New Year's Eve 1906

See also: New Year's Eve 1910

Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing

(Wikipedia) - Ling-Ling (1969 - December 30th, 1992) and Hsing-Hsing (1970 - 99) were two Giant Pandas given to the United States as gifts by the government of China following President Richard Nixon's visit in 1972. In return, the U.S. government sent China a pair of musk oxen.
They arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1972, at a ceremony attended by First Lady Pat Nixon. While at the zoo, they attracted millions of visitors each year. Continued

Photo: Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, Smithsonian.

Travel guide: Coal country has tourism potential in southern W.Va.

(Bluefield Daily Telegraph) Some of the bloodiest and most important moments in the American labor movement happened in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. But most who live beyond its rugged mountains, and even many who live in them, don’t know the stories.Doug Estepp is trying to change that, one busload of tourists at a time. Continued

Photo: Sid Hatfield

Baltimore Terrapins

(Wikipedia) The Baltimore Terrapins were one of the least successful teams in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from 1914 to 1915, but their brief existence led to litigation that led to an important legal precedent in baseball. The team played its home games at Terrapin Park. Continued

What Remains

(NYTimes) Perhaps the most famous house of 1861 was, by July of that year, no longer standing. The home, called Spring Hill, belonged to Judith Henry, an invalid widow, and stood on a hill overlooking Bull Run. In the battle that engulfed the fields around Spring Hill on July 21, Henry was killed and her home destroyed, save for a few remnant beams and a section of chimney.
Over the next four years of war, countless thousands of homes, from grand mansions to decrepit shacks, would be damaged or destroyed. Many others were simply abandoned by fleeing families, never to be reclaimed. What was left behind was a landscape of human ruin, some of it still standing today, 150 years later. Continued

Cab Calloway

(Wikipedia) Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader.
Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86. Continued

York's Factory Whistle Concert set for Christmas

York, PA (YDR) In previous years, people showing up just as Christmas broke used to see a big cloud of steam rising from the roof of the New York Wire Company to accompany the annual Factory Whistle Concert in York.
There's no longer a cloud of steam anymore. But the whistle is just as loud, and the tradition that dates to 1925 remains otherwise unchanged. Continued

NORAD Tracks Santa

Once again, NORAD will be tracking Santa Claus as he makes his rounds tonight. "Detecting Santa all starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system has 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. NORAD makes a point of checking the radar closely for indications of Santa Claus leaving the North Pole on Christmas Eve." Link to tracker.

Johns Hopkins: His death and his philanthropy

(Wikipedia) ... Johns Hopkins died without heirs on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1873. He left $7 million, mostly in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad stock, to establish his namesake institutions. This sum was the single largest philanthropic donation ever made to educational institutions up until that time.
The bequest was used to found posthumously the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum first as he requested, in 1875, the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, the Johns Hopkins Press, the longest continuously operating academic press in America, in 1878, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893. Continued

Calico Jack Rackham

John Rackham (21 December 1682 – 18 November 1720), commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas during the early 18th century (Rackham is often spelled as Rackam or Rackum in historical documentation). His nickname was derived from the calico clothing he wore.
Active towards the end (1717–1720) of the "golden age of piracy" (1690–1730) Rackham is most remembered for two things: the design of his Jolly Roger flag, a skull with crossed swords, which contributed to the popularization of the design, and for having two female crew members (Mary Read and Rackham's lover Anne Bonny). Continued

First American Cotton Mill

(LoC) On December 20, 1790, a mill, with water-powered machinery for spinning, roving, and carding cotton, began operating on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtuket, Rhode Island. Based on designs of the English inventor Richard Arkwright, the mill was built by Samuel Slater, a recent English immigrant who had apprenticed with Arkwright's partner, Jebediah Strutt.
Slater had departed Britain in defiance of the British law against the emigration of textile workers (which would result in the loss of their mechanical skills and technical knowledge) and left for America to seek his fortune. Considered a central figure in the birth of the American textile industry, he eventually built several successful cotton mills in New England and established the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island. Continued

All quiet along the Potomac

(NYTimes) ... Beers’s poem is more notable for generalization than specificity. She did not clarify whether her title character was a Northerner or Southerner. She did not give him a name. He was simply a sentry on night duty while his comrades slept peacefully. As he trudged along his segment of the line, he thought about his young children and his wife. He reflected that the moon looked much as it did when he became engaged. Wiping tears from his eyes, he pulled his gun closer to his body, “as if to keep down the heart-swelling,” and continued his dreary tread. Continued

Photo: On picket in the woods, Edwin Forbes (Library of Congress).

