and then was a member of the 2001 Liverpool team that won a "cup treble": The FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup (the tournament now known as the UEFA Europa League).
He later managed Coventry, Leeds and Birmingham club Aston Villa, and is now a club ambassador for Liverpool.
December 25, 1966: Wendy Gebauer is born in Washington, D.C., and grows up in the nearby suburb of Reston, Virginia. A forward in the University of North Carolina's women's soccer dynasty, she was a member of the U.S. team that won the 1st-ever Women's World Cup in 1991.
December 25, 1967: Jason Matthew Thirsk is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Hermosa Beach, California. The bass guitarist for the punk band Pennywise, he fell victim to depression and alcoholism, and shot and killed himself in 1996, only 28 years old.
December 25, 1968, 50 years ago: The Apollo 8 astronauts become the 1st people of Earth to see the far side of the Moon. Upon seeing a phased Earth, appearing as the Moon usually does, from lunar orbit, the astronauts -- Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman -- take turns reading from the Bible, but the opening, the Creation story of Genesis, rather than the First Christmas story.
But all is not well on planet Earth. There was one last horrible moment in a horrible year. In what becomes known as the Kilvenmani Massacre, 44 Dalits -- known in the West as the Untouchables -- are burned to death in Kizhavenmani, Tamil Nadu, in retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by their laborers.
Also on this day, James Thomas Dowd is born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Growing up in neighboring Brick, Jim Dowd was the 1st New Jerseyan to play for the Devils, and remains the only New Jerseyan to have his name on the Stanley Cup, having scored a late winner in Game 2 of the 1995 Finals against the Detroit Red Wings. He now coaches a youth hockey team in Red Bank, New Jersey.
Also, Corey Edward Widmer is born outside Washington in Alexandria, Virginia. A linebacker, he played for the Giants from 1992 to 1999.
Also on this day, Helena Christensen (no middle name) is born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is one of the most heralded models of the last 30 years.
December 25, 1969: Baby's First Christmas. Well, mine, anyway. Not that I knew it.
Also on this day, a film version of William Faulkner's novel The Reivers premieres, a coming-of-age story set in 1905 Mississippi.
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December 25, 1971: The longest game in NFL history was played. The Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 24-21, in the 2nd overtime of an AFC Divisional Playoff. It was also the Chiefs' last game at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, before moving to Arrowhead Stadium in September 1972.
Also on this day, Terry Vaughn (no middle name) is born in Sumter, South Carolina. A star receiver at the University of Arizona, he was not drafted by an NFL team, but became the 1st receiver in the Canadian Football League to catch 1,000 passes in a career.
He won the CFL Championship, the Grey Cup, with both Alberta teams, the 1998 Calgary Stampeders and the 2003 Edmonton Eskimos. He was named to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and TSN's (The Sports Network, Canada's version of ESPN) 50 Greatest CFL Players.
Also on this day, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong is born in the Kensington section of London. Best known for her song "Thank You" and her guest appearance in Eminem's video "Stan," Dido also sang one of the sexiest songs I've ever heard, "Who Makes You Feel."
Also on this day, Justin Trudeau is born in Montreal to Canada's Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and his much-younger wife Margaret. Two years later to the day, another son would be born to them, Alexandre Trudeau.
Both brothers would become journalists, and Justin now serves in Parliament, as Leader of the Liberal Party, his father did before him. On October 19, 2015, the Liberals were returned to power in a federal election, making Justin the Prime Minister, and making the Trudeaus Canada's 1st father-and-son national leaders since Britain's Kings George III and IV (and William IV, another son of George III).
December 25, 1972: Adrian Scott dies in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks, California at age 60. The native of Kearny, Hudson County, New Jersey was a screenwriter, one of the "Hollywood Ten," blacklisted in 1947 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, investigating Communist influence in the American film industry.
He produced 3 films directed by another of the Ten, Edward Dymytryk, all film noirs, including the 1944 film Murder, My Sweet. He had just begun to be credited under his own name again when he died, just barely beating the blacklist.
Also on this day, Johnny Mac Powell is born in Clanton, Alabama. The gospel singer, lead singer for the band Third Day, doesn't use his first name, and won the 2001 Gospel Music Association award for Male Vocalist of the Year.
December 25, 1973: Bullet Joe Simpson dies at age 80 in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, Florida. A defenseman, he starred for the Edmonton Eskimos of the West Coast Hockey League, winning that league's title in 1922, and advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the team now known as the Toronto Maple Leafs. He later starred for the NewYork Americans, and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, the film The Sting premieres, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The theme song is Marvin Hamlisch's arrangement of Scott Joplin's 1902 song "The Entertainer" -- although my mother and a lot of people in her generation still call the song "The Sting."
Also on this day, Magnum Force premieres, the 2nd film to feature Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. I know what you're thinkin', punk: "Not a great holiday film for the whole family." So you gotta ask yourself one question: "Was I naughty or nice?" Well, which were ya, punk?
Also on this day, Robert James Elliott is born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the North-East of England. A left back, he starred for his hometown team, Newcastle United, and also played the 2006-07 season for their arch-rivals, Sunderland. Since 2009, he has worked with the United States Under-20 national team.
December 25, 1975: Two very different Boston legends are born. Hideki Okajima is a Japanese-born pitcher for the Red Sox, who helped them win the 2007 World Series.
And Rob Mariano is born in Canton, Massachusetts. "Boston Rob" continually wore a Red Sox cap while appearing on the CBS series Survivor, and ended up marrying his season's winner, Amber Brkich. Together, they went on to compete on another CBS series, The Amazing Race. They now live in Pensacola, Florida, and have 3 children, all girls.
Also on this day, the rock band Iron Maiden is formed. Not exactly a musical act one would associate with a Christian holiday. Lead guitarist Dave Murray and bass guitarist Steve Harris are 62. Guitarist and main songwriter Adrian Smith and original drummer Doug Sampson are 61. Original lead singer Paul Di'Anno and the most familiar lead singer for the band, Bruce Dickinson, are 60.
December 25, 1976: Armin Jozef Jacobus Daniël van Buuren is born in Leiden, the Netherlands. The DJ is one of the world's leading figures in "trance music." I am not a fan.
December 25, 1977: Charlie Chaplin dies as a result of a stroke. The most renowned of all silent-film actors is truly silenced, at age 88.
Also on this day, as neither man's faith celebrates Christmas, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt meet in the latter's country, beginning the discussions that will lead to the Camp David Accords 9 months later.
Also on this day, High Anxiety premieres, Mel Brooks' spoof of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers. Hitchcock, still alive at the time, not only liked it, but sent Mel a case of wine in appreciation.
Mel had previously spoofed Broadway musicals in The Producers (1968), Westerns in Blazing Saddles (1974), classic horror films in Young Frankenstein (also in 1974), and silent movies in Silent Movie (1976). He would later spoof historical epics in History of the World, Pt. 1 (1981), science fiction in Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood films in Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993), and vampire films in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).
December 25, 1979: Actress Joan Blondell dies of leukemia. She was 73, having been born on August 30, 1906 in New York, the same day and in the same city as my grandfather, George Goldberg, who later changed his name to George Golden. (His wife, my grandmother, Grace Darton, was born on the same day as actor Dennis Weaver, although not in the same city.)
As her name suggests, Blondell was a blonde, and is best remembered for her "gold digger" roles in early 1930s films, including the legendary Busby Berkeley production Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she sings "We're In the Money" and "Remember My Forgotten Man."
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December 25, 1980: The film First Family premieres. Bob Newhart plays the President of the United States -- as if any man could get elected with a face like Newhart's, a bald head like Newhart's, and a name like Manfred Link. Madeline Kahn plays the alcoholic First Lady, and Gilda Radner plays their easy daughter.
Also on this day, Altered States premieres. It is the film debut of both William Hurt and Drew Barrymore. It is not a suitable film for Christmas viewing.
December 25, 1981: Willy Taveras -- apparently, his entire full name -- is born in Tenares, Dominican Republic. A center fielder, he reached the postseason with the 2004 and '05 Houston Astros, and the 2007 Colorado Rockies, playing in the 2005 and '07 World Series. In 2008, with the Rockies, he led the National League in stolen bases.
But he was one of these players who simply didn't get on base often enough to make his speed a useful weapon. Although he has kept his career going by playing in the Mexican and Dominicasn't appeared in Major League Baseball since 2010, with the Washington Nationals.
