Today is December 25 2014

National Pumpkin Pie Day: More

• Christmas : More
  

• In 1937, Arturo Toscanini conducts first live concert broadcast for NBC radio.
  From Wikipedia: 'Arturo Toscanini (Italian: ; March 25, 1867 – January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), and this led to his becoming a household name (especially in the United States) through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
  
  Toscanini returned to the United States where the NBC Symphony Orchestra was created for him in 1937. He conducted his first NBC broadcast concert on December 25, 1937, in NBC Studio 8-H in New York City's Rockefeller Center. The acoustics of the specially built studio were very dry; some remodeling in 1942 for Leopold Stokowski added a bit more reverberation. (In 1950, 8-H was converted into a television studio. It has been home to NBC's Saturday Night Live since 1975. In 1980, Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra began a series of special televised NBC concerts called Live From Studio 8H, the first one being a tribute to Toscanini, punctuated by clips from his television concerts.)
  
  The NBC broadcasts were initially preserved on large 16-inch transcription discs recorded at 33-1/3 rpm, until NBC began using magnetic tape in 1949. NBC employed special RCA high fidelity microphones for the broadcasts, and they can be seen in some photographs of Toscanini and the orchestra. Some of Toscanini's recording sessions for RCA Victor were mastered on sound film in a process developed about 1930, as detailed by RCA producer Charles O'Connell in his memoirs, On and Off The Record. In addition, hundreds of hours of Toscanini's rehearsals with the NBC were preserved and are now housed in the Toscanini Legacy archive at The New York Public Library'.
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• In 1939, Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph as the 9th reindeer.
  From Wikipedia: ' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer, created by Robert Lewis May, usually depicted as a young calf who barely has antlers, with a glowing red nose, popularly known as "Santa's ninth reindeer". When depicted, he is the lead reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. The luminosity of his nose is so great that it illuminates the team's path through inclement winter weather.
  
  Rudolph first appeared in a 1939 booklet written by Robert L. May and published by Montgomery Ward, the department store.
  
  The story is owned by The Rudolph Company, LP and has been adapted in numerous forms including a popular song, the iconic television special and sequels, and a feature film and sequel. Character Arts, LLC manages the licensing for the Rudolph Company, LP. In many countries, Rudolph has become a figure of Christmas folklore. 2014 marked the 75th anniversary of the character and the 50th anniversary of the television special. A series of postage stamps featuring Rudolph was issued by the United States Postal Service on November 6, 2014.
  
  Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939, as an assignment for Chicago-based Montgomery Ward. The retailer had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. Rudolph was supposed to be a moose but that was changed because a reindeer seemed friendly. May considered naming the reindeer "Rollo" or "Reginald" before deciding upon using the name "Rudolph". In its first year of publication, Montgomery Ward had distributed 2.5 million copies of Rudolph's story. The story is written as a poem in anapestic tetrameter, the same meter as "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Publication and reprint rights for the book Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are controlled by Pearson PLC.
  
  Of note is the change in the cultural significance of a red nose. In popular culture, a bright red nose was then closely associated with chronic alcoholism and drunkards, and so the story idea was initially rejected. May asked his illustrator friend at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen, to draw "cute reindeer", using zoo deer as models. The alert, bouncy character Gillen developed convinced management to support the idea.
  
  Maxton Books published the first mass-market edition of Rudolph and a sequel, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Shines Again, in 1954. In 1991, Applewood Books published Rudolph's Second Christmas, an unpublished sequel that Robert May wrote in 1947. In 2003, Penguin Books issued a reprint version of the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with new artwork by Lisa Papp. Penguin also reprinted May's sequels, Rudolph Shines Again and Rudolph's Second Christmas (now retitled Rudolph to the Rescue)'.
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• In 1941, The song 'White Christmas', by Bing Crosby is introduced. From Wikipedia: 'The first public performance of the song was by Bing Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941'. 'The song initially performed poorly and was overshadowed by Holiday Inn's first hit song: 'Be Careful, It's My Heart'. By the end of October 1942, 'White Christmas' topped the 'Your Hit Parade' chart. It remained in that position until well into the new year' Holiday Inn, was a Bing Crosby Christmas movie, in which the song was also performed.
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• In 1962, The movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird', starring Gregory Peck, is released. From Wikipedia: 'The film, widely considered to be one of the greatest ever made, earned an overwhelmingly positive response from critics. A box office success, it earned more than 10 times its budget. The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Peck, and was nominated for eight, including Best Picture'.
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• In 1963, The Walt Disney movie 'The Sword in the Stone' is released. From Wikipedia: 'The film is based on the novel of the same name, first published in 1938 as a single novel. It was later republished in 1958 as the first book of T. H. White's tetralogy The Once and Future King'.
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• In 1990, The first successful trial run of the World Wide Web is completed.
  From Wikipedia: 'The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser computer programme in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland.
  
