Bonus Video: "Hot Voodoo" by Marlene Dietrich

It's completely wrong, but somehow wrong in all the right ways...

So as to cleanse my palate from the previous upheaval of earnestitude over the death of Dian Fossey - which occurred on this day in 1985 - here's a wickedly un-PC clip from the 1932 film Blonde Venus, featuring the ample talents of one Marlene Dietrich; her suave onlooker is Cary Grant.
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Pop History Moment: The Poaching of Dian Fossey

The received wisdom concerning the death of Dian Fossey is that she was killed by poachers; certainly, her fatal blow was struck with a panga, a poacher's weapon if ever there was one. Only here's where the story gets twisty; the panga that split her skull open was her own, confiscated from a poacher years earlier and kept as a trophy. Ironically, she was known to carry it with her as protection.

While the brutality of her death betokened the work of those soulless killers who hunt not for survival but for greed, she was found indoors; poachers would have killed her outside, likely in the same way they'd have killed one of her gorillas, given half a chance. Yet, despite a massive head wound, there was little blood on the premises, which could mean she'd been killed outdoors and bled off via natural processes during transport; something else poachers wouldn't be likely to do - they'd have just left her in the jungle. And even though her cabin was ransacked nothing had been stolen, not even the thousands of dollars in cash she kept.

Yet another faction believes it was proponents of eco-tourism - who saw Fossey's opposition to their goldmine and her increasingly persuasive reputation in the halls of power around the world as serious impediments to their future wealth - who killed her and then made a rather feeble attempt at framing poachers for it; this is the view of the naturalist Farley Mowat, who wrote the book Virunga: The Passion of Dian Fossey about her life and death.

Or maybe there was some collusion between the two; the point is, we may never know.

All we know for sure is that on this day in 1985 the gorillas of Rwanda lost their finest advocate, a passionate woman of principle whose zeal for habitat preservation was just beginning to win converts from those who had previously supported a conservation model based on game preserves and zoos, which she considered barbaric.

Many of Fossey's students at the Karisoke Research Center - which she founded in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda in 1967 - favoured eco-tourism for its lucrativity, seemingly unconcerned by the deaths of those gorillas who perished from diseases brought in by said tourists.* Fossey's desire, on the other hand, was to preserve wild places where wild animals could remain wild, a noble cause if ever there was one; certainly, the gorillas at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, for all that I love to look at them there, look amongst themselves like they'd rather be anywhere else.

Fossey was famously portrayed by Sigourney Weaver in the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist (based on Fossey's own book, published in 1983.) Weaver's portrayal, naturally, is a heroic one; it amply depicts what Fossey's detractors have called her 'obsessiveness', reframing it as 'fervour'. Since in Fossey's mind no one else was looking out for the gorillas, she decided to do it herself; 'my gorillas' she called them, and she wasn't wrong. If anyone had the right to make such a claim it was the woman who gave both her life and her death to save them.

[* What kind of business plan is that? What could be more exploitative than taking the maximum profit on a minimal investment, before the venture itself is guilty of killing off the chief asset? Not only dangerously short-sighted but a recipe for certain extinction. Gawd, the greed on some people... ~ MSM]
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Carroll Spinney: The Man Behind The Grouch

Carroll Spinney, the man behind Sesame Street's legendary characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, occupies an enviable place in the world of puppeteering; having performed literally thousands of hours in an eight foot tall pile of foam and feathers - which is the kind of gig that would kill even an Australian drag queen - he must surely hold some kind of world record for endurance.

Born on this day in 1933, Spinney had a long career in puppetry and animation before coming to the Children's Television Workshop. Renowned as a children's educator (not to mention the co-author of The Wisdom of Big Bird and the author of How To Be A Grouch), Spinney has received four Daytime Emmy Awards, 2 gold records for his musical performances, a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and the adoration of two generations of children.

Recently, after more than thirty years, Spinney has had to give up playing Big Bird, passing that duty off to Matt Vogel.

I must confess, though, it's Oscar the Grouch for whom I developed an early affinity; and not just on my bad days either, when the resemblance between us is eerie, but all the time. I can tell you're shocked.

