Today is December 21 2015

- National French Fried Shrimp Day: More
From Wikipedia: 'According to the crustacean taxonomist Tin-Yam Chan, 'The terms shrimp and prawn have no definite reference to any known taxonomic groups. Although the term shrimp is sometimes applied to smaller species, while prawn is more often used for larger forms, there is no clear distinction between both terms and their usage is often confused or even reverse in different countries or regions.

- National Kiwifruit Day. More
From Wikipedia: 'The kiwifruit or Chinese gooseberry (sometimes shortened to kiwi) is the edible berry of a woody vine in the genus Actinidia'. 'A medium size kiwifruit (76 grams) provides 46 calories, 0.3 g fat, 1 g protein, 11 g carbohydrates, and 2.6 g dietary fiber found partly in the edible skin. Kiwifruit is a rich source of vitamin C (112% of the Daily Value per 100 grams) and vitamin K, and a good source of dietary fiber and vitamin E'. Kiwifruit seed oil contains on average 62% alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid. Kiwifruit pulp contains carotenoids, such as provitamin A beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin'.

• Winter solstice: More
  In my location, Houston Texas U.S.A, the December Solstice (Winter Solstice) is on Monday, December 21, 2015 at 10:49 PM. It is not until December 22 Greenwich Mean time. The Southern Hemisphere will have a Summer solstice, their longest day of the year. these days differ from Dec. 20-23. From Wikipedia: 'Winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Winter solstice occurs for the Northern Hemisphere in December and for the Southern Hemisphere in June.'.
• National Flashlight Day: More
  On the longest night of the year.
• National Haiku Poetry Day: More
  Celebration of a style of Japanese poetry. Same day as the Winter Solstice. It is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.
• Forefathers Day: More
  Celebrated mostly in New England from 1769. Actual celebration day may be the 22nd. Commemorates the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
• Look on the Bright Side Day: More
  A day to look on the bright side, before Winter is upon us.
• Crossword Puzzle Day: More
  The first published was created by a journalist, Arthur Wynne, from Liverpool, England on December 21, 1913.
• International Dalek Remembrance Day: More
  Celebrates their frist appearance on Dr. Who on December 21 1963. From Wikipedia; 'The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The Daleks were conceived by science-fiction writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in the shells designed by Raymond Cusick'.

• Other
  • National Homeless Persons Memorial/Remembrance: More
    Same day as the longest night of the year.

• In 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
  From Wikipedia: 'On December 21, 1620, the first landing party arrived at the site of what later became the settlement of Plymouth. Plans to immediately begin building houses, however, were delayed by inclement weather until December 23. As the building progressed, twenty men always remained ashore for security purposes, while the rest of the work crews returned each night to the Mayflower. Women, children, and the infirm remained on board the Mayflower; many had not left the ship for six months. The first structure was a "common house" of wattle and daub, and took two weeks to complete in the harsh New England winter. In the following weeks, the rest of the settlement slowly took shape. The living and working structures were built on the relatively flat top of Cole's Hill, and a wooden platform was constructed atop nearby Fort Hill to support the cannon that would defend the settlement.
  
  During the winter, the Mayflower colonists suffered greatly from lack of shelter, diseases such as scurvy, and general conditions onboard ship. Many of the able-bodied men were too infirm to work; 45 out of 102 immigrants died and were buried on Cole's Hill. Thus, only seven residences (of a planned nineteen) and four common houses were constructed during the first winter. By the end of January, enough of the settlement had been built to begin unloading provisions from the Mayflower. In mid-February, after several tense encounters with local Native Americans, the male residents of the settlement organized themselves into military orders; Myles Standish was designated as the commanding officer. By the end of the month, five cannons had been defensively positioned on Fort Hill. John Carver was elected governor to replace Governor Martin.
  
  On March 16, 1621, the first formal contact occurred with the Indians (or Native Americans). A Native American named Samoset, originally from Pemaquid Point in modern Maine, walked boldly into the midst of the settlement and proclaimed, "Welcome, Englishmen!" He had learned some English from interacting with English fishermen and trappers (most probably from Bristol) operating in the region. It was during this meeting that the Pilgrims learned how the previous residents of the Native American village of Patuxet had died of an epidemic thought to be smallpox. They also discovered that the supreme leader of the region was a Wampanoag Native American sachem (chief) by the name of Massasoit; and they learned of the existence of Squanto (also known by his full Massachusett name of Tisquantum), a Native American originally from Patuxet. Squanto had spent time in Europe and spoke English quite well. Samoset spent the night in Plymouth and agreed to arrange a meeting with some of Massasoit's men.
  
  Massasoit and Squanto were apprehensive about the Pilgrims. In Massasoit's first contact with the English, several men of his tribe had been killed in an unprovoked attack by English sailors. He also knew of the Pilgrims' theft of the corn stores in their landings at Provincetown. Squanto had been abducted in 1614 by English explorer Thomas Hunt and had spent five years in Europe, first as a slave for a group of Spanish monks, then in England. He had returned to New England in 1619, acting as a guide to explorer Capt. Robert Gorges. Massasoit and his men had massacred the crew of the ship and had taken in Squanto.
  