December 25, 1982: The 1st Aloha Bowl is played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The University of Washington, then ranked Number 9 in the nation, defeats the University of Maryland, then Number 16, 21-20.
Honolulu had previously hosted the Poi Bowl from 1936 to 1939, and the Pineapple Bowl from 1940 to 1952, but those games were held on New Year's Day. The Aloha Bowl would be held on Christmas Day, and would feature a man in a Santa Claus suit parachuting onto the field to present the referee with the game ball.
In 1998, 1999 and 2000, Aloha Stadium hosted a doubleheader, with the Aloha Bowl preceded by the Oahu Bowl. But that game quickly folded. The last Aloha Bowl was played in 2000. It was a commercial failure: Of the 19 games played, only the 1989 edition was a sellout of the 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium.
Having quickly gone from hosting 2 bowl games in 2000 to none in 2001, Hawaii tried again. The Hawaii Bowl was established in 2002, and was played on Christmas Day that year and the next, but has usually been played on Christmas Eve since. This year, it was played on December 22, and, despite playing on its home field, the University of Hawaii lost to Louisiana Tech 31-14.
Also on this day, Shawn Cornelius Andrews is born in Camden, Arkansas. A guard, he starred at the University of Arkansas, made 2 Pro Bowls with the Philadelphia Eagles, and played in Super Bowl XXXIX. He is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Eagles' 75th Anniversary Team. He played with the Giants in 2010, but a back injury soon ended his career.
December 25, 1983: Spanish artist Joan Miró dies of heart disease. He was 90. Yes, in the Spanish region of Catalonia, "Joan" is the masculine form of "John," so, unlike Joan Blondell, he was male.
December 25, 1984: Jack Balmer dies in Liverpool at age 68. A forward, he helped Liverpool F.C. win the Football League title in 1947.
Also on this day, Alastair Nathan Cook is born in Gloucester, England. I don't know what makes a cricket player great, but Cook holds the records for most caps (appearances) and most caps as Captain for the England national team. He was named International Cricket Council Player of the Year in 2011. He is 5th on the all-time list for most runs in Test cricket, with 12,472. (Sachin Tendulkar of India holds the record, with 15,921.)
He currently plays for Essex County Cricket. That's Essex County in England, not in New Jersey. England does have a city named Newark, but, unlike in New Jersey, it isn't in the County of Essex, but in the County of Nottinghamshire.
Also on this day, Limas Lee Sweed Jr. is born outside Houston in Brenham, Texas. A receiver, he was with the University of Texas when it won the 2005 National Championship, and the Pittsburgh Steelers when they won Super Bowl XLIII. He last played in 2012, with the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Also on this day, Jessica Louise Orgliasso and Lisa Marie Origliasso are born in Albany Creek, Queensland, Australia. The twin sisters formed the singing duo The Veronicas.
December 25, 1987: Empire of the Sun premieres, a World War II story produced and directed by Stephen Spielberg.
Also on this day, Demaryius Antwon Thomas is born in Montrose, Georgia. A receiver, he was with the Denver Broncos when they won Super Bowl 50. Now with the Houston Texans, the 5-time Pro Bowler has caught 688 passes for 9,330 yards 62 touchdowns.
December 25, 1988, 30 years ago: Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. is born in Indianapolis. Named Indiana's "Mr. Basketball" in 2007, the guard played just 1 season at Indiana University before declared for the NBA Draft. It took a while to become a big pro player, including 3 years with the Los Angeles Clippers and 5 years with the New Orleans Pelicans, but in 2017, with the Houston Rockets, he was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
December 25, 1989: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown, in the latest chapter of the anti-Communist revolutions of Eastern Europe of that amazing year. He and his wife Elena are executed.
Also on this day, legendary Yankee manager Billy Martin is killed in a drunken-driving crash near his home in Johnson City, New York, outside Binghamton. He was 61.
Also on this day, Walter Ris dies in Mission Viejo, California, just short of his 66th birthday. A swimmer, the Chicago native won 2 Gold Medals for the U.S. at the 1948 Olympics in London. He is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
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December 25, 1990: What would become known as the World Wide Web gets its 1st trial run.
Also on this day, The Godfather Part III premieres. Yes, that's what you want to do on Christmas Day: Go see a Mob movie. And, unlike the 1st 2 parts, which are beloved classics, the 3rd time was definitely not the charm.
Also on this day, Garrett Nicholas Cooper is born in Auburn, Alabama, where his father was teaching at Auburn University. His father later got a teaching job in Los Angeles, and that's where Garrett grew up, although he returned to Auburn to play baseball. He made his major league debut this past season, as a 1st baseman for the Yankees, but has since been traded to the Miami Marlins.
December 25, 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union. He had become the opposite of "a man without a country": He was, in effect, a one-man country. The next day, the Supreme Soviet dissolved, its last act being to dissolve the Soviet Union itself after 74 years.
Also on this day, Frank Finnigan dies of a heart attack in his hometown of Shawville, Quebec, a suburb of Canada's national capital, Ottawa, Ontario. He was 90 years old, and had lived long enough to see his efforts to get his former hockey team, the Ottawa Senators, restored to the NHL for the 1992 expansion, but not long enough to see them take the ice.
A right wing, he played the original Senators from 1923 to 1934, including being an integral part of their 1927 Stanley Cup win. Due to the Great Depression, the Senators did not play in the 1931-32 season, and the Toronto Maple Leafs were allowed to sign him, enabling him to win that season's Stanley Cup with the Leafs. He was the Senators' Captain upon their return. In the 1933-34 season, he played in the Ace Bailey Benefit Game in Toronto.
But after that season, they moved to St. Louis, already known for good support of a minor-league team. Finnigan scored the final goal in the history of the old Senators. The St. Louis Eagles were terrible in 1934-35 and folded, selling him back to the Leafs, for whom he played until 1937. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II and managed hotels.
Finnigan was the last surviving Senator from the Stanley Cup winners of 1927 -- still the last Cup won by an Ottawa team -- and participated in the "Bring Back The Senators" campaign. On October 8, 1992, before their 1st regular-season home game, at the Ottawa Civic Centre, his Number 8 was raised to the rafters, and his son Frank Finnigan Jr. was invited to drop the ceremonial puck before the 1st home game.
His brother Eddie Finnigan also played in the NHL, including for the St. Louis Eagles after they were no longer the Senators, but was mostly a career minor-leaguer. His daughter Joan Finnigan was a noted Canadian writer, including writing a book about the Senators' re-establishment, and several books about the Ottawa Valley.
Also on this day, The Prince of Tides premieres. Barbara Streisand had long wanted to adapt Pat Conroy's novel, and does so as director, and stars along with Nick Nolte.
December 25, 1992: Monica Dickens, great-granddaughter of Christmas champion Charles Dickens, and a best-selling author and broadcaster in her own right, dies at age 77.
Also on this day, Arin Gilliland (no middle name) is born in Lexington, Kentucky. A left back, she plays for the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), although she is currently on loan to the women's edition of the Australian team Newcastle Jets.
Also on this day, Hoffa premieres, written by David Mamet, directed by Danny DeVito, and starring Jack Nicholson as Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Although exactly what happened to him after he was last seen on July 30, 1975, in the parking lot of a restaurant in the Detroit suburbs, is still debated, the film suggests that he and an associate were shot and killed, and their bodies taken away.
Also premiering on this day is Trespass. As far as I know, this is is the only collaboration between rappers-turned-actors Tracy Marrow and O'Shea Jackson, a.k.a. Ice-T and Ice Cube.
December 25, 1994: The film I.Q. premieres. I would never have cast Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein, but he did a great job. The film was shot on location in Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived the last 22 years of his life, teaching at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Meg Ryan plays his niece (a character made up for the movie), Tim Robbins plays the decidedly "town not gown" mechanic who falls for her before finding out who her uncle is, and famously bald actor Keene Curtis plays President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
There is a scene where Einstein is driving a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, with Little Richard's song "Tutti-Frutti" blasting out of the car radio. I don't think Einstein ever drove a car. If he did, I doubt it would be the Hitler-championed "People's Car," which was only beginning to become popular in America when Einstein died on April 18, 1955. "Tutti-Frutti" wasn't recorded until September 14, 5 months later. And, as a violinist trained on classical pieces, I doubt that Einstein would have had much use for rock and roll.
Also premiering on this day is a live-action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, starring Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli.
December 25, 1995: Dean Martin dies of emphysema at age 78. It is unfortunate that one of the leading singers of Christmas songs -- or "Christmas" songs, as I explained in my entry on Problematic Christmas Songs -- died on a December 25.
