<> Tomorrow's food holidays(s):
* 'National Roast Suckling Pig Day'.
- From Wikipedia (Suckling pig):
'A suckling pig (or sucking pig) is a piglet fed on its mother's milk
(i.e., a piglet which is still a suckling). In culinary contexts, a
suckling pig is slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks. It is
traditionally cooked whole, often roasted, in various cuisines. It is
usually prepared for special occasions and gatherings.
The meat from suckling pig is pale and tender and the cooked skin is crisp
and can be used for pork rinds. The texture of the meat can be somewhat
gelatinous due to the amount of collagen in a young pig.
The suckling pig is used in Cajun cuisine in the southern U.S., where the
Cochon de Lait festival is held annually in the small town of Mansura,
Louisiana. During this festival, as its name implies, suckling pigs are
roasted. Other uses for the suckling pig in the U.S. include slow roasting
in an oven or (as in a Hawaiian-style pig roast) in a pit. The latter
remains popular in the cuisine of the Southern United States'.
[The Hankster says] This would mean that there would be two pigs at the table. One already incapacitated, and one, soon to be.
* 'Bake Cookies Day'.
- From Wikipedia (Cookie):
'A cookie is a small, flat, sweet, baked good, usually containing flour,
eggs, sugar, and either butter, cooking oil or another oil or fat. It may
include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips or nuts.
In most English-speaking countries except for the US and Canada, crisp
cookies are called biscuits. Chewier biscuits are sometimes called cookies
even in the UK. Some cookies may also be named by their shape, such as date
squares or bars.
Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented,
in part because they deal with travel very well, but they were usually not
sweet enough to be considered cookies by modern standards.
Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD Persia, shortly
after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread
to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14th century, they
were common in all levels of society throughout Europe, from royal cuisine
to street vendors.
With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural
travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used
throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which traveled
especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was
the jumble, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and
water.
Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late
1620s. The Dutch word koekje was Anglicized to cookie or cooky. The
earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703, when The Dutch in New
York provided...'in 1703...at a funeral 800 cookies...'
The most common modern cookie, given its style by the creaming of butter
and sugar, was not common until the 18th century'.
[The Hankster says] For those who can't think of a gift for someone, homemade cookies are the answer. BTW, some of my favorites are Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin.
<> Other holidays / celebrations
* 'Answer The Telephone Like Buddy The Elf Day'.
Buddy the Elf was Will Farrell in the 2003 movie 'Elf'. You can join in the
fun by answering the phone by saying: '(your name) the Elf, what’s your
favorite color'.
[The Hankster says] I prefer to answer in Chinese.
<> Awareness / Observances:
o Other:
* 'International Migrants Day'. By the UN General Assembly in 2000. It
highlights awareness of the human rights and political freedoms of
migrants.
- From Wikipedia (International Migrants Day):
'International Migrants Day is an international day observed on 18 December
as International Migrants Day appointed by the General Assembly of United
Nations on 4 December 2000 taking into account the large and increasing
number of migrants in the world. On 18 December 1990, the General Assembly
adopted the international convention on the protection of the rights of
migrant workers and members of their families (resolution 45/158).
This day is observed in many countries, intergovernmental and
non-governmental organizations through the dissemination of information on
human rights and fundamental political freedoms of migrants, and through
sharing of experiences and the design of actions to ensure the protection
of migrants'.
* 'UN Arabic Language Day'. A U.N. language recognition day. One of the six
official languages of the U.N. (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian,
Spanish).
- From Wikipedia (UN Arabic Language Day):
'UN Arabic Language Day is observed annually on December 18. The event was
established by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) in 2010 to seeking to celebrate multilingualism and cultural
diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official
working languages throughout the organization December 18 was chosen as the
date for the Arabic language as it is the day in 1973 when the General
Assembly approved Arabic as an official UN language '.
<> Historical events on December 18
* 'In 1787, New Jersey becomes the third state of the U.S. by ratifying the
U.S. Constitution. .