  The proposal was modelled after the SGML reader Dynatext by Electronic Book Technology, a spin-off from the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship at Brown University. The Dynatext system, licensed by CERN, was a key player in the extension of SGML ISO 8879:1986 to Hypermedia within HyTime, but it was considered too expensive and had an inappropriate licensing policy for use in the general high energy physics community, namely a fee for each document and each document alteration. A NeXT Computer was used by Berners-Lee as the world's first web server and also to write the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, in 1990. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the first web browser (which was a web editor as well) and the first web server. The first web site, which described the project itself, was published on 20 December 1990'.
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• In 2004, The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005. From Wikipedia: The combined Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was launched from Earth on October 15, 1997. Huygens separated from the Cassini orbiter on December 25, 2004, and landed on Titan on January 14, 2005 near the Xanadu region. This was the first and, so far, only landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System. It touched down on land, although the possibility that it would touch down in an ocean was also taken into account in its design. The probe was designed to gather data for a few hours in the atmosphere, and possibly a short time at the surface. It continued to send data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. It remains the most distant landing of any human-made craft'.
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Tomorrow's food holiday will be ' National Pumpkin Pie Day'.
[The Hankster says] I associate it more with Thanksgiving, but it is really a holiday season pie. I will take mine with a lot of whipped cream on top. Not just a little, but a lot of whipped creme on top, please.

Of course tomorrow is 'Christmas Day'.
[The Hankster says] I will be glad to stop looking over my shoulder for that name taking elf and get back to the real me.

Dr. Seuss once wrote in 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!', 'Christmas doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more....'.
[The Hankster says] Let us see what December 25 meant to some in the past.

In 1939, Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph as the 9th reindeer.
[The Hankster says] The story in booklet form was written by Robert May and published by Montgomery Ward. It was promoted to gain holiday traffic.

In 1941, The song 'White Christmas', by Bing Crosby is introduced.
[The Hankster says] I remember the song best from the 1942 movie 'Holiday Inn'.

= In 1962, The movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird', starring Gregory Peck, is released.

In 1963, The animated Walt Disney movie 'The Sword in the Stone' is released.

In 1990, The first successful trial run of the World Wide Web is completed.

No. 1 song

• I Feel Fine - The Beatles: More
  'Ringo' has been displaced by 'I Feel Fine', which will hold the no. 1 spot until December 26 1964, when 'Come See About Me (The Supremes)', takes over.

Top movie

• Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte More
  Having displaced 'Father Goose', it will be there until the weekend box office of December 27 1964 when, 'My Fair Lady', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: December 25 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: December 25 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 25th December More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 25th December More
• On-This-day.com history 25th December More
• On-This-day.com music history 25th December More
• Wikipedia.com: History December 25 More

Food:
Buckwheat Month
Tomato and Winter Squash Month
Worldwide Food Service Safety Month
National Egg Nog Month
National Fruit Cake Month
Root Vegetables Month
Other:
World Aids Month
National Write A Business Plan Month
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
National Tie Month Universal Human Rights Month
National Drunk and Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month
Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month National Tie Month

December is:

December origin (from Wikipedia): ' December gets its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the Roman calendar, which began in March. The winter days following December were not included as part of any month. Later, the months of January and February were created out of the monthless period and added to the beginning of the calendar, but December retained its name. '

' December is the first month of meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, December is the seasonal equivalent to June in the Northern hemisphere, which is the first month of summer. D ecember is the month with the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. '

December at Wikipedia: More

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

Best selling books of 1964 More

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
• NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
• Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
• NASA TV: (video feed) More
  NASA TV schedule: More
• Public Domain eBook Links

  Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

• Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
  Home page: More
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• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
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• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
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• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
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• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
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Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2014 Postal Holidays More
• 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

• List of holidays by country More
• Holidays and Observances around the World More