Even as a kid I had the vague sense that the show I loved had a tendency toward sappiness; Oscar, on the other hand, gave the festivities a little variety. For someone who lived in a garbage can (albeit one which was easily as palatial as Snoopy's doghouse) and had to endure an endless string of people calling him a grouch - which would make anybody grouchy - he actually seemed pretty happy in his own way; Oscar's embrace of his own bohemianism led me to believe that when I was older I too could live and act the way I chose and, aside from constant reminders of how weird I was from those around me, also be happy in my own way.

Having early on embraced my inner grouch, this is exactly what has come to pass...
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"People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield

When Curtis Mayfield died on this day in 1999, the music industry lost one of its most talented practitioners - a prolific singer, songwriter, and record producer whose politically conscious work was renowned for the social justice it championed.

First recorded in 1965 with his band The Impressions, Mayfield's civil rights anthem People Get Ready is one of the most covered songs of the rock era, with versions by performers as diverse as John Denver, The Housemartins, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo; here he's seen performing it on Lorne Michaels' short-lived syndicated show Night Music with Taylor Dayne on backing vocals.
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Happy Birthday David Sedaris

It's not often a person as jaded and cynical as I am finds himself so helpless with laughter he's gasping for breath; unless, that is, I'm reading the works of David Sedaris. Or, you know, there's 'something in the air' that's known to induce giggling, if you catch my meaning. A n y w a y...

Born on this day in 1956, and raised near Raleigh, North Carolina, Sedaris has had the ideal life to make him either a noted and versatile humourist or a sad, bitter barfly: effeminitely gay from an early age, living in the American South - in the Sixties, no less! - a former drunk and drug addict, underemployable, short, and possessed of a voice ideal for silent films... Fortunately for everyone concerned, Sedaris learned to exploit the weirdness of his persona to great end, with a perspective so skewed it's a wonder it doesn't fall off.

He first came to the attention of readers in 1992, chronicling his travails in the employ of the R. H. Macy Company, in SantaLand Diaries on NPR; it's now must-read material here at the Pop Culture Institute during the holidays. Barrel Fever appeared in 1994; a cobbling together of essays from various sources, it's more scattered than his subsequent works, anarchic in the best sense of the word (meaning it sounds better than saying car-azay!*) and almost entirely fictional (again, in the best sense of the word).

Having learned to exploit his own weirdness in print, Sedaris turned his laser-like powers of description onto his family, including noted comedian and hostess Amy Sedaris, a favourite of ours here at PCI. 1997's Naked is a tour de force of the art of memoir that will make you think twice before buying brown towels, guaranteed; the same year's Holidays on Ice will similarly make you think twice before sending out that same old boring Christmas newsletter to all your friends and family. PCI's copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000) has been inscribed by his very own hand, with a similar clunking diction as its title; I must say, he is quite charming and affable in person.

The backlash waited, though, until after the 2004 release of his latest book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim when, thanks to James Frey and his ilk, the criticocracy decided to get its knickers all up in a snit over possible falsehoods contained in his work. First of all, if you want the truth, stay the Hell away from writers, is all I'm saying; when the larger truth is the intended target, nothing gets in the way like a whole mess of petty facts.

His most recent book - When You Are Engulfed in Flames - arrived in stores in June 2008, and was in my hot little hands mere moments later...

* That is, 'crazy', prounounced in a crazy way. ~ MSM
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POPnews - December 26th

[By the time Emanuel Leutze painted the allegorical Washington Crossing the Delaware in 1851, the American myth-building industry had already been at maximum production for eight decades; despite its potency, though, this view of one of George Washington's finest hours functions better as propaganda than it does as history.]

1251 - Alexander III, King of Scots, married Margaret - the eldest daughter and second child of England's Henry III and Eleanor of Provence - at York Minster.

1606 - The first known performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear was given.

1613 - Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, married Frances Howard - inspiring John Donne to write his poem Eclogue.