- From Wikipedia: 'New Jersey is a state in the northeastern and
mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and
east by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the
west by Pennsylvania, and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey is the
fourth-smallest state but the 11th-most populous and the most densely
populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies entirely within the
combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia and is the
third-wealthiest U.S. state by per capita income as of 2014.
New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years,
with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early
17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements.
The English later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of
New Jersey after the largest of the Channel Islands, Jersey, and granting
it as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley
of Stratton. New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the
American Revolutionary War in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, factories in cities such as Camden, Paterson, Newark,
Trenton, and Elizabeth helped to drive the Industrial Revolution. New
Jersey's geographic location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis,
between Boston and New York City to the northeast, and Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., to the southwest, fueled its rapid growth
through the process of suburbanization in the second half of the 20th
century. In the first decades of the 21st century, this suburbanization
began reverting to consolidation of New Jersey's culturally diverse
populace toward more urban settings within the state, with towns home to
commuter rail stations outpacing the population growth of more
automobile-oriented suburbs since 2008'.
* 'In 1865, It is announced that the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting
slavery, has been adopted.
- From Wikipedia: 'The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United
States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as
punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April
8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified
by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865,
Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the
first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American
Civil War'. .
* 'In 1892, The first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The
Nutcracker,is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
- From Wikipedia: 'The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally
choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, by way of Alexandre Dumas' adapted story
'The Nutcracker'. It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in
Saint Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892, on a double-bill with
Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta.
Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite
that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete
Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s, and is now
performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas
season, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies
generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from
performances of The Nutcracker.
Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions, in
particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score
is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had
already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda'.
* 'In 1912, The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced
by Charles Dawson.
- From Wikipedia: 'The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax in
which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a
previously unknown early human.
In 1912 amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed he had discovered the
missing link between ape and man. After finding a section of a human-like
skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex, Dawson
contacted Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History
Museum. Dawson and Smith Woodward made further discoveries at the site
which they connected to the same individual, including a jawbone, more
skull fragments, a set of teeth and primitive tools.
Smith Woodward reconstructed the skull fragments and hypothesised that they
belonged to a human ancestor from 500,000 years ago. The discovery was
announced at a Geological Society meeting and was given the Latin name
Eoanthropus dawsoni (Dawson's dawn-man). The questionable significance of
the assemblage remained the subject of considerable controversy until it
was conclusively exposed in 1953 as a forgery. It was found to have
consisted of the altered mandible and some teeth of an orangutan
deliberately combined with the cranium of a fully developed, though
small-brained, modern human.
The Piltdown hoax is prominent for two reasons: the attention it generated
around the subject of human evolution, and the length of time, 45 years,
that elapsed from its alleged initial discovery to its definitive exposure
as a composite forgery'.
* 'In 1956, The panel TV game show 'To Tell the Truth' debuts. It's
original release was from December 18, 1956 - December 14, 2001. .
- From Wikipedia: 'To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game
show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that
has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication.
As of June 14, 2016, the show is one of two game shows in the United States
to have aired at least one new episode in at least seven consecutive
decades, the other game show being both incarnations of The Price Is Right.
As of the 2016 version, a total of 26 seasons of the various versions of To
Tell the Truth have been produced, surpassing the 25 of What's My Line? and
the 20 of I've Got a Secret.
The show features a panel of four celebrities whose object is the correct
identification of a described contestant who has an unusual occupation or
has undergone an unusual experience. This central character is accompanied
by two impostors who pretend to be the central character together, the
three persons are said to belong to a team of challengers. The celebrity
panelists question the three contestants the impostors are allowed to lie,
but the central character is sworn to tell the truth. After questioning,
the panel attempts to identify which of the three challengers is telling
the truth and is thus the central character.
