<> Tomorrow's food holidays(s):
* 'I declare this as Eat as Much as You Can Before Midnight Day'. .
[The Hankster says] Any calories consumed will go on next years diet calculations if you eat just before midnight.
<> Other holidays / celebrations
* 'New Year's Eve'.
More of the first ball drop in the history section for 1907.
- From Wikipedia (New Year's Eve):
'In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve (also known as Old Year's Day or
Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries), the last day of the year, is on
December 31 which is six days after Christmas.
Samoa and parts of Kiribati are the first places to welcome the New Year
while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States, are among the
last.
In the United States, New Year's Eve is celebrated with formal parties,
family-oriented activities, and other large public events.
[The Hankster says] No parties for me. I'll be watching my annual "Twilight Zone' marathon and consuming as many snacks as I can.
* 'Make Up Your Mind Day'.
[The Hankster says] You only have one more day this year to assert yourself. Any failures will go on next years tally.
* 'No Interruptions Day'.
[The Hankster says] If you are going to finally make up your mind, you don't need any interruptions. Keep on track. Only a few hours to Get 'er Done.
* 'Leap Second Time Adjustment Day'.
- From Wikipedia (Leap second):
'A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in order to keep its time of day close to
the mean solar time, or UT1. Without such a correction, time reckoned by
Earth's rotation drifts away from atomic time because of irregularities in
the Earth's rate of rotation. Since this system of correction was
implemented in 1972, 26 leap seconds have been inserted, the most recent on
June 30, 2015 at 23:59:60 UTC, and the next leap second will be inserted on
December 31, 2016, at 23:59:60 UTC.
The UTC time standard, which is widely used for international timekeeping
and as the reference for civil time in most countries, uses the
international system (SI) definition of the second, based on atomic clocks.
Like most time standards, UTC defines a grouping of seconds into minutes,
hours, days, months, and years. However, the duration of one mean solar day
is now slightly longer than 24 hours (86400 SI seconds) because the
rotation of the Earth has slowed down. Therefore, if the UTC day were
defined as precisely 86400 SI seconds, the UTC time-of-day would slowly
drift apart from that of solar-based standards, such as Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT) and its successor UT1. The purpose of a leap second is to compensate
for this drift, by occasionally scheduling some UTC days with 86401 or (in
principle) 86399 SI seconds.
Specifically, a positive leap second is inserted between second 23:59:59 of
a chosen UTC calendar date (the last day of a month, usually June 30 or
December 31) and second 00:00:00 of the following date. This extra second
is displayed on UTC clocks as 23:59:60. On clocks that display local time
tied to UTC, the leap second may be inserted at the end of some other hour
(or half-hour or quarter-hour), depending on the local time zone. A
negative leap second would suppress second 23:59:59 of the last day of a
chosen month, so that second 23:59:58 of that date would be followed
immediately by second 00:00:00 of the following date.
Because the Earth's rotation speed varies in response to climatic and
geological events, UTC leap seconds are irregularly spaced and
unpredictable. Insertion of each UTC leap second is usually decided about
six months in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference
Systems Service (IERS), when needed to ensure that the difference between
the UTC and UT1 readings will never exceed 0.9 seconds. 26 positive leap
seconds have been inserted so far, with a twenty-seventh scheduled for
December 2016'.
[The Hankster says] Just when we need it most, a whole extra second in which to make those final 2016 decisions and prepare excuses for the resolutions that you didn't fulfill.
* 'First Night in the USA'.
Since 1975 as a night to replace the traditional New Year's party night
with one of the arts.
- From Wikipedia (First Night):
'First Night is a North American artistic and cultural celebration on New
Year's Eve, taking place from afternoon until midnight. Some cities have
all their events during the celebration outside, but some cities have
events that are hosted indoors by organizations in the city, such as
churches and theaters. Since it happens on New Year's Eve, First Night
celebrations are actually held on the last night of the old year. First
Night celebrates a community's local culture, often featuring music, dance,
comedy, art, fireworks and, in some cities, ice sculptures and parades'.
* 'World Peace Meditation Day'.
Since 1986.
<> Awareness / Observances:
<> Historical events on December 31
* 'In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the
Union, thus dividing Virginia in two. It became the 35th state on June 20
1863.