1776 - George Washington's troops defeated a combined British and Hessian force commanded by Johann Rall at the Battle of Trenton, owing largely to the Americans' surprise attack following their crossing the Delaware River in the middle of the previous night.

1811 - A theater fire in Richmond killed the Governor of Virginia, George William Smith, as well as the president of the First National Bank of Virginia, Abraham B. Venable.

1825 - Officers of Russia's Imperial Army officers led approximately 3000 soldiers in a march on St. Petersburg's Senate Square against the accession of Tsar Nicholas I, who'd previously been removed from the succession when his brother Constantine spurned the throne himself; although the Decembrist Uprising ultimately lost momentum because it failed to attract widespread support from the military, it was also deserted by its leader, Prince S. P. Trubetskoy.

1862 - Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover became the first women to serve in that capacity on a US Navy hospital ship.

1870 - Both ends of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel met, deep inside the Swiss Alps; only a devout Freudian would be able to read anything into that...

1871 - Gilbert and Sullivan's first collaboration - their lost opera Thespis - opened at London's Gaiety Theatre; while it did modestly good business, the two would not collaborate again for four years.

1906 - Charles Tait's The Story of the Kelly Gang - generally considered the first feature film - premiered at Athaneum Hall in Melbourne, the city where most of it was shot; concerning the exploits of Australia's notorious bushranger Ned Kelly, only 17 minutes of its original seventy remain.

1908 - Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight boxing champ when he defeated Tommy Burns.

1919 - Babe Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees.

1925 - The Communist Party of India was founded.

1944 - The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was first performed, at the Civic Theatre in Chicago.

1946 - The Flamingo Hotel opened in Las Vegas.

1966 - The first Kwanzaa was celebrated by Maulana Karenga.

1982 - For the first time in its history Time magazine's Man of the Year wasn't a man (or even a person) at all, but the personal computer.

1986 - The long-running American soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, went off the air after 9130 episodes; created by Roy Winsor and initially written by daytime television legend Agnes Nixon (and later by Irving Vendig), the show had its debut on CBS in September 1951 at 15 minutes a day, went from live to tape in March 1967, began broadcasting in colour in September 1967, expanded to a half hour format in September 1968, then moved to NBC in March 1982.

1991 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved.
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"A Thousand Beautiful Things" by Annie Lennox

The problem with publishing a hat trick of Annie Lennox videos is not struggling to find that third video (as per usual) but represents nothing less than the epic battle between head and heart in trying to choose which three of literally dozens of incredible performances to include.

I mean, if I choose A Thousand Beautiful Things does that mean I can't show Walking on Broken Glass? Or No More I Love You's? What about Dark Road? Not even Waiting In Vain?

Talk about your Sophie's choice*...

[* '...a forced decision in which any and all options have equally negative outcomes' as per the 1979 William Styron novel and 1982 Alan J. Pakula film of the same name. ~ MSM]
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"Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye" by Annie Lennox

From 1990's AIDS charity album Red, Hot + Blue - which featured modern (if not always modernist) takes on the songs of Cole Porter - it's Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye, performed by Annie Lennox, in a video directed by Ed Lachman; the following year, while great with child, she sang the song to great effect in Derek Jarman's film Edward II.
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"Why" by Annie Lennox

How fucking amazing is this woman?

Normally I would be entirely peeved at having to forego posting the official video for this song - which is a work of art in its own right - but with Annie Lennox, any version of any of her songs is guaranteed to thrill; recorded live at the 25th Anniversary Gala for Arista Records, here she covers herself with astonishing aplomb, performing the smash hit song Why, from her 1992 debut solo album Diva on a grand piano.

Because what Christmas would be complete without an angel...?
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Happy Birthday Annie Lennox

Born on this day in 1954 in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, Annie Lennox is a classically trained musician with an intuitive zeitgeist-ometer that's been working overtime since 1981, when Eurythmics' first album, In the Garden, was released...

With more soul in her break than most singers have in their whole voice, Lennox's honeyed contralto slunk, shrieked, and otherwise basically blasted through seven albums, including some of the greatest pop music ever recorded:

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983), Touch (1983), 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) (1984), Be Yourself Tonight (1985), Revenge (1986), Savage (1987), and We Too Are One (1989).