To Tell the Truth was to have premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956, on
CBS in prime time as Nothing But The Truth, but the program title was
changed to To Tell the Truth the day before the show's debut. (There was
one pilot episode titled Nothing But The Truth, and the pilot / planned
title, and the eventual title, both derive from the standard English court
oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.) The
series was recorded in New York City initially at CBS-TV Studio 52, moving
to Studio 50 late in its run. The existence of an audience ticket for a
taping indicates that the show originated in color at the CBS Broadcast
Center in late 1966.
Bud Collyer was the show's host (Mike Wallace hosted the pilot) recurring
panelists by the 1960s included Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, and
Kitty Carlisle. (Cass and Carlisle stayed on as panelists for most
subsequent editions.) Earlier regular panelists had included Johnny Carson,
Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Faye
Emerson, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, and Ralph Bellamy. Bern Bennett,
Collyer's announcer on Beat the Clock, was the inaugural announcer of To
Tell the Truth in the 1950s. Upon Bennett's transfer to CBS's Los Angeles
studios, Johnny Olson, who in time became the best-known of all
Goodson-Todman Productions announcers, joined the show in 1960 and remained
through the end of its CBS runs'.
* 'In 1957, The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania U.S.A.,
is the world's first nuclear power plant and begins to generate
electricity. It was Decommissioned October 1, 1982. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was (according to
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) the world’s first full-scale atomic
electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located
near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio
River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, about 25 miles (40 km)
from Pittsburgh.
The reactor reached criticality on December 2, 1957, and aside from
stoppages for three core changes, it remained in operation until October
1982. The first electrical power was produced on December 18, 1957 as
engineers synchronized the plant with the distribution grid of Duquesne
Light Company.
The first core used at Shippingport originated from a cancelled
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and used highly enriched uranium (93%
U-235) as seed fuel surrounded by a blanket of natural U-238, in a
so-called seed-and-blanket design in the first reactor about half the power
came from the seed. The first Shippingport core reactor turned out capable
of an output of 60 MWe one month after its launch. The second core was
similarly designed but more powerful, having a larger seed. The highly
energetic seed required more refueling cycles than the blanket in these
first two cores.
The third and final core used at Shippingport was an experimental, light
water moderated, thermal breeder reactor. It kept the same seed-and-blanket
design, but the seed was now Uranium-233 and the blanket was made of
Thorium. Additionally, being a breeder reactor, it had ability to transmute
relatively inexpensive Thorium to Uranium-233 as part of its fuel cycle.
The breeding ratio attained by Shippingport's third core was 1.01. Over its
25-year life, the Shippingport power plant operated for about 80,324 hours,
producing about 7.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Owing to the aforementioned peculiarities, some non-governmental sources
label Shippingport a demonstration PWR reactor and consider that the first
fully commercial PWR in the US was Yankee Rowe. Criticism centers on the
fact that the Shippingport plant had not been built to commercial
specifications. Consequently, the construction cost per kilowatt at
Shippingport was about ten times those for a conventional power plant'.
* 'In 1958, The Project SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay
Equipment), the world's first communications satellite, is launched.
- From Wikipedia: 'Project SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay
Equipment) was the world’s first communications satellite. Launched aboard
an American Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided a first test
of a communications relay system in space, as well as the first successful
use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle. It captured world attention by
broadcasting a Christmas message via short wave radio from U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder. .
* 'In 1966, Dr. Seuss', How The Grinch Stole Christmas, first airs on CBS
television. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a 1966
Christmas animated musical comedy television special directed by Chuck
Jones. It is based on the eponymous children's book by Dr. Seuss, the story
of the Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk of Whoville
below his mountain hideaway. Originally telecast in the United States on
CBS on December 18, 1966, it went on to become a perennial holiday special.
Directed by Chuck Jones, it features the voice of Boris Karloff.