- From Wikipedia: 'West Virginia is a state located in the Appalachian
region of the Southern United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the
southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania
to the north (and, slightly, east), and Maryland to the northeast. West
Virginia is the 41st largest by area, the 38th most populous, and has the
second lowest household income of the 50 United States. The capital and
largest city is Charleston.
West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, in
which delegates from some Unionist counties of northwestern Virginia
decided to break away from Virginia during the American Civil War, although
they included many secessionist counties in the new state. West Virginia
was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border
state. West Virginia was the only state to form by separating from a
Confederate state, the first to separate from any state since Maine
separated from Massachusetts, and was one of two states formed during the
American Civil War (the other being Nevada).
The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West
Virginia as part of the Southern United States. The northern panhandle
extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio, with the West Virginia cities of
Wheeling and Weirton just across the border from the Pittsburgh
metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than 70 miles (110 km) from
North Carolina. Huntington in the southwest is close to the states of Ohio
and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle
region are considered part of the Washington metropolitan area, in between
the states of Maryland and Virginia. The unique position of West Virginia
means that it is often included in several geographical regions, including
the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. It
is the only state that is entirely within the area served by the
Appalachian Regional Commission the area is commonly defined as Appalachia
The state is noted for its mountains and rolling hills, its historically
significant logging and coal mining industries, and its political and labor
history. It is one of the most densely karstic areas in the world, making
it a choice area for recreational caving and scientific research. The karst
lands contribute to much of the state's cool trout waters. It is also known
for a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including skiing,
whitewater rafting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, and
hunting'.
* 'In 1878, Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on
his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in
1879.
- From Wikipedia: 'Karl Benz showed his real genius, however, through his
successive inventions registered while designing what would become the
production standard for his two-stroke engine. Benz soon patented the speed
regulation system, the ignition using sparks with battery, the spark plug,
the carburetor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator.'. .
* 'In 1879, Thomas Edison gives his first public demonstration of his
incandescent lamp. .
- From Wikipedia: 'In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company
In 1878 Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination,
something he hoped could compete with gas and oil based lighting. He began
by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp,
something that would be needed for indoor use. Many earlier inventors had
previously devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's
demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward
and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical
incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay,
Moses G. Farmer, William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Göbel. Some of
these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense
to produce, and high electric current drawn, making them difficult to apply
on a large scale commercially.:217–218 Edison realized that in order to
keep the thickness of the copper wire needed to connect a series of
electric lights to an economically manageable size he would have to come up
with a lamp that would draw a low amount of current. This meant the lamp
would have to have a high resistance and run at a relatively low voltage
(around 110 volts).
After many experiments, first with carbon filaments and then with platinum
and other metals, in the end, Edison returned to a carbon filament. The
first successful test was on October 22, 1879:186 it lasted 13.5 hours.
Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for
U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp
using a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact
wires This was the first commercially practical incandescent light.
Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament
including cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various
ways, it was not until several months after the patent was granted that
Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last
over 1,200 hours. The idea of using this particular raw material originated
from Edison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo
fishing pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day
state of Wyoming, where he and other members of a scientific team had
traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on
July 29, 1878, from the Continental Divide. U.S. Patent#223898:
Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880.
In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City
with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask, and the
members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public
demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo
Park. It was during this time that he said: We will make electricity so
cheap that only the rich will burn candles.
Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, had
attended Edison's 1879 demonstration. Villard quickly became impressed and
requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard his company's
new steamer, the Columbia. Although hesitant at first, Edison relented and
agreed to Villard's request. Following most of its completion in May 1880,
the Columbia was sent to New York City, where Edison and his personnel
installed Columbia's new lighting system. Due to this, the Columbia became
Edison's first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb. The
Edison equipment was eventually removed from Columbia in 1895.
Lewis Latimer joined the Edison Electric Light Company in 1884. Latimer had
received a patent in January 1881 for the Process of Manufacturing Carbons,
an improved method for the production of carbon filaments for light bulbs.
Latimer worked as an engineer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent
litigation on electric lights.
George Westinghouse's company bought Philip Diehl's competing induction
lamp patent rights (1882) for $25,000, forcing the holders of the Edison
patent to charge a more reasonable rate for the use of the Edison patent
rights and lowering the price of the electric lamp.