It was her 1992 debut solo album Diva, though, that made Lennox the durable icon she is today; 1995's Medusa deftly dodged the sophomore slump with a collection of material which aren't merely cover versions but instead re-imaginings, simultaneously demonstrating the sheer elasticity of pop music as well as her distinctive approach to it. In 1999 she reunited with Dave Stewart to record Peace; 2003 saw the release of Bare, another solo effort which is uber-acoustic, like a lullaby for our collective jangled nerves. 2007's epic Songs of Mass Destruction continued to demonstrate both the growth and maturity of Lennox's gift.

Already the owner of much coveted music industry hardware for both her group and solo projects, in 2004 Lennox was awarded 'the granddaddy of all chachkes' when she won an Oscar for her song Into the West, from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
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Pop History Moment: The Coronation of William the Conqueror

As much as the events surrounding the Battle of Hastings, it was the coronation of William the Conqueror (on this day in 1066) that was intended to secure his tenure as King of England through a not-so-subtle show of strength; seated on the throne which earlier that year had been occupied by England's last Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, the Duke of Normandy exacted an oath of fealty from a native aristocracy which would be largely wiped out, thanks entirely to his own efforts, over the next generation.

Having defeated the Harold's army of Saxon volunteers in October, he waited for a formal invitation to become King, which anyway he believed had been promised to him by Edward the Confessor; instead, the Witenagemot, proclaimed a boy - Edgar Ætheling - the new King, albeit without the benefit of a coronation.

So William's forces marched on London, passing first through Dover (a major port) and Canterbury (even then a major religious centre); he met strong resistance at London Bridge and so turned back to approach the city from the northwest, crossing the Thames at Wallingford. Forcing the capitulation of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, he arrived at Berkhamsted and personally received both the crown from the erstwhile boy-king and the fealty of the assembled Saxon nobility.

It is apt, then, that he was crowned by Aldred, Archbishop of York; it would take the new King six years to subdue his rebellious northern lands, in what used to be the Kingdom of Mercia. To this day it remains one of the great what-ifs of English history: what if disease or battle had carried him off sooner, an all-too-common occurrence in the lives of medieval warrior kings, and not allowed him a generation's time to impose his will upon his conquered realm?
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Remembering... Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt - that seemingly ageless paragon of feline-esque femininity whose fame was mainly built by playing Catwoman on the 1960s TV-campfest Batman - died on this day in 2008; she was 81.

Acclaimed for her sultry delivery of songs such as C'est si bon, I Want To Be Evil, Just An Old-Fashioned Girl, the Christmas classic Santa Baby, and the dance floor scorcher Where Is My Man, Kitt first appeared in the 1948 film Casbah as part of the Katherine Dunham Company; she got her first break, though, playing Helen of Troy in Orson Welles' Dr. Faustus. As excited as Hollywood was to see her, movie moguls have never been good at knowing what to do with someone unique, and so her movie career never really took off like it might have done if she'd been more generic.

Kitt was principally a cabaret singer, albeit one who combined immense stage presence with a knowing delivery of winking lyrics... In real life, however, she wasn't known for hiding behind euphemism; one of the first big stars to oppose the Vietnam War, following inflammatory comments she made at the Johnson White House - the rumour is she made the First Lady cry - Kitt's career was effectively side-lined to Europe for the better part of the next decade.

In later years, as nightclub stages became too small to contain her charisma, Kitt began appearing in Broadway musicals such as The Wild Party, Cinderella, and Nine; she also found use for her voice in such animated features as The Emperor's New Groove and Kronk's New Groove, as well as their TV adaptation The Emperor's New School. Her valiant struggle with colon cancer included working in the cabarets of New York City up until just a few months before her death; she was survived by her daughter Kitt Revson Shapiro - who was at her side when she died - as well as four grandchildren.
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Remembering... O. Arthur Strandquist

It was on this day in 2006 my grandfather died, dwindling the family of five I once had to a remaining two members: my mother and I*. I must confess, my thoughts on that day were entirely selfish; what will become of me when my family is just me? Fortunately, I have indelible memories of the family we had, one that he was so integral in creating, that even when I am alone in this world, it will feel like the five of us are together still.