The Grinch (voiced by Boris Karloff) is the film's main character. He lives
in a cave atop Mt. Crumpit, located above the village of Whoville. The
Grinch is a surly character with a heart two sizes too small who has
especially hated Christmas for 53 years. On Christmas Eve, he finally
becomes fed up with seeing the decorations and hearing all the music and
caroling in the village and wishes he could stop Christmas Day from coming
to Whoville. When he sees his dog, Max, with snow all over his face in the
shape of a beard, he decides to disguise himself as Santa Claus and steal
Christmas.
The Grinch makes himself a Santa coat and hat and disguises the innocent
Max as a reindeer. He loads empty bags onto a sleigh and travels to
Whoville with some difficulty. In the first house he is almost caught by
Cindy Lou Who (voiced by an uncredited June Foray), a small Who girl who
wakes up and sees him taking the Christmas tree. Pretending to be Santa,
the Grinch tells Cindy Lou that he is merely taking the tree to his
workshop for repairs, and then gets her a drink before sending her back to
bed. He empties the first house of all the food and Christmas-related
items, namely presents, trees, mistletoes, and even the stockings on the
chimney, then repeats the process at the other houses in Whoville, while
also taking the village decorations.
With the Whos' stolen Christmas goods, the Grinch and Max travel back up
Mt. Crumpit. Before dropping the loaded sleigh off the mountain, the Grinch
waits to hear a sad cry from the Whos. However, down in the village, the
Whos joyously begin to sing Christmas carols, proving that the spirit of
Christmas does not depend on material things. The Grinch begins to
understand the true meaning of Christmas, though he barely does so in time
to prevent the stolen treats from going over the cliff and while he tries
to stop the sleigh from falling off, his heart grows three sizes—granting
him the strength of ten Grinches, plus two!, which he needs to lift up the
sleigh. He brings everything back to the Whos and participates in the
holiday feast. He is given the honor of carving the roast beast, while Max
gets the first slice for himself for all his troubles'.
* 'In 1971, The Capitol Reef National Park is established in Utah.
- From Wikipedia: 'Called 'Wayne Wonderland' in the 1920s by local boosters
Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman, Capitol Reef National Park
protects colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths. About 75 mi (121
km) of the long up-thrust called the Waterpocket Fold, a rugged spine
extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell, is preserved within
the park. 'Capitol Reef' is the name of an especially rugged and
spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold near the Fremont River. .
* 'In 1997, The World Wide Web Consortium published HTML 4.0. .
- From Wikipedia: 'HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup
language for creating web pages and web applications. With Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript, it forms a triad of cornerstone technologies
for the World Wide Web. Web browsers receive HTML documents from a
webserver or from local storage and render them into multimedia web pages.
HTML describes the structure of a web page semantically and originally
included cues for the appearance of the document.
HTML elements are the building blocks of HTML pages. With HTML constructs,
images and other objects, such as interactive forms may be embedded into
the rendered page. It provides a means to create structured documents by
denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists,
links, quotes and other items.
HTML can embed programs written in a scripting language such as JavaScript
which affect the behavior and content of web pages. Inclusion of CSS
defines the look and layout of content. The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), maintainer of both the HTML and the CSS standards, has encouraged
the use of CSS over explicit presentational HTML since 1997.
HTML 4.0 was published as a W3C Recommendation. It offers three variations:
Strict, in which deprecated elements are forbidden
Transitional, in which deprecated elements are allowed
Frameset, in which mostly only frame related elements are allowed.
Initially code-named Cougar, HTML 4.0 adopted many browser-specific element
types and attributes, but at the same time sought to phase out Netscape's
visual markup features by marking them as deprecated in favor of style
sheets. HTML 4 is an SGML application conforming to ISO 8879 – SGML'.
No. 1 song
Top movie
Monthly holiday / awareness days in December
Food
Buckwheat Month
Worldwide Food Service Safety Month
Health
Aids Awareness Month
National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month
National Impaired Driving Prevention Month
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
Animal and Pet
Operation Santa Paws
Other
National Tie Month
National Write A Business Plan Month
Universal Human Rights Month
Youngsters on The Air 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 1966 More
Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More