On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's patent was
based on the work of William E. Sawyer and was, therefore, invalid.
Litigation continued for nearly six years, until October 6, 1889, when a
judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for a filament
of carbon of high resistance was valid. To avoid a possible court battle
with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before
Edison's, he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture
and market the invention in Britain.
Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic), which opened in
1882, was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric
lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in the
invention of the lamp, Francis Jehl. In September 2010, a sculpture of
three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theatre'.
* 'In 1907, The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square
(then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York. .
- From Wikipedia 'In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve (also known as
Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries), the last day of
the year, is on December 31 which is six days after Christmas.
Samoa and parts of Kiribati are the first places to welcome the New Year
while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States, are among the
last.
In the United States, New Year's Eve is celebrated with formal parties,
family-oriented activities, and other large public events.
One of the most prominent celebrations in the country is the ball drop held
in New York City's Times Square. Inspired by the time balls that were
formally used as a time signal, at 11:59 p.m. ET, an 11,875-pound (5,386
kg), 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter Waterford crystal ball located on the roof of
One Times Square is lowered down a pole that is 70 feet high, reaching the
roof of the building 60 seconds later to signal the start of the New Year.
The Ball Drop has been held since 1907, and in recent years has averaged
around a million spectators annually. The popularity of the spectacle also
inspired similar drop events outside of New York City, which often use
objects that represent a region's culture, geography, or history—such as
Atlanta's Peach Drop, representing Georgia's identity as the Peach State
Alongside the festivities in Times Square, New York's Central Park hosts a
Midnight Run event organized by the New York Road Runners, which culminates
in a fireworks show and a race around the park that begins at midnight.
Radio and television broadcasts from festivities in New York helped to
ingrain aspects of them in American pop culture beginning on the radio in
1928, and on CBS television from 1956 to 1976 with ball drop coverage, Guy
Lombardo and his band, The Royal Canadians, presented an annual New Year's
Eve broadcast from the ballroom of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The
broadcasts were best known for the Royal Canadians' signature performance
of Auld Lang Syne at midnight, which made the standard synonymous with New
Year's in the United States. Following Lombardo's death in 1977, ABC's
competing program New Year's Rockin' Eve succeeded the Royal Canadians as
the dominant New Year's Eve special on U.S. television. Its creator and
host Dick Clark intended the program to be a modern and youthful
alternative to Lombardo's big band music. Including ABC's special coverage
of the year 2000, Clark would host New Year's Eve coverage on ABC for 33
straight years. After suffering a stroke, Clark ceded hosting duties in
2005 to talk show host Regis Philbin, and retired as full-time host in 2006
in favor of Ryan Seacrest due to a speech impediment caused by the stroke.
Clark continued to make appearances from a studio on the program annually
until his death in 2012.
Notable celebrations occur in other U.S. cities as well. On the Las Vegas
Strip, the streets are closed to vehicle traffic on the evening of New
Year's Eve, and a large fireworks show is held at midnight which spans
across multiple resort buildings. Major theme parks may also hold New
Year's celebrations Disney theme parks, such as Walt Disney World Resort in
Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California, are traditionally the
busiest during the days up to and including New Year's Eve. Los Angeles, a
city long without a major public New Year celebration, held an inaugural
gathering in Downtown's newly completed Grand Park to celebrate the
beginning of 2014. The event included food trucks, art installations, and
light shows, culminating with a projection mapping show on the side of Los
Angeles City Hall near midnight. The inaugural event drew over 25,000
spectators and participants. In 2015, Chicago held Chi-Town Rising, the
city's first ever outdoor New Year's Eve festival on the Magnificent Mile.
The event was hosted by Mario Lopez with musical guests American Authors
and Chicago. Nearly 100,000 people attended the inaugural event'.
* 'In 1946, President Truman officially proclaims end of WW-II. .
* 'In 1962, The TV game show, Match Game, debuts on NBC with host Gene
Rayburn.
- From Wikipedia: 'Match Game is an American television panel game show
that premiered on NBC in 1962 and was revived several times over the course
of the next few decades. The game featured contestants trying to come up
with answers to fill-in-the-blank questions, with the object being to match
answers given by celebrity panelists' .
