Headlines: December is Full of History

By: Ben K.

Although there are many historical events that happened this month, I’m only going to talk about a few of them. I will talk about births and deaths, things that had never happened before, and many other things.

In 1791 on December 5th, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35. Only nine years before that our former president Martin Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York. Almost 100 years after that former president Ulysses Simpson Grant apologized before congress ascribing his former errors as errors in judgment, not intent. So those are just some historical events that happened on December 5th.

Construction of the Washington monument was completed on December 6th, 1884, and to think it’s still standing proudly on the national mall in Washington D.C. More recently in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge gave his second annual address to congress, however it was the first official presidential address broadcasted, and the transmission was so clear that technicians in St. Louis, MO called to ask about the occasional rustling noise that turned out to be him turning papers in his address. And those are some historic events that happened on December 6th.

Although there aren’t very many things I will talk about for December 7th, it is still historically important. First of all in 1941 Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, which we just passed the 69th anniversary of on Tuesday. Also, a few centuries earlier in 1797 Delaware was admitted to the union for the first time. Last but not leas in 1972 the U.S. launched the Apollo 17 mission.

Well I think as big as December 7th was, December 8th is a day much more remembered for different things, especially for Beatles fans. Well just in case I didn’t give it away in the last sentence, December 8th 1980 John Lennon was shot and killed in front of his apartment. Also a day later than the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. officially entered WWII. The most recent out of everything that I have talked about on this day in 1966, a treaty was enacted to prohibit nuclear weapons in space.

Okay, well there is only one major thing that happened that I will talk about for December 9th; there are still other things that happened. Well the major thing that I said I will talk about is that in 1907, the Red Cross had their first ever Christmas seals sold for a campaign against tuberculosis, making $135,000. Also this day only a few hundred years before in 1793, Noah Webster established the first New York daily newspaper, and look what he influenced. Well this will be the last time I will talk about 1941 in this article, I promise; in 1941 China declared war on Japan, Italy, and Germany, oy.

Well before I say goodbye, (so to speak), let me talk about December 10th. There are only three things that I’m going to talk about, the first college basketball game in 1896, in 1869 the first women’s suffrage law was granted in the U.S. in the Wyoming territory, and Mississippi entering the union in 1817. Oh, wait, I guess that takes care of that.

Goodbye. I hope everyone who reads this has learned, re-learned, or been reminded of things that have happened in this month in history.