December 25, 1996: JonBenet Ramsey is found murdered at her home in Boulder, Colorado. She was 6. Her killer has never been definitively identified. Had she been born a few years later, she likely would have been a child beauty pageant opponent of Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo.
December 25, 1997: Denver Pyle, best known as Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard, dies of lung cancer at the age of 77.
Also on this day, Bill Hewitt dies in Port Perry, Ontario at age 68. The grandson of sportswriter W.A. Hewitt and the son of sportscaster Foster Hewitt, he was a longtime TV voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs. As far as I know, the Hewitts are the only family with 3 generations in any sport's Hall of Fame.
Premiering on this day are the films As Good As It Gets, Jackie Brown, and a live-action version of Mr. Magoo, starring Leslie Nielsen. I am serious, and don't call me "Shirley."
Also premiering is The Postman, set in postapocalyptic Oregon in 2013. Twice before, Kevin Costner had demanded big funding and total control on a movie: On 1990's Dances With Wolves and on 1995's Waterworld. Both of them, in reference to Heaven's Gate, a Western whose costs ran out of control and bankrupted United Artists in 1980, were nicknamed "Kevin's Gate." But Dances With Wolves was a home run (winning the Oscar for Best Picture), and Waterworld a single (despite its enormous cost, in made a profit).
This time, the man who starred in Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, and would later star in For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger, strikes out: The Postman becomes one of the biggest bombs in film history. He has never recovered, and while he's made successful movies since, none have had him as the leading man.
December 25, 1998, 20 years ago: Alec Baldwin hosts Saturday Night Live. He participates in the recurring sketch in which Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon play Margaret Jo McCullen and Teri Rialto, hosts of the fictional National Public Radio show The Delicious Dish. Baldwin plays noted baker Pete Schweddy, who has made a Christmas treat: Assortments of spherical treats made out of anything from meat to cake to candy. He calls them "Schweddy Balls," and sells them in a little bag he calls a "Schweddy Ball Sack."
The episode aired on December 12, 1998, just 1 week before President Bill Clinton (then played by Darrell Hammond) was impeached for... I don't know, something apparently worse than letting the Russian government steal a Presidential election from Bill's wife 18 years later.
The monologue shows Baldwin deciding that he can't do the show that night, because the whole impeachment saga is ruining his Christmas spirit. So John Goodman -- who, along with Steve Martin, appears to be in a running competition with Baldwin for the record for most SNL apperances outside of the regular cast -- plays the Ghost of Christmas Future.
He shows Baldwin what happens right before Christmas 2011: The host is Jimmy Fallon (a current castmember in 1998), and he's making fun of Baldwin. Goodman, prematurely aged, is shown as a current castmember. (It was possible: Billy Crystal and some others were regulars for a year after they'd already been big stars.) And the announcer was "Robot Dan Pardo," as it was presumed that the real Pardo, who'd been working for NBC since getting a radio job in 1938, wouldn't still be announcing at age 93. Anyway, it shocks Baldwin into going ahead with the show.
Unfortunately, also on this date, the aforementioned Richard Paul dies of cancer. He was only 58. Had he lived a little longer, he could have played a nasty Southern politician on The West Wing, the way he played a nice but clueless Southern Mayor on the sitcom Carter Country in the late 1970s, and a considerably smarter New England Mayor on Murder, She Wrote.
December 25, 1999: Galaxy Quest premieres. Tim Allen stars as an actor who starred in a 1970s science fiction TV show, playing the Captain of a starship and its heroic crew. The show-within-the-movie is obviously meant to be a parallel to Star Trek, and Allen's Jason Nesmith is a parody of the difficulties that people -- fans and co-stars alike -- have had with William Shatner.
But when the actors have to save an alien race for real... Let's just say that it's a better version of Star Trek than anything J.J. Abrams or CBS have done. It's also a better film, and a considerably less creepy one, than any of Allen's Santa Clause movies.
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December 25, 2001: The film Ali premieres, starring Will Smith as Muhammad Ali. Also on this day, Kate & Leopold premieres. Meg Ryan plays a New York advertising executive, and Hugh Jackman plays an 1876 British duke who inadvertetly ends up in the present day.
December 25, 2002: Catch Me If You Can premieres, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as 1960s con man Frank Abagnale, based on his memoir.
December 25, 2003, 15 years ago: A new live-action version of Peter Pan premieres, starring Jeremy Sumpter. Also premiering is Cold Mountain, starring Jude Law as a soldier in the American Civil War and Nicole Kidman as the woman he left behind.
December 25, 2004: Eddie Spicer dies in Rhyl, Wales at age 82. In 1939, the centreback signed for his hometown soccer team, Liverpool F.C., at just 17 years old. But World War II was underway, and he served in Britain's Royal Marines. He didn't make his official debut for the Mersey Reds until January 30, 1946, at 23.
In the 1946-47 season, he made 10 appearances for the club, which won the Football League title, but that was 1 game short of qualifying for a winner's medal under the rules of the time. He played for Liverpool in the 1950 FA Cup Final, but they lost to Arsenal. He broke his leg late in the next season, missing the entire 1951-52 season, and retired a year later, just 31.
Also on this day, The Aviator premieres. Yeah, that's what you want to do on Christmas Day: Go see a movie about a nut like Howard Hughes. Leonardo DiCaprio pulls it off, though.
Superbly bringing screen legends back to life are Katharine Hepburn by Cate Blanchett, Ava Gardner by Kate Beckinsale, and Jean Harlow by No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani. She may not be a hollaback girl, but she made a good throwback girl. As he did on M*A*S*H, Alan Alda once again plays a character from Maine, but, this time, it's Senator Owen Brewster, a nasty Republican who hauled Hughes before a Congressional hearing.
Another film premiering on this day is a live-action version of Fat Albert. Albert and the rest of the Cosby Kids are brought from cartoons into "the real world," and Albert (played by Kenan Thompson) meets his maker. No, he doesn't die: He meets Bill Cosby, who faints upon seeing him for the first time.
Of course, knowing what we now know about Cosby, it's hard to see him as either the creator of Fat Albert or Dr. Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show.
The cartoons featured a character named Dumb Donald, whose name was borrowed for questions on the CBS game show Match Game, after panelist Brett Somers objected to so many questions starting with, "Dumb Dora is so dumb!" (Followed by, "How dumb is she?") She wanted a masculine equivalent. Hence, "Dumb Donald" was allowed, since CBS also aired Fat Albert. In Match Game questions, Donald was usually depicted as a grown man, but his race was never specified.
When Match Game, which ran on CBS from 1973 to 1982, was revived on ABC in 2016, Dumb Dora was still used, but Dumb Donald was replaced by Dumb Derek -- despite the fact that the host was Alec Baldwin, who plays Donald Trump (who is so dumb) on Saturday Night Live.
December 25, 2006: James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, dies of pneumonia. He was 73.
In the "Great holiday-season film for the whole family" department this was the premiere date for Black Christmas, Notes On a Scandal, and Children of Men. Okay, the last of these did feature the birth of a baby that signaled a new hope for humanity.
December 25, 2007: Jim Beauchamp dies of leukemia at age 68. An outfielder, he was named Most Valuable Player of the Texas League in 1963, but that success didn't carry over into the major leagues. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963, was part of the Houston Astros' youth movement in 1964 and '65, was with the Milwaukee Braves when they moved to Atlanta in 1966, was traded away by the Cincinnati Reds right before they started winning Pennants again, and finally saw the postseason with the Pennant-winning 1973 Mets.
He then managed in the minor leagues, and was promoted to bench coach by the Braves in 1991, a part of 5 World Series with them, winning in 1995. His hometown of Grove, Oklahoma named its baseball field for him while he as still alive and well enough to enjoy it. "Beauchamp" is French for "beautiful field."
Also on this day, The Bucket List premieres, a fun film, but a painful reminder that, someday, even Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman will die.
December 25, 2008, 10 years ago: Eartha Kitt dies of cancer. The singer of "Santa Baby" and one of 3 women to play Catwoman on the 1960s Batman series apparently had used up her 9th life, but what a life it was. She was 81.
Also on this day, a bunch of movies are released: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt as a man who ages backwards; Marley & Me, about a man and his troublesome dog (not a retelling of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley); Valkyrie, about the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944; and The Spirit, the 1st attempt to turn Will Eisner's early comic book hero into a live-action film, and it doesn't do well.