Born in September 1921, Oscar Arthur Strandquist grew up in Kinistino, Saskatchewan, a small town east of Saskatoon where his father, Nils, served as Reeve. Art, as he preferred to be called, would probably have become a Lutheran minister if World War II hadn't summoned him away.

Art served most of his tour of duty in Aldershot, where a fateful filing cabinet drawer - obviously working in collusion with the Nazis - fell on his foot; it would be the extent of his injuries during that terrible conflict, but, seeing as it occurred in the line of duty, it was enough to qualify him for lifetime care by a grateful nation.  During the war he was married to my grandmother Dorothy and five years later, in March 1948, my mother was born.

In the Fifties the three were posted in what was then West Germany, and later lived at Camp Borden, as well as in Winnipeg, following which Art got out of the service, though he continued to work for the military in a civilian capacity. He eventually signed up again; having originally joined up as a private, when he finally retired for good in 1968 he had obtained the rank of major. His work was principally in the orderly room, but later he served with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, training military doctors in the art of administration, one of whom became Canada's first female Surgeon-General.

Retiring to Kelowna in 1972, Art threw himself into the civic life of the town as over the next twenty years it burgeoned into a city; he was active in the Freemasons, the Provincial Emergency Program, and was a shortwave and ham radio operator, volunteering at a variety of marathons and other community events providing communications. Active in the Okanagan Historical Society (and an historian himself, the author of two books) he was also the founder or co-founder of local branches of societies in aid of people with diabetes and the hard-of-hearing. He was for a time involved with the Reform Party, but quit in disgust over the homophobia of their 'family values' platform, which to his mind was impossible to reconcile.

By the time of my grandmother's death in April 1997, Art had pretty much withdrawn from his community service, and over the final decade of his life retreated even further, into himself, which I always saw as the great tragedy of his life; for someone who was once so engaged in the world and with other people, to suddenly find him sitting and staring at the wall bothered me no end. The doctors said he had premature dementia, but I knew otherwise; he simply gave and gave of himself until there was nothing left to give.

The above photo was taken at his last birthday, just three months before he died; due to all the visitors he'd received he wasn't really himself that weekend, but I was glad I went to Kelowna to see him for what would be the last time anyway. The last day of my visit - as my mother, her boyfriend, and I stopped off so I could say goodbye - I noticed he was quite a bit brighter, and asked if I could take his picture. He smiled like the parting of clouds, and for thirty seconds he was his old self again. I managed to take this portrait, the last one ever taken, before he clouded over again. I told him that I loved him, but he made no sign that he understood me; it was the last time I saw him...

Though he never lived to see it, the Pop Culture Institute is as much his as it is mine. As a child he was always after me to understand the past as a means to understanding the future; his indulgence of me knew no bounds, especially when it came to buying books, and to this day the core of the collection at PCI is due to his largesse.

Although I was supposed to give his eulogy, I was too overcome with grief; this is the only time I've written about him, and I only hope that in some way it makes up for my earlier failing.

*Thanks to the recent inclusion of Mr Eaton and all his ilk, my poor little family has grown once again!
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"Hansel and Gretel" At The Met

In honour of the debut of Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel - in Weimar on this day in 1893 - here is the opening of the 2008 production done by New York's Metropolitan Opera, starring Alice Coote as Hansel and Christine Schäfer as Gretel; unseen is Philip Langridge, who portrayed the Witch. The conductor is Vladimir Jurowski.