* 'In 1963, Dear Abby show premieres on CBS radio (runs 11 years). 'Pauline
Esther 'Popo' Phillips (née Friedman July 4, 1918 – January 16, 2013), also
known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show
host who began the Dear Abby column in 1956. During her decades writing the
column, it became the most widely-syndicated newspaper column in the world,
syndicated in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers'.
* 'In 1966, The Monkee's, I'm a Believer, hits #1 and stays there for 7
weeks.
- From Wikipedia: 'I'm a Believer' is a song composed by Neil Diamond and
recorded by The Monkees in 1966 with the lead vocals by Micky Dolenz. The
single, produced by Jeff Barry, hit the number one spot on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 31, 1966 and remained
there for seven weeks, becoming the last No. 1 hit of 1966 and the
biggest-selling record for all of 1967. Billboard ranked the record as the
No. 5 song for 1967. Because of 1,051,280 advance orders, it went gold
within two days of release. It is one of the fewer than forty all-time
singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide.'. .
* 'In 1999, The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal
(as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone)
to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter
Treaties.
- From Wikipedia: 'On February 26, 1904, the Isthmian Canal Convention was
proclaimed. In it, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in
perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land
under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and
protection of the canal. From 1903 to 1979 the territory was controlled by
the United States, which had built the canal and financed its construction.
The Canal Zone was abolished on October 1, 1979, as a term of the
Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977 the canal itself was under joint
U.S.–Panamanian control from 1979 until it was fully turned over to Panama
on December 31, 1999'.
* 'In 1999, Businesses across the world prepare for the rumored Y2k
disaster -whereby computer systems around the world would stop working at
midnight.
- From Wikipedia: 'The Year 2000 problem is also known as the Y2K problem,
the Millennium bug, the Y2K bug, or Y2K. Problems arose because programmers
represented the four-digit year with only the final two digits. This made
the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. The assumption that a
twentieth-century date was always understood caused various errors, such as
the incorrect display of dates, and the inaccurate ordering of automated
dated records or real-time events.
In 1997, the British Standards Institute (BSI) developed a standard, DISC
PD2000-1, which defines Year 2000 Conformity requirements as four rules: 1)
No valid date will cause any interruption in operations. 2) Calculation of
durations between, or the sequence of, pairs of dates will be correct
whether any dates are in different centuries. 3) In all interfaces and in
all storage, the century must be unambiguous, either specified, or
calculable by algorithm. 4) Year 2000 must be recognised as a leap year.
It identifies two problems that may exist in many computer programs. First,
the practice of representing the year with two digits became problematic
with logical error(s) arising upon rollover from x99 to x00. This had
caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and
times on and after 1 January 2000, and on other critical dates which were
billed event horizons Without corrective action, long-working systems would
break down when the .. 97, 98, 99, 00 ... ascending numbering assumption
suddenly became invalid.
Secondly, some programmers had misunderstood the Gregorian calendar rule
that determines whether years that are exactly divisible by 100 are not
leap years, and assumed the year 2000 would not be a leap year. Years
divisible by 100 are not leap years, except for years that are divisible by
400. Thus the year 2000 was a leap year.
Companies and organisations worldwide checked, fixed, and upgraded their
computer systems.
The number of computer failures that occurred when the clocks rolled over
into 2000 in spite of remedial work is not known among other reasons is the
reluctance of organisations to report problems.
The total cost of the work done in preparation for Y2K is estimated at over
US$300 billion ($413 billion today, once inflation is taken into account).
IDC calculated that the US spent an estimated $134 billion ($184 billion)
preparing for Y2K, and another $13 billion ($18 billion) fixing problems in
2000 and 2001. Worldwide, $308 billion ($424 billion) was estimated to have
been spent on Y2K remediation. There are two ways to view the events of
2000 from the perspective of its aftermath:
This view holds that the vast majority of problems had been fixed
correctly, and the money was well spent. The situation was essentially one
of preemptive alarm. Those who hold this view claim that the lack of
problems at the date change reflects the completeness of the project, and
that many computer applications would not have continued to function into
the 21st century without correction or remediation'.
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