December 25, 2009: al-Qaeda operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old native of Nigeria, tries and fails to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, going from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Detroit. Because he failed, the plane landed safely, and all 289 people on board survived.
"The Underwear Bomber," having one of the most ridiculous nicknames of any criminal ever, is now surviving multiple life sentences at the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
Also on this day, Sherlock Holmes premieres, Guy Ritchie's retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle's legend, with Robert Downey Jr. as a Holmes who is impossible to be around, and more of a man of action, but still brilliant.
The villain is played by Mark Strong, previously in the film version of Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby's memoir about being a fan of Arsenal. There is an inside joke: Among the villain's business holdings is the Woolwich Arsenal, the place where the team was founded.
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Christmas 2011: Jimmy Fallon, now the host of NBC's Late Night (and, starting in 2014, NBC's The Tonight Show, taking the show back to its 1954-72 roots, in the same 30 Rockefeller Plaza building as SNL), hosts Saturday Night Live. And makes jokes about Alec Baldwin. Who shows up. Just as that Christmas 1998 episode said would happen 13 years later.
The prophecy from 1998 doesn't fully come true, however: Don Pardo was still alive and announcing for the show. He died in 2014, at age 96, after 76 years of working for NBC, and was replaced as announcer by former castmember Darrell Hammond -- who had played Bill Clinton in that 1998 episode.
December 25, 2012: Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained premieres, reminding us of how bad slavery was. And a film version of the musical version of Victory Hugo's novel Les Misérables
premieres.
December 25, 2013: A man dressed as Santa Claus -- the brother of the husband of a friend of my sister's -- showed up at my sister's apartment, and presented my 6-year-old nieces Ashley and Rachel with new bicycles. They were so happy. This was the best Christmas ever!
Or it will be, until they can do something like that for their own children. Or even, God willing, before that can happen, they could help me do it for their cousin, my own as yet hypothetical child.
December 25, 2014: This was my 1st Christmas without my father. He was the hardest person in the family to shop for, but I'd take that problem in a heartbeat if it meant still having him around to shop for.
December 25, 2015: The Revenant premieres. This is the film that finally got Leonardo DiCaprio his Oscar for Best Actor. ("Finally"? He was 41 years old. Henry Fonda had to wait until he was 77 and dying.)
Also on this day, George Clayton Johnson dies in Los Angeles at age 86. He wrote the Twilight Zone episdoes "Nothing in the Dark," "Kick the Can," "A Game of Pool" and "A Penny for Your Thoughts."
He also wrote the 1st episode of Star Trek that aired, "The Man Trap" (a.k.a. "The Space Vampire"). He also wrote the story on which both versions of Ocean's Eleven were based, and, with William F. Nolan, wrote the novel Logan's Run, later turned into a sci-fi film and a short-lived TV series.
December 25, 2016: This was the 1st Christmas for my niece Mackenzie, born 7 months earlier. She was into it: She loves looking at Christmas trees, and other things with Christmas lights. Last night, a the United Methodist Church of Milltown, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, she made her acting debut, alongside her sisters, Ashley and Rachel. All 3 played angels in a Christmas pageant.
December 25, 2017: Ridley Scott's film All the Money In the World, about the 1973 kidnapping of oil heir J. Paul Getty III, premieres. Because of a sex scandal, Scott had to replace Kevin Spacey, whose scenes as Getty Sr. were already shot, with Christopher Plummer.
December 25, 2018: The world is a mess. Our country is a mess. The federal government is shut down. The economy is getting dicey. Dictators are on the march all over the world. Not all of that, but a bit of it, is the fault of the #OrangeScrooge at the head of our government, and the people who still support him.
But Christmas is a day of new beginnings, of tolerance, of togetherness.
May your days be merry and bright. God bless us, every one. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Sleep in heavenly peace.
Some have called him "the first dead rock star," although that title has also been given to country music icon Hank Williams, who died nearly 2 years earlier.
But the world of music breaks even, as Annie Lennox is born in Aberdeen, Scotland. With The Tourists, Eurythmics and on her own, she is one of the world's most beloved living singers.
Also on this day, Margaret Ann Williams is born in Kansas City, Missouri. She began her political career as an aid to Congressman Morris "Mo" Udall of Arizona, who finished 2nd to Jimmy Carter in the race for the 1976 Democratic Presidential nomination. Around here, she was an aide to Congressman, later Senator, Bob Torricelli of New Jersey.
She worked for the Children's Defense Fund, which was how she met Hillary Clinton, which was how she met Bill Clinton, which is how she got to be on his Presidential campaign staff in 1992. She joined Hillary's staff, and was alleged to have removed folders from the office of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster on the night of his suicide in 1993, in order to protect Bill and/or Hillary from suspicion. She has always denied this.
In 2008, she was Hillary's campaign manager in the Democratic Primaries. She is now a partner in Griffin Williams, a management-consulting firm.
December 25, 1955: Queen Elizabeth II delivers the 1st televised Royal Christmas Message, although it is in sound only, with only the royal coat of arms being seen by the television audience.
Also in 1955, but not on Christmas Day, C.S. Lewis published Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus. It is a satire of the observance of two simultaneous holidays in "Niatirb" (that's "Britain" spelled backwards), from the supposed view of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. He lived in the 5th Century BC, about 400 years before the Roman invasion of Britain, so this is a total fantasy.
One of the holidays, "Exmas," is observed by a flurry of compulsory commercial activity and expensive indulgence in alcoholic beverages. The other, "Crissmas," is observed in Niatirb's temples. Lewis' narrator asks a priest why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas:
It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.
And when Lewis/Herodotus asked the priest why they endured the Rush, the priest replied, "It is, O Stranger, a racket... "
December 25, 1956: Arsenal play Chelsea to a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. Whittaker had died earlier in the year, and the club had gone into a long decline that wouldn't be reversed for 10 years.
This remains the last game that Arsenal have played on a Christmas Day. By the 1970s, England's Football Association would stop allowing Football League games to be played on Christmas Day. To this day, however, they are still played on the day after, a.k.a. Boxing Day, usually neighboring rivals to save on travel costs.
December 25, 1957: Charles Pathé, a pioneer in film and recorded sound, dies in Monaco, one day short of his 94th birthday.
The films premiering on this day include Old Yeller. Nice movie to take the family to on Christmas, right?
Also on this day, Queen Elizabeth II appears on television to deliver the Royal Christmas Message. Previously, she had only been heard, not seen, even in the TV broadcast.
Also on this day, Christopher Kamara (no middle name) is born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. A midfielder, Chris Kamara helped Wiltshire team Swindon Town win England's 4th division in 1986, and get them promoted from the 3rd to the 2nd division the next year.
In 1990, he went back to Yorkshire, and helped Leeds United win the 2nd division and get promoted to the 1st. However, they sold him to Bedfordshire team Luton Town in 1991-92, and when Leeds won the League that year, Kamara didn't get a winner's medal.
He managed Yorkshire team Bradford City, and got them promoted from the 3rd to the 2nd division in 1996. He has since gone into the broadcasting side of soccer.
Also on this day, Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan is born in Pembury, Kent, England. His Irish parents took him back to Tipperary, before returning to London when he was 6 years old. In 1982, he founded The Pogues, an anglicisation of the Gaelic insult, "póg mo thóin," meaning "kiss my ass."
He and bandmate Jem Finer wrote "Fairytale of New York," and released it in 1987. It's a duet between Shane and British singer Kirsty MacColl. Not a hymn by any stretch of the imagination.
While Shane has beaten heroin addiction, with help from fellow Irish rocker Sinéad O'Connor, he remains a heavy drinker, and has had great difficulty getting around since a 2015 incident in which he fell and broke his pelvis. Sadly, Kirsty was killed in a boating accident in 2000. She was only 41.
He and bandmate Jem Finer wrote "Fairytale of New York," and released it in 1987. It's a duet between Shane and British singer Kirsty MacColl. Not a hymn by any stretch of the imagination.
While Shane has beaten heroin addiction, with help from fellow Irish rocker Sinéad O'Connor, he remains a heavy drinker, and has had great difficulty getting around since a 2015 incident in which he fell and broke his pelvis. Sadly, Kirsty was killed in a boating accident in 2000. She was only 41.
December 25, 1958, 60 years ago: "The Chipmunk Song" is the Number 1 song in America. It remains the last Christmas-themed song to hit Number 1.
Also on this day, Bell, Book and Candle premieres. A movie about a witch, premiering on Christmas Day?