Long a Christmas-time favourite, Richard Ford initially gave the show this audaciously modern staging at the Welsh National Opera in 2007 - for which it won a Laurence Olivier Award; it was no less successful in its American run, being broadcast on both radio and television as well as captured on DVD. Ford's staging has proven popular enough that it has also been copied by many regional companies as well.
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"A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore

[On this day in 1823, Clement C. Moore published A Visit from St. Nicholas in the Sentinel of Troy, New York; initially anonymous, it was finally attributed to him in 1844.]
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap —

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a minature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:

"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer and Vixen,
"On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;

"To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys — and St. Nicholas too:

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:

He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack:

His eyes — how they twinkled! His dimples: how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill'd all the stockings; then turn'd with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight —
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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POPnews - December 23rd

[You could say that given it's appearance, perhaps the coelacanth can be forgiven for being so bashful that it had never been seen by human eyes until this day in 1938; then again, given the track record humans have with preserving animal species perhaps it was canniness rather than low self-esteem that kept it away. You could say that, but you'd be both wrong and guilty of anthropomorphism; try not getting all your information about nature from animated Disney movies in future. Actually, the coelacanth is a deep water fish - living as deep as 700 m (2300 ft) below sea level, but more usually found at depths of 90 to 200 m - which was the secret of its successful reclusion.]
679 CE - Dagobert II was murdered on a hunting trip, dying without a male heir, making him the last Merovingian to reign as king of Austrasia on his own - with the obvious exception of Charles Martel's dubious candidate Clotaire IV, obviously; after a power struggle involving Pippin II, Theuderic III was named to replace Dagobert II, becoming king of all the Frankish lands.

1230 - Richard the Lionhearted's erstwhile queen, Berengaria of Navarre, died at the abbey in L'Epau.

1493 - Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle was published.

1783 - George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

1823 - The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) was first published in the Sentinel of Troy, New York.

1888 - Vincent van Gogh cut off the lower part of his left ear, took it to a brothel, and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel for safekeeping; in case you should find yourself strapped for a last-minute Christmas present, don't do this.

1893 - Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel was first performed.

1913 - The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the US Federal Reserve.

1916 - During World War I's Battle of Magdhaba Allied forces under Australia's Harry Chauvel decisively defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, thereby securing the continued use of the Suez Canal for the British Empire.

1938 - Considered a living fossil, the coelacanth had been thought extinct since the end of the Cretaceous Period; that is, until one was caught by Hendrik Goosen, captain of the Nerine, at the mouth of the Chalumna River off the coast of East London, South Africa.

1947 - The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.

1948 - Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East - including Doihara Kenji, Hirota Koki, Itagaki Seishiro, Kimura Heitaro, Matsui Iwane, Muto Akira, and the country's notorious wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo - were executed at Tokyo's Sugamo Prison.

1958 - Tokyo Tower, the world's highest self-supporting iron tower, was dedicated.

1972 - The 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were rescued after 73 days, having survived many and sundry rigours in the wilderness not least of which was cannibalism - as chronicled in the 1993 film Alive: The Miracle of the Andes.

1973 - Irna Phillips - the innovator of the American soap opera and mentor to both Agnes Nixon and William J. Bell - died discreetly of undisclosed causes; in other words, in the least soap operatic manner possible.

1986 - Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base, becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.

1992 - The text of the Queen's Christmas Speech was leaked to the press early...  This was a 'scandal' only because the papers called it one; I mean, I love Her Majesty with all my love, but I'll be the first to admit she essentially gives the same speech every year.

2004 - An 8.1 magnitude earthquake hit Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean; despite being one of the strongest seismic events ever recorded it caused almost no damage and rattled fewer than 50 people, which small number constitutes the entire human population of the place.

2007 - There occurred a grand conjunction in which the solar system aligned with the galactic center.
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"Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" by The Clash

The title of The Clash's single Should I Stay or Should I Go - which first appeared on their 1982 album Combat Rock - remained strictly rhetorical until this day in 2002 when the man who wasn't best known for singing it*, their former lead singer Joe Strummer, died suddenly of a congenital heart defect; he was 50.

The following March Strummer was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his surviving bandmates; in January 2007 Julien Temple released a documentary on the life and work of Joe Strummer - entitled, appropriately enough, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - at that year's Sundance Film Festival.