  Samoset returned to Plymouth on March 22 with a delegation from Massasoit that included Squanto; Massasoit joined them shortly thereafter. After an exchange of gifts, Massasoit and Governor Carver established a formal treaty of peace. This treaty ensured that each people would not bring harm to the other, that Massasoit would send his allies to make peaceful negotiations with Plymouth, and that they would come to each other's aid in a time of war.
  
  On April 5, 1621, after being anchored for almost four months in Plymouth Harbor, the Mayflower set sail for England. Nearly half of the original 102 passengers had died during the first winter. As William Bradford wrote, "of these one hundred persons who came over in this first ship together, the greatest half died in the general mortality, and most of them in two or three months' time". By November 1621, only 53 pilgrims were alive to celebrate the harvest feast which modern Americans know as "The First Thanksgiving". Of the 18 adult women, 13 died the first winter while another died in May. Only four adult women were left alive for the Thanksgiving.
  
  Several of the graves on Cole's Hill were uncovered in 1855; their bodies were disinterred and moved to a site near Plymouth Rock'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1898, Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium.
  From Wikipedia: 'Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite sample. While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two components: compounds of barium, which gave a brilliant green flame color, and unknown radioactive compounds which gave carmine spectral lines that had never been documented before. The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble. This made it possible for the Curies to separate out the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898. The naming of radium dates to about 1899, from the French word radium, formed in Modern Latin from radius (ray): this was in recognition of radium's power of emitting energy in the form of rays.
  
  In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride (RaCl2) solution using a mercury cathode, producing a radium–mercury amalgam. This amalgam was then heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas to remove the mercury, leaving pure radium metal. The same year, E. Eoler isolated radium by thermal decomposition of its azide, Ra(N3)2. Radium metal was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium.
  
  The common historical unit for radioactivity, the curie, is based on the radioactivity of 226Ra'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1913, The first crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) was printed in the New York World.
  From Wikipedia: The title for the world's first crossword puzzle is disputed. Some such puzzles were included in The Stockton Bee (1793–1795), an ephemeral publication. The phrase "cross word puzzle" was first written in 1862 by Our Young Folks in the United States. Crossword-like puzzles, for example Double Diamond Puzzles, appeared in the magazine St. Nicholas, published since 1873. Another crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled "Per passare il tempo" ("To pass the time"). Airoldi's puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues.
  
  Crosswords in England during the 19th century were of an elementary kind, apparently derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally, and printed in children's puzzle books and various periodicals.
  
  'A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white and black shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases.
  
  On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, England, published a "word-cross" puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. Later, the name of the puzzle was changed to "crossword".
  
  Although Eugene T. Maleska is usually credited with the first crossword phrase (as opposed to a single word) in the New York Times, an 1862 puzzle in the Lady's Book had phrases that are considered modern such as the expression "I did it"'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1914, The first feature-length silent film comedy, 'Tillie's Punctured Romance' was released. (Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin.
  From Wikipedia: 'Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops. The picture was the first feature-length motion picture produced by the Keystone Film Company, and is the only one featuring Chaplin.
  
  The film is based on Dressler's stage play Tillie's Nightmare by A. Baldwin Sloane and Edgar Smith. Tillie's Punctured Romance is notable for being the last Chaplin film which he neither wrote nor directed, as well as the first feature-length comedy in all of cinema. In it, Chaplin plays an entirely different role from his Tramp character, which was relatively new at the time'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1937, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' is released. It is the first feature length animated film.
  From Wikipedia: 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences.
  
  Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937, followed by a nationwide release on February 4, 1938. It was a critical and commercial success, and with international earnings of $8 million during its initial release briefly assumed the record of highest- grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to it being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top ten performers at the North American box office.
  
  At the 11th Academy Awards, Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar, and the film was nominated for Best Musical Score the year before. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry and is ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, who also named the film as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008. Disney's take on the fairytale has had a huge cultural impact, resulting in popular theme park attractions, a video game, and a Broadway musical'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube (trailer): More
• In 1968, Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
  From Wikipedia: 'Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, the first to directly see the far side of the Moon, and then the first to witness Earthrise. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and that rocket's first manned launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
  
  The mission was originally planned as Apollo 9, to be performed in early 1969 as the second test of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module and the Command/Service Module in an elliptical medium Earth orbit. But when the Lunar Module proved unready to make its first test in a lower Earth orbit in December 1968, it was decided in August to fly Apollo 8 in December as a more ambitious lunar orbital flight without the Lunar Module. This meant Borman's crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline.
  
  Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew was named Time magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their return'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1974, Harry Chapin earns a #1 hit with, Cat's In The Cradle.
  From Wikipedia: '"Cat's in the Cradle" is a 1974 folk rock song by Harry Chapin from the album Verities and Balderdash. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1974. As Chapin's only No. 1 hit song, it became the best known of his work and a staple for folk rock music. Chapin's recording of the song was nominated for the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More

Tomorrow we have two food holidays:
- 'National French Fried Shrimp Day'. From Wikipedia: 'According to the crustacean taxonomist Tin-Yam Chan, 'The terms shrimp and prawn have no definite reference to any known taxonomic groups. Although the term shrimp is sometimes applied to smaller species, while prawn is more often used for larger forms, there is no clear distinction between both terms and their usage is often confused or even reverse in different countries or regions.
[The Hankster says] Fried Shrimp Balls today, Fried Shrimp tomorrow. I would have done it differently. Whole shrimp one day and the leftovers ground for the shrimp balls the next day.

- 'National Kiwifruit Day. From Wikipedia: 'The kiwifruit or Chinese gooseberry (sometimes shortened to kiwi) is the edible berry of a woody vine in the genus Actinidia'. 'A medium size kiwifruit (76 grams) provides 46 calories, 0.3 g fat, 1 g protein, 11 g carbohydrates, and 2.6 g dietary fiber found partly in the edible skin. Kiwifruit is a rich source of vitamin C (112% of the Daily Value per 100 grams) and vitamin K, and a good source of dietary fiber and vitamin E'. Kiwifruit seed oil contains on average 62% alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid. Kiwifruit pulp contains carotenoids, such as provitamin A beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin'.
[The Hankster says] Hey, a healthy dessert is in order after all that fried food.


'Crossword Puzzle Day'. The first published was created by a journalist, Arthur Wynne, from Liverpool, England on December 21, 1913.
[The Hankster says] This is not a day on which you can use mean and cross words with impunity. Wait a minute. That is the word that starts with 'i' and is eight characters long. Cool. Now what is a person that posts silly things. It starts with a 'd' and is five letters. Watch it, watch it. Be nice.

'International Dalek Remembrance Day'. Celebrates their first appearance on Dr. Who on December 21 1963. From Wikipedia; 'The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The Daleks were conceived by science-fiction writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in the shells designed by Raymond Cusick'.
[The Hankster says] Strange. In reference to my post,I keep seeing the words Exterminate!, Exterminate!. I'm afraid that is a new edit option for the other guy.

Tomorrow is 'Forefathers Day' in some locations. Celebrated mostly in New England from 1769. Actual celebration day may be the 22nd. Commemorates the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620.


Winter is here for some of us. Tomorrow is 'Winter solstice'. In my location, Houston Texas U.S.A, the December Solstice (Winter Solstice) is on Monday, December 21, 2015 at 10:49 PM. It is not until December 22 Greenwich Mean time. The Southern Hemisphere will have a Summer solstice, their longest day of the year. these days differ from Dec. 20-23. From Wikipedia: 'Winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Winter solstice occurs for the Northern Hemisphere in December and for the Southern Hemisphere in June.'.

We have several days which always fall on the Winter Solstice:
- 'National Flashlight Day'.
[The Hankster says] Cast a little light on the longest night of the year.

- 'National Haiku Poetry Day'. Celebration of a style of Japanese poetry. Same day as the Winter Solstice. It is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.

- 'Look on the Bright Side Day'. A day to look on the bright side, before Winter is upon us.
[The Hankster says] It may be a while for some of us, before the long dark days of Winter are gone. Think positive.


Awareness / Observance Days on: December 21
o Other
- 'National Homeless Persons Memorial/Remembrance'. Same day as the Southern Hemisphere's longest night of the year.


Historical events in the past on: December 21

In 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

In 1898, Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium.

In 1913, The first crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) was printed in New York World.

In 1914, The first feature-length silent film comedy, 'Tillie's Punctured Romance' was released. (Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin.

In 1937, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' is released. It is the first feature length animated film.

In 1968, Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

In 1974, Harry Chapin earns a #1 hit with, Cat's In The Cradle.

No. 1 song

• Taste of Honey - Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass: More
  'Let's Hang On!' has been displaced by 'Taste of Honey', which will hold the no. 1 spot until December 25 1965, when 'Over and Over - The Dave Clark Five', takes over.

Top movie

• A Patch of Blue More
  Having displaced 'That Darn Cat!', it will be there until the weekend box office of Dec 26 1965 when, 'Thunderball', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: December 21 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: December 21 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 21st December More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 21st December More
• On-This-day.com history 21st December More
• On-This-day.com music history 21st December More
• Wikipedia.com: History December 21 More

Monthly holiday / awareness days in December

Food
Buckwheat Month
Worldwide Food Service Safety Month

Health
Aids Awareness Month
Take a New Year's Resolution to Stop Smoking (TANYRSS) (12/17 - 2/7)

Other
Bingo's Birthday Month
National Drunk and Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month
National Impaired Driving Prevention Month
National Tie Month
National Write A Business Plan Month
Operation Santa Paws (1-19)
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
Universal Human Rights 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 1965 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
  RSS: More
• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
  Home page: More
  RSS: More

Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2015 Postal Holidays More
• 2015 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

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