Also on this day, Alannah Myles (no middle name) is born in Toronto. Essentially a one-hit wonder, the singer of the 1990 Number 1 hit "Black Velvet" has suffered nerve damage and has difficulty moving, but she still records. She says "medical marijuana" has helped her condition.
Also on this day, Bell, Book and Candle premieres. A movie about a witch, premiering on Christmas Day?
Also on this day, Alannah Myles (no middle name) is born in Toronto. Essentially a one-hit wonder, the singer of the 1990 Number 1 hit "Black Velvet" has suffered nerve damage and has difficulty moving, but she still records. She says "medical marijuana" has helped her condition.
Someone born this day who moved a bit better was Hanford Dixon, born in Mobile, Alabama. The All-Pro cornerback for the Cleveland Browns would bark like a dog at his teammates to get them psyched up, and fans in the bleachers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium would start barking along with him. Soon, he started calling that section the Dawg Pound, and they would respond by wearing dog masks and throwing dog biscuits.
Someone born this day who moved even better still was Rickey Nelson Henley, born in Chicago. His mother, who had named him after singer Eric Hilliard "Ricky" Nelson, remarried and took him to her husband's hometown of Oakland, California, and the boy was renamed Rickey Henley Henderson. A Baseball Hall-of-Famer and by far the all-time leader in stolen bases, Rickey is a legend. Just ask him.
Also on this day, Cheryl Hudock (no middle name) is born in Manville, Somerset County, New Jersey. She uses her married name, Cheryl Chase. You may not know her name, her face, or her real voice, but she's the voice of Angelica Pickles on Rugrats.
December 25, 1959: Robert Washington Jones is born in Demopolis, Alabama. A linebacker, Robbie Jones was a member of the University of Alabama team that won the 1979 National Championship, and was special teams captain of the Giants when they won Super Bowl XXI.
Also on this day, Michael Phillip Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York, not far from the Canadian border. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1998. Unfortunately, he also flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia, and was 1 of the 7 astronauts killed on re-entry on February 1, 2003. He was only 43 years old.
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December 25, 1961: Owen Brewster dies of cancer at age 73. Governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, and serving in both houses of Congress from 1935 to 1952, he was an ally of Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, and nearly as reckless with his charges. His challenges to industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes allowed for his corruption to be publicly revealed, ruining his career.
In the film The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes -- and premiering on Christmas Day 2004 -- Brewster is played by Alan Alda, who once again plays a native of Maine, but one whose politics are diametrically opposed to those of his real-life self and those of Hawkeye Pierce.
December 25, 1962: The film version of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird premieres, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and, in their film debuts, 10-year-old Mary Badham (sister of film director John Badham, and now an art restorer), William Windom, Alice Ghostley, and, as the mysterious Arthur "Boo" Radley, Robert Duvall, about to turn 32 but with a lot of stage work to his name.
Also on this day, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" makes its Christmas debut, written by Gloria Shayne Baker and her husband at the time, the appropriately-named Noël Regney. They wrote it 2 months earlier, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as a plea for peace.
December 25, 1963: Although it's not specified, a Christmas party could be the "Oh What a Night" that produced the Four Seasons song "December 1963," a Number 1 hit in March 1976. In real life, at Christmas '63, the Seasons -- Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito -- had a hit with their version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
This was also the year of A Christmas Gift for You, a.k.a. The Phil Spector Christmas Album, featuring several acts produced by Spector. Unfortunately, it was released on November 22, 1963, mere hours before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and didn't sell well in the dreariest Christmas season in American history. It would be "rediscovered" in the 1970s.
December 25, 1964: The movies released on this day aren't exactly family-friendly. The Pleasure Seekers, essentially a remake of Three Coins in the Fountain, stars Ann-Margret. It is also the last film for Gene Tierney. And Sex and the Single Girl stars Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis. Wood plays a fictionalized version of Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote the book of the same title, published 2 years earlier.
Also on this day, Gary McAllister (no middle name) is born in Motherwell, Scotland. A midfielder, he helped hometown soccer club Motherwell gain promotion to Scotland's 1st division in 1985, was bought by English club Leicester City, helped Leeds United win England's Football League in 1992, played for Coventry City, and then was a member of the 2001 Liverpool team that won a "cup treble": The FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup (the tournament now known as the UEFA Europa League).
He later managed Coventry, Leeds and Birmingham club Aston Villa, and is now a club ambassador for Liverpool.
December 25, 1966: Wendy Gebauer is born in Washington, D.C., and grows up in the nearby suburb of Reston, Virginia. A forward in the University of North Carolina's women's soccer dynasty, she was a member of the U.S. team that won the 1st-ever Women's World Cup in 1991.
December 25, 1967: Jason Matthew Thirsk is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Hermosa Beach, California. The bass guitarist for the punk band Pennywise, he fell victim to depression and alcoholism, and shot and killed himself in 1996, only 28 years old.
December 25, 1968, 50 years ago: The Apollo 8 astronauts become the 1st people of Earth to see the far side of the Moon. Upon seeing a phased Earth, appearing as the Moon usually does, from lunar orbit, the astronauts -- Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman -- take turns reading from the Bible, but the opening, the Creation story of Genesis, rather than the First Christmas story.
But all is not well on planet Earth. There was one last horrible moment in a horrible year. In what becomes known as the Kilvenmani Massacre, 44 Dalits -- known in the West as the Untouchables -- are burned to death in Kizhavenmani, Tamil Nadu, in retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by their laborers.
Also on this day, James Thomas Dowd is born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Growing up in neighboring Brick, Jim Dowd was the 1st New Jerseyan to play for the Devils, and remains the only New Jerseyan to have his name on the Stanley Cup, having scored a late winner in Game 2 of the 1995 Finals against the Detroit Red Wings. He now coaches a youth hockey team in Red Bank, New Jersey.
Also, Corey Edward Widmer is born outside Washington in Alexandria, Virginia. A linebacker, he played for the Giants from 1992 to 1999.
Also on this day, Helena Christensen (no middle name) is born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is one of the most heralded models of the last 30 years.
Also on this day, a film version of William Faulkner's novel The Reivers premieres, a coming-of-age story set in 1905 Mississippi.
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December 25, 1971: The longest game in NFL history was played. The Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 24-21, in the 2nd overtime of an AFC Divisional Playoff. It was also the Chiefs' last game at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, before moving to Arrowhead Stadium in September 1972.
Also on this day, Terry Vaughn (no middle name) is born in Sumter, South Carolina. A star receiver at the University of Arizona, he was not drafted by an NFL team, but became the 1st receiver in the Canadian Football League to catch 1,000 passes in a career.
He won the CFL Championship, the Grey Cup, with both Alberta teams, the 1998 Calgary Stampeders and the 2003 Edmonton Eskimos. He was named to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and TSN's (The Sports Network, Canada's version of ESPN) 50 Greatest CFL Players.
Also on this day, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong is born in the Kensington section of London. Best known for her song "Thank You" and her guest appearance in Eminem's video "Stan," Dido also sang one of the sexiest songs I've ever heard, "Who Makes You Feel."
Also on this day, Justin Trudeau is born in Montreal to Canada's Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and his much-younger wife Margaret. Two years later to the day, another son would be born to them, Alexandre Trudeau.
Both brothers would become journalists, and Justin now serves in Parliament, as Leader of the Liberal Party, his father did before him. On October 19, 2015, the Liberals were returned to power in a federal election, making Justin the Prime Minister, and making the Trudeaus Canada's 1st father-and-son national leaders since Britain's Kings George III and IV (and William IV, another son of George III).
December 25, 1972: Adrian Scott dies in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks, California at age 60. The native of Kearny, Hudson County, New Jersey was a screenwriter, one of the "Hollywood Ten," blacklisted in 1947 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, investigating Communist influence in the American film industry.
He produced 3 films directed by another of the Ten, Edward Dymytryk, all film noirs, including the 1944 film Murder, My Sweet. He had just begun to be credited under his own name again when he died, just barely beating the blacklist.
Also on this day, Johnny Mac Powell is born in Clanton, Alabama. The gospel singer, lead singer for the band Third Day, doesn't use his first name, and won the 2001 Gospel Music Association award for Male Vocalist of the Year.
December 25, 1973: Bullet Joe Simpson dies at age 80 in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, Florida. A defenseman, he starred for the Edmonton Eskimos of the West Coast Hockey League, winning that league's title in 1922, and advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the team now known as the Toronto Maple Leafs. He later starred for the NewYork Americans, and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, the film The Sting premieres, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The theme song is Marvin Hamlisch's arrangement of Scott Joplin's 1902 song "The Entertainer" -- although my mother and a lot of people in her generation still call the song "The Sting."