*That honour typically went to Mick Jones before his 1983 dismissal from the band, although it was Strummer's idea to do the song's backing vocals in Spanish, which were translated by the mother of Eddie Garcia (who was the band's tape operator) although they were performed by Strummer and Joe Ely.  Got that?
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POPnews - December 22nd

[Berlin's Brandenburg Gate - the symbolic gateway between East and West Germany - was re-opened on this day in 1989 following the Fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th.]
1603 - Mehmed III, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, died; he was succeeded by his son Ahmed I.

1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail was stormed and captured by the forces of Russia's Alexander Suvorov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792.

1807 - The Embargo Act - forbidding trade with all foreign countries, triggered by the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair - was passed by the US Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.

1808 - Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies plus five other works at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

1864 - Savannah fell to General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his now-famous March to the Sea.

1885 - Prince Ito Hirobumi - a samurai - was elected Japan's first Prime Minister.

1890 - The Cornwallis Valley Railway began operations between Kingsport and Kentville in Nova Scotia.

1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel - connecting Manhattan to Weehawken, New Jersey - opened to traffic.

1947 - The current constitution of Italy was enacted.

1951 - The Selangor Labour Party was founded in the Malaysian state of Selangor.

1956 - Colo, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity, was born; at 53, she is currently the oldest gorilla alive in captivity.

1963 - Three days out of Southampton, during an eleven-day Christmastime cruise to the Canary Islands under the captaincy of Mathios Zarbis, the TSMS Lakonia caught fire with the loss of 128 lives among the 1,022 people - 646 passengers* and 376 crew - on board. Rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that the vessel was 180 miles north of Madeira at the time; in fact, it would be more than four hours after the fire started before the Argentine cruise ship Salta arrived, shortly followed by the British tanker Montcalm. Both would perform yeoman duty in returning the majority of the survivors to dry land.

*All but 21 of whom were British nationals.

1974 - The house of former British Prime Minister Ted Heath house was bombed by members of the Provisional IRA.

1984 - Bernhard Goetz shot four men on a New York City Seventh Avenue 2 express subway train.

1988 - Chico Mendes - a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist - was assassinated.

1989 - Ion Iliescu assumed power in Romania following the deposition of communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.

1997 - The Acteal Massacre occurred when attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in Acteal, a village in the Mexican state of Chiapas, were massacred by paramilitary forces.

2000 - Madonna married Guy Ritchie at Scotland's Skibo Castle.

2001 - 'Shoe Bomber' Richard Reid was thwarted in his attempt to blow up American Airlines Flight 63.
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The Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald

The foremost chronicler of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald died on this day in 1940, as suddenly as had the era he so deftly recorded; an alcoholic - some said from the age of 16 - and a heavy smoker as well as having twice been afflicted with tuberculosis, his heart gave out before either his liver or his lungs. Fitzgerald was dealt his fatal blow, at the age of 44, in the apartment of his girlfriend Sheilah Graham, ironically while awaiting a doctor's visit; their affair was later translated into a 1958 book which was itself later made into a 1959 film called Beloved Infidel, starring Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr.

Following a service in Hollywood at which Dorothy Parker was among the mourners - and on the way to which the novelist Nathanael West and his wife Eileen McKenney (the real-life My Sister Eileen) died in a car crash - Fitzgerald was buried in Maryland's Rockville Union Cemetery, where following her tragic death in March 1948, he was joined by his wife Zelda; in 1975, thanks to the efforts of their daughter Frances 'Scottie' Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith and the local Women's Club, Scott and Zelda's remains were moved across town to Saint Mary's Cemetery.
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Ray Romano's Letterman Debut

Before everybody loved Raymond, Mr. Romano seemed pretty popular nonetheless, even as he was premiering his trademark brand of humour in front of a national television audience on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Romano - born on this day in 1957 - was already well known in 1996 when Everybody Loves Raymond first appeared, and has since added to the fame that show brought him by lending his voice to a surly mammoth in the Ice Age films and similarly appearing as Homer Simpson's supposedly imaginary friend in the 2005 episode of The Simpsons entitled Don't Fear the Roofer.
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