Did you know that it was on this day in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the British are defeated in the Battle of Trenton? Or that it was on this day in 1825 advocates of liberalism in Russia rise up against Tsar Nicholas I and are put down in the Decembrist Revolt in St. Petersburg?
And on this day in 1846, trapped in snow in the Sierra Nevadas and without food, members of the Donner Party resort to cannibalism, in 1862 four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover are the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship, in 1871 Gilbert and Sullivan collaborate for the first time, on their lost opera, Thespis. It does modestly well, but the two would not collaborate again for four years, in 1898 Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium and in 1966 the first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach.
It was also on this day in 1982 Time Magazine‘s Man of the Year is for the first time a non-human, the personal computer, in 1996 Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1997 the Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat explodes, creating a small tsunami offshore and in 2004, a date I will never forget, a 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people including over 1700 on a moving train.
Some birthdays to remember on this day are Mao Zedong, Chinese military leader and politician (1893-1976), Phil Spector, American music producer (1939) and Lars Ulrich, Danish-born drummer (Metallica) (1963).
Need a reason to raise a glass of bubbly on this day? Perhaps you should join in the celebration of Boxing Day (Commonwealth of Nations), the first day of Kwanzaa, celebrated until January 1 (United States) or Wren Day (Ireland and the Isle of Man)?
For more information about historic events on this day, please go here.
A Glass of Bubbly 