Also on this day, Magnum Force premieres, the 2nd film to feature Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. I know what you're thinkin', punk: "Not a great holiday film for the whole family." So you gotta ask yourself one question: "Was I naughty or nice?" Well, which were ya, punk?
Also on this day, Robert James Elliott is born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the North-East of England. A left back, he starred for his hometown team, Newcastle United, and also played the 2006-07 season for their arch-rivals, Sunderland. Since 2009, he has worked with the United States Under-20 national team.
December 25, 1975: Two very different Boston legends are born. Hideki Okajima is a Japanese-born pitcher for the Red Sox, who helped them win the 2007 World Series.
And Rob Mariano is born in Canton, Massachusetts. "Boston Rob" continually wore a Red Sox cap while appearing on the CBS series Survivor, and ended up marrying his season's winner, Amber Brkich. Together, they went on to compete on another CBS series, The Amazing Race. They now live in Pensacola, Florida, and have 3 children, all girls.
Also on this day, the rock band Iron Maiden is formed. Not exactly a musical act one would associate with a Christian holiday. Lead guitarist Dave Murray and bass guitarist Steve Harris are 62. Guitarist and main songwriter Adrian Smith and original drummer Doug Sampson are 61. Original lead singer Paul Di'Anno and the most familiar lead singer for the band, Bruce Dickinson, are 60.
December 25, 1976: Armin Jozef Jacobus Daniël van Buuren is born in Leiden, the Netherlands. The DJ is one of the world's leading figures in "trance music." I am not a fan.
December 25, 1977: Charlie Chaplin dies as a result of a stroke. The most renowned of all silent-film actors is truly silenced, at age 88.
Also on this day, as neither man's faith celebrates Christmas, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt meet in the latter's country, beginning the discussions that will lead to the Camp David Accords 9 months later.
Also on this day, High Anxiety premieres, Mel Brooks' spoof of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers. Hitchcock, still alive at the time, not only liked it, but sent Mel a case of wine in appreciation.
Mel had previously spoofed Broadway musicals in The Producers (1968), Westerns in Blazing Saddles (1974), classic horror films in Young Frankenstein (also in 1974), and silent movies in Silent Movie (1976). He would later spoof historical epics in History of the World, Pt. 1 (1981), science fiction in Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood films in Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993), and vampire films in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).
December 25, 1979: Actress Joan Blondell dies of leukemia. She was 73, having been born on August 30, 1906 in New York, the same day and in the same city as my grandfather, George Goldberg, who later changed his name to George Golden. (His wife, my grandmother, Grace Darton, was born on the same day as actor Dennis Weaver, although not in the same city.)
As her name suggests, Blondell was a blonde, and is best remembered for her "gold digger" roles in early 1930s films, including the legendary Busby Berkeley production Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she sings "We're In the Money" and "Remember My Forgotten Man."
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December 25, 1980: The film First Family premieres. Bob Newhart plays the President of the United States -- as if any man could get elected with a face like Newhart's, a bald head like Newhart's, and a name like Manfred Link. Madeline Kahn plays the alcoholic First Lady, and Gilda Radner plays their easy daughter.
Also on this day, Altered States premieres. It is the film debut of both William Hurt and Drew Barrymore. It is not a suitable film for Christmas viewing.
December 25, 1981: Willy Taveras -- apparently, his entire full name -- is born in Tenares, Dominican Republic. A center fielder, he reached the postseason with the 2004 and '05 Houston Astros, and the 2007 Colorado Rockies, playing in the 2005 and '07 World Series. In 2008, with the Rockies, he led the National League in stolen bases.
But he was one of these players who simply didn't get on base often enough to make his speed a useful weapon. Although he has kept his career going by playing in the Mexican and Dominicasn't appeared in Major League Baseball since 2010, with the Washington Nationals.
December 25, 1982: The 1st Aloha Bowl is played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The University of Washington, then ranked Number 9 in the nation, defeats the University of Maryland, then Number 16, 21-20.
Honolulu had previously hosted the Poi Bowl from 1936 to 1939, and the Pineapple Bowl from 1940 to 1952, but those games were held on New Year's Day. The Aloha Bowl would be held on Christmas Day, and would feature a man in a Santa Claus suit parachuting onto the field to present the referee with the game ball.
In 1998, 1999 and 2000, Aloha Stadium hosted a doubleheader, with the Aloha Bowl preceded by the Oahu Bowl. But that game quickly folded. The last Aloha Bowl was played in 2000. It was a commercial failure: Of the 19 games played, only the 1989 edition was a sellout of the 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium.
Having quickly gone from hosting 2 bowl games in 2000 to none in 2001, Hawaii tried again. The Hawaii Bowl was established in 2002, and was played on Christmas Day that year and the next, but has usually been played on Christmas Eve since. This year, it was played on December 22, and, despite playing on its home field, the University of Hawaii lost to Louisiana Tech 31-14.
Also on this day, Shawn Cornelius Andrews is born in Camden, Arkansas. A guard, he starred at the University of Arkansas, made 2 Pro Bowls with the Philadelphia Eagles, and played in Super Bowl XXXIX. He is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Eagles' 75th Anniversary Team. He played with the Giants in 2010, but a back injury soon ended his career.
December 25, 1983: Spanish artist Joan Miró dies of heart disease. He was 90. Yes, in the Spanish region of Catalonia, "Joan" is the masculine form of "John," so, unlike Joan Blondell, he was male.
December 25, 1984: Jack Balmer dies in Liverpool at age 68. A forward, he helped Liverpool F.C. win the Football League title in 1947.
Also on this day, Alastair Nathan Cook is born in Gloucester, England. I don't know what makes a cricket player great, but Cook holds the records for most caps (appearances) and most caps as Captain for the England national team. He was named International Cricket Council Player of the Year in 2011. He is 5th on the all-time list for most runs in Test cricket, with 12,472. (Sachin Tendulkar of India holds the record, with 15,921.)
He currently plays for Essex County Cricket. That's Essex County in England, not in New Jersey. England does have a city named Newark, but, unlike in New Jersey, it isn't in the County of Essex, but in the County of Nottinghamshire.
Also on this day, Limas Lee Sweed Jr. is born outside Houston in Brenham, Texas. A receiver, he was with the University of Texas when it won the 2005 National Championship, and the Pittsburgh Steelers when they won Super Bowl XLIII. He last played in 2012, with the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Also on this day, Jessica Louise Orgliasso and Lisa Marie Origliasso are born in Albany Creek, Queensland, Australia. The twin sisters formed the singing duo The Veronicas.
December 25, 1987: Empire of the Sun premieres, a World War II story produced and directed by Stephen Spielberg.
Also on this day, Demaryius Antwon Thomas is born in Montrose, Georgia. A receiver, he was with the Denver Broncos when they won Super Bowl 50. Now with the Houston Texans, the 5-time Pro Bowler has caught 688 passes for 9,330 yards 62 touchdowns.
December 25, 1988, 30 years ago: Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. is born in Indianapolis. Named Indiana's "Mr. Basketball" in 2007, the guard played just 1 season at Indiana University before declared for the NBA Draft. It took a while to become a big pro player, including 3 years with the Los Angeles Clippers and 5 years with the New Orleans Pelicans, but in 2017, with the Houston Rockets, he was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
December 25, 1989: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown, in the latest chapter of the anti-Communist revolutions of Eastern Europe of that amazing year. He and his wife Elena are executed.
Also on this day, legendary Yankee manager Billy Martin is killed in a drunken-driving crash near his home in Johnson City, New York, outside Binghamton. He was 61.
Also on this day, Walter Ris dies in Mission Viejo, California, just short of his 66th birthday. A swimmer, the Chicago native won 2 Gold Medals for the U.S. at the 1948 Olympics in London. He is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
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December 25, 1990: What would become known as the World Wide Web gets its 1st trial run.
Also on this day, The Godfather Part III premieres. Yes, that's what you want to do on Christmas Day: Go see a Mob movie. And, unlike the 1st 2 parts, which are beloved classics, the 3rd time was definitely not the charm.
Also on this day, Garrett Nicholas Cooper is born in Auburn, Alabama, where his father was teaching at Auburn University. His father later got a teaching job in Los Angeles, and that's where Garrett grew up, although he returned to Auburn to play baseball. He made his major league debut this past season, as a 1st baseman for the Yankees, but has since been traded to the Miami Marlins.
December 25, 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union. He had become the opposite of "a man without a country": He was, in effect, a one-man country. The next day, the Supreme Soviet dissolved, its last act being to dissolve the Soviet Union itself after 74 years.
A right wing, he played the original Senators from 1923 to 1934, including being an integral part of their 1927 Stanley Cup win. Due to the Great Depression, the Senators did not play in the 1931-32 season, and the Toronto Maple Leafs were allowed to sign him, enabling him to win that season's Stanley Cup with the Leafs. He was the Senators' Captain upon their return. In the 1933-34 season, he played in the Ace Bailey Benefit Game in Toronto.
But after that season, they moved to St. Louis, already known for good support of a minor-league team. Finnigan scored the final goal in the history of the old Senators. The St. Louis Eagles were terrible in 1934-35 and folded, selling him back to the Leafs, for whom he played until 1937. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II and managed hotels.
Finnigan was the last surviving Senator from the Stanley Cup winners of 1927 -- still the last Cup won by an Ottawa team -- and participated in the "Bring Back The Senators" campaign. On October 8, 1992, before their 1st regular-season home game, at the Ottawa Civic Centre, his Number 8 was raised to the rafters, and his son Frank Finnigan Jr. was invited to drop the ceremonial puck before the 1st home game.
His brother Eddie Finnigan also played in the NHL, including for the St. Louis Eagles after they were no longer the Senators, but was mostly a career minor-leaguer. His daughter Joan Finnigan was a noted Canadian writer, including writing a book about the Senators' re-establishment, and several books about the Ottawa Valley.
Also on this day, The Prince of Tides premieres. Barbara Streisand had long wanted to adapt Pat Conroy's novel, and does so as director, and stars along with Nick Nolte.
December 25, 1992: Monica Dickens, great-granddaughter of Christmas champion Charles Dickens, and a best-selling author and broadcaster in her own right, dies at age 77.
Also on this day, Arin Gilliland (no middle name) is born in Lexington, Kentucky. A left back, she plays for the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), although she is currently on loan to the women's edition of the Australian team Newcastle Jets.
Also on this day, Hoffa premieres, written by David Mamet, directed by Danny DeVito, and starring Jack Nicholson as Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Although exactly what happened to him after he was last seen on July 30, 1975, in the parking lot of a restaurant in the Detroit suburbs, is still debated, the film suggests that he and an associate were shot and killed, and their bodies taken away.
Also premiering on this day is Trespass. As far as I know, this is is the only collaboration between rappers-turned-actors Tracy Marrow and O'Shea Jackson, a.k.a. Ice-T and Ice Cube.
December 25, 1993, 25 years ago: The films Tombstone (centered on the 1881 Gunfight at the OK Corral), Philadelphia (about a man's fights with AIDS and the legal system) and Grumpy Old Men
premiere. At least the last of those has snow and comedy in it.
premiere. At least the last of those has snow and comedy in it.
December 25, 1994: The film I.Q. premieres. I would never have cast Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein, but he did a great job. The film was shot on location in Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived the last 22 years of his life, teaching at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Meg Ryan plays his niece (a character made up for the movie), Tim Robbins plays the decidedly "town not gown" mechanic who falls for her before finding out who her uncle is, and famously bald actor Keene Curtis plays President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
There is a scene where Einstein is driving a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, with Little Richard's song "Tutti-Frutti" blasting out of the car radio. I don't think Einstein ever drove a car. If he did, I doubt it would be the Hitler-championed "People's Car," which was only beginning to become popular in America when Einstein died on April 18, 1955. "Tutti-Frutti" wasn't recorded until September 14, 5 months later. And, as a violinist trained on classical pieces, I doubt that Einstein would have had much use for rock and roll.
Also premiering on this day is a live-action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, starring Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli.
December 25, 1995: Dean Martin dies of emphysema at age 78. It is unfortunate that one of the leading singers of Christmas songs -- or "Christmas" songs, as I explained in my entry on Problematic Christmas Songs -- died on a December 25.
December 25, 1996: JonBenet Ramsey is found murdered at her home in Boulder, Colorado. She was 6. Her killer has never been definitively identified. Had she been born a few years later, she likely would have been a child beauty pageant opponent of Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo.
Also on this day, a pair of not-exactly-family-holiday-friendly films is released. John Travolta stars as Michael. As the tagline says, "He's an angel – not a saint." Boy, am I glad this film didn't come out when I was in school. It could have: Thanks to Welcome Back, Kotter, Saturday Night Fever and
Grease, Travolta was already a star.)
And Woody Harrelson stars in The People vs. Larry Flynt, while Richard Paul, a character actor who generally played chunky Southerners, but was one of the best impressionists of his time, plays the Rev. Jerry Falwell. This is a film in which a redneck porn mogul is the good guy, and one of America's most famous clergymen is the bad guy. Great holiday-season film for the whole family.
Grease, Travolta was already a star.)
And Woody Harrelson stars in The People vs. Larry Flynt, while Richard Paul, a character actor who generally played chunky Southerners, but was one of the best impressionists of his time, plays the Rev. Jerry Falwell. This is a film in which a redneck porn mogul is the good guy, and one of America's most famous clergymen is the bad guy. Great holiday-season film for the whole family.
Also on this day, Bill Hewitt dies in Port Perry, Ontario at age 68. The grandson of sportswriter W.A. Hewitt and the son of sportscaster Foster Hewitt, he was a longtime TV voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs. As far as I know, the Hewitts are the only family with 3 generations in any sport's Hall of Fame.
Premiering on this day are the films As Good As It Gets, Jackie Brown, and a live-action version of Mr. Magoo, starring Leslie Nielsen. I am serious, and don't call me "Shirley."
Also premiering is The Postman, set in postapocalyptic Oregon in 2013. Twice before, Kevin Costner had demanded big funding and total control on a movie: On 1990's Dances With Wolves and on 1995's Waterworld. Both of them, in reference to Heaven's Gate, a Western whose costs ran out of control and bankrupted United Artists in 1980, were nicknamed "Kevin's Gate." But Dances With Wolves was a home run (winning the Oscar for Best Picture), and Waterworld a single (despite its enormous cost, in made a profit).
This time, the man who starred in Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, and would later star in For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger, strikes out: The Postman becomes one of the biggest bombs in film history. He has never recovered, and while he's made successful movies since, none have had him as the leading man.
December 25, 1998, 20 years ago: Alec Baldwin hosts Saturday Night Live. He participates in the recurring sketch in which Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon play Margaret Jo McCullen and Teri Rialto, hosts of the fictional National Public Radio show The Delicious Dish. Baldwin plays noted baker Pete Schweddy, who has made a Christmas treat: Assortments of spherical treats made out of anything from meat to cake to candy. He calls them "Schweddy Balls," and sells them in a little bag he calls a "Schweddy Ball Sack."
The episode aired on December 12, 1998, just 1 week before President Bill Clinton (then played by Darrell Hammond) was impeached for... I don't know, something apparently worse than letting the Russian government steal a Presidential election from Bill's wife 18 years later.
The monologue shows Baldwin deciding that he can't do the show that night, because the whole impeachment saga is ruining his Christmas spirit. So John Goodman -- who, along with Steve Martin, appears to be in a running competition with Baldwin for the record for most SNL apperances outside of the regular cast -- plays the Ghost of Christmas Future.
He shows Baldwin what happens right before Christmas 2011: The host is Jimmy Fallon (a current castmember in 1998), and he's making fun of Baldwin. Goodman, prematurely aged, is shown as a current castmember. (It was possible: Billy Crystal and some others were regulars for a year after they'd already been big stars.) And the announcer was "Robot Dan Pardo," as it was presumed that the real Pardo, who'd been working for NBC since getting a radio job in 1938, wouldn't still be announcing at age 93. Anyway, it shocks Baldwin into going ahead with the show.
Unfortunately, also on this date, the aforementioned Richard Paul dies of cancer. He was only 58. Had he lived a little longer, he could have played a nasty Southern politician on The West Wing, the way he played a nice but clueless Southern Mayor on the sitcom Carter Country in the late 1970s, and a considerably smarter New England Mayor on Murder, She Wrote.
December 25, 1999: Galaxy Quest premieres. Tim Allen stars as an actor who starred in a 1970s science fiction TV show, playing the Captain of a starship and its heroic crew. The show-within-the-movie is obviously meant to be a parallel to Star Trek, and Allen's Jason Nesmith is a parody of the difficulties that people -- fans and co-stars alike -- have had with William Shatner.
But when the actors have to save an alien race for real... Let's just say that it's a better version of Star Trek than anything J.J. Abrams or CBS have done. It's also a better film, and a considerably less creepy one, than any of Allen's Santa Clause movies.
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December 25, 2001: The film Ali premieres, starring Will Smith as Muhammad Ali. Also on this day, Kate & Leopold premieres. Meg Ryan plays a New York advertising executive, and Hugh Jackman plays an 1876 British duke who inadvertetly ends up in the present day.
December 25, 2002: Catch Me If You Can premieres, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as 1960s con man Frank Abagnale, based on his memoir.
December 25, 2003, 15 years ago: A new live-action version of Peter Pan premieres, starring Jeremy Sumpter. Also premiering is Cold Mountain, starring Jude Law as a soldier in the American Civil War and Nicole Kidman as the woman he left behind.
December 25, 2004: Eddie Spicer dies in Rhyl, Wales at age 82. In 1939, the centreback signed for his hometown soccer team, Liverpool F.C., at just 17 years old. But World War II was underway, and he served in Britain's Royal Marines. He didn't make his official debut for the Mersey Reds until January 30, 1946, at 23.
In the 1946-47 season, he made 10 appearances for the club, which won the Football League title, but that was 1 game short of qualifying for a winner's medal under the rules of the time. He played for Liverpool in the 1950 FA Cup Final, but they lost to Arsenal. He broke his leg late in the next season, missing the entire 1951-52 season, and retired a year later, just 31.
Also on this day, The Aviator premieres. Yeah, that's what you want to do on Christmas Day: Go see a movie about a nut like Howard Hughes. Leonardo DiCaprio pulls it off, though.
Superbly bringing screen legends back to life are Katharine Hepburn by Cate Blanchett, Ava Gardner by Kate Beckinsale, and Jean Harlow by No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani. She may not be a hollaback girl, but she made a good throwback girl. As he did on M*A*S*H, Alan Alda once again plays a character from Maine, but, this time, it's Senator Owen Brewster, a nasty Republican who hauled Hughes before a Congressional hearing.
Another film premiering on this day is a live-action version of Fat Albert. Albert and the rest of the Cosby Kids are brought from cartoons into "the real world," and Albert (played by Kenan Thompson) meets his maker. No, he doesn't die: He meets Bill Cosby, who faints upon seeing him for the first time.
Of course, knowing what we now know about Cosby, it's hard to see him as either the creator of Fat Albert or Dr. Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show.
The cartoons featured a character named Dumb Donald, whose name was borrowed for questions on the CBS game show Match Game, after panelist Brett Somers objected to so many questions starting with, "Dumb Dora is so dumb!" (Followed by, "How dumb is she?") She wanted a masculine equivalent. Hence, "Dumb Donald" was allowed, since CBS also aired Fat Albert. In Match Game questions, Donald was usually depicted as a grown man, but his race was never specified.
When Match Game, which ran on CBS from 1973 to 1982, was revived on ABC in 2016, Dumb Dora was still used, but Dumb Donald was replaced by Dumb Derek -- despite the fact that the host was Alec Baldwin, who plays Donald Trump (who is so dumb) on Saturday Night Live.
In the "Great holiday-season film for the whole family" department this was the premiere date for Black Christmas, Notes On a Scandal, and Children of Men. Okay, the last of these did feature the birth of a baby that signaled a new hope for humanity.
December 25, 2007: Jim Beauchamp dies of leukemia at age 68. An outfielder, he was named Most Valuable Player of the Texas League in 1963, but that success didn't carry over into the major leagues. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963, was part of the Houston Astros' youth movement in 1964 and '65, was with the Milwaukee Braves when they moved to Atlanta in 1966, was traded away by the Cincinnati Reds right before they started winning Pennants again, and finally saw the postseason with the Pennant-winning 1973 Mets.
He then managed in the minor leagues, and was promoted to bench coach by the Braves in 1991, a part of 5 World Series with them, winning in 1995. His hometown of Grove, Oklahoma named its baseball field for him while he as still alive and well enough to enjoy it. "Beauchamp" is French for "beautiful field."
Also on this day, The Bucket List premieres, a fun film, but a painful reminder that, someday, even Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman will die.
December 25, 2008, 10 years ago: Eartha Kitt dies of cancer. The singer of "Santa Baby" and one of 3 women to play Catwoman on the 1960s Batman series apparently had used up her 9th life, but what a life it was. She was 81.
Also on this day, a bunch of movies are released: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt as a man who ages backwards; Marley & Me, about a man and his troublesome dog (not a retelling of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley); Valkyrie, about the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944; and The Spirit, the 1st attempt to turn Will Eisner's early comic book hero into a live-action film, and it doesn't do well.
December 25, 2009: al-Qaeda operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old native of Nigeria, tries and fails to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, going from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Detroit. Because he failed, the plane landed safely, and all 289 people on board survived.
"The Underwear Bomber," having one of the most ridiculous nicknames of any criminal ever, is now surviving multiple life sentences at the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
Also on this day, Sherlock Holmes premieres, Guy Ritchie's retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle's legend, with Robert Downey Jr. as a Holmes who is impossible to be around, and more of a man of action, but still brilliant.
The villain is played by Mark Strong, previously in the film version of Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby's memoir about being a fan of Arsenal. There is an inside joke: Among the villain's business holdings is the Woolwich Arsenal, the place where the team was founded.
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Christmas 2011: Jimmy Fallon, now the host of NBC's Late Night (and, starting in 2014, NBC's The Tonight Show, taking the show back to its 1954-72 roots, in the same 30 Rockefeller Plaza building as SNL), hosts Saturday Night Live. And makes jokes about Alec Baldwin. Who shows up. Just as that Christmas 1998 episode said would happen 13 years later.
The prophecy from 1998 doesn't fully come true, however: Don Pardo was still alive and announcing for the show. He died in 2014, at age 96, after 76 years of working for NBC, and was replaced as announcer by former castmember Darrell Hammond -- who had played Bill Clinton in that 1998 episode.
December 25, 2012: Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained premieres, reminding us of how bad slavery was. And a film version of the musical version of Victory Hugo's novel Les Misérables
premieres.
December 25, 2013: A man dressed as Santa Claus -- the brother of the husband of a friend of my sister's -- showed up at my sister's apartment, and presented my 6-year-old nieces Ashley and Rachel with new bicycles. They were so happy. This was the best Christmas ever!
Or it will be, until they can do something like that for their own children. Or even, God willing, before that can happen, they could help me do it for their cousin, my own as yet hypothetical child.
December 25, 2014: This was my 1st Christmas without my father. He was the hardest person in the family to shop for, but I'd take that problem in a heartbeat if it meant still having him around to shop for.
December 25, 2015: The Revenant premieres. This is the film that finally got Leonardo DiCaprio his Oscar for Best Actor. ("Finally"? He was 41 years old. Henry Fonda had to wait until he was 77 and dying.)
Also on this day, George Clayton Johnson dies in Los Angeles at age 86. He wrote the Twilight Zone episdoes "Nothing in the Dark," "Kick the Can," "A Game of Pool" and "A Penny for Your Thoughts."
He also wrote the 1st episode of Star Trek that aired, "The Man Trap" (a.k.a. "The Space Vampire"). He also wrote the story on which both versions of Ocean's Eleven were based, and, with William F. Nolan, wrote the novel Logan's Run, later turned into a sci-fi film and a short-lived TV series.
December 25, 2016: This was the 1st Christmas for my niece Mackenzie, born 7 months earlier. She was into it: She loves looking at Christmas trees, and other things with Christmas lights. Last night, a the United Methodist Church of Milltown, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, she made her acting debut, alongside her sisters, Ashley and Rachel. All 3 played angels in a Christmas pageant.
December 25, 2017: Ridley Scott's film All the Money In the World, about the 1973 kidnapping of oil heir J. Paul Getty III, premieres. Because of a sex scandal, Scott had to replace Kevin Spacey, whose scenes as Getty Sr. were already shot, with Christopher Plummer.
December 25, 2018: The world is a mess. Our country is a mess. The federal government is shut down. The economy is getting dicey. Dictators are on the march all over the world. Not all of that, but a bit of it, is the fault of the #OrangeScrooge at the head of our government, and the people who still support him.
But Christmas is a day of new beginnings, of tolerance, of togetherness.
May your days be merry and bright. God bless us, every one. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Sleep in heavenly peace.
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