Four books introduce young readers to Charles Dickens

(Simon Callow) A couple of years ago, I played Charles Dickens in an episode of the British sci-fi series “Doctor Who.” As the doctor takes his leave of Earth, Dickens asks whether his books will still be read in the future. Yes, the doctor replies. For how long, Dickens wants to know. Forever, says the doctor, disappearing into cyberspace. Continued

Photo: Mr. Bumble

Riding the rails and seeing the sights

(exploreharford.com) On a recent Saturday morning, I had an opportunity to ride Amtrak north from Baltimore to Philadelphia. I had not been on a train in something like 13 years, and I was interested to see how I would view the places in Harford and Cecil counties along the rail line from a different perspective.
Crossing Bush River into Perryman, I was surprised to see very little had changed, or at least I had that feeling. Other than a few new industrial buildings here and there, and some new homes near the water at Forest Greens, the area looked open and much of it is still being farmed.
Seeing what remains of the venerable Mitchell family canning buildings, now given over to the storage of farm implements and other equipment, reminded me of a story I had read in an old edition of The Aegis from the 1940s or 1950s about two wandering hobos who got what the newspaper called "the ride of their lives." Continued

Photos: Top: Amtrak Susquehanna River bridge Bottom: Mitchell Cannery. (MDRails)

The Bill of Rights

(LoC) On December 15, 1791, the new United States of America ratified the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, confirming the fundamental rights of its citizens.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, and the press, and the rights of peaceful assembly and petition. Other amendments guarantee the rights of the people to form a "well-regulated militia," to keep and bear arms, the rights to private property, fair treatment for accused criminals, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from self-incrimination, a speedy and impartial jury trial, and representation by counsel. Continued

George Whitman, Paris Bookseller and Cultural Beacon, Is Dead at 98

(NYTimes) George Whitman, the American-born owner of Shakespeare & Company, a fabled English-language bookstore on the Left Bank in Paris and a magnet for writers, poets and tourists for close to 60 years, died on Wednesday in his apartment above the store.
... More than a distributor of books, Mr. Whitman saw himself as patron of a literary haven, above all in the lean years after World War II, and the heir to Sylvia Beach, the founder of the original Shakespeare & Company, the celebrated haunt of Hemingway and James Joyce. Continued

Photo by Laertes

100 Years Ago Today: Amundsen's South Pole expedition

(Wikipedia) The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and later learned that Scott and his four companions died on their return journey. Continued

Leonard Lyles dies at 74

(ESPN) Former NFL defensive back and reliable return man Leonard Lyles, who helped break football's color barrier as one of the early black players, has died.
... Lyles was selected by Baltimore in the first round of the 1958 draft out of Louisville and spent 10 of his 12 seasons with the Colts, interrupted by a two-year stint with the 49ers in 1959 and `60. Continued

Effort under way to replace Confederate soldier's gravestone along Susquehanna

(YDR) Carol Posinski drove along the Susquehanna River in Hellam Township to find the grave of an unknown Confederate soldier after the flooding from Tropical Storm Lee washed away the headstone.
Posinski, a Civil War history buff, spotted the grave marked with a Confederate flag along the narrow River Drive. All that remained was the base of where the modern, granite stone once stood.
"I was hoping we could find the original stone," Posinski of Codorus Township said.
So far, though, no one has been able to find the marker, and an effort is under way to replace it. Continued

Photo: "The 1st Virginia Cavalry at a halt" bt Alfred Waud.

Walter Johnson

Caught Out of Time

(NYTimes) One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, historians have the benefit of a perspective not accessible in earlier remembrances. One interesting angle is to look at older histories of the war, tracing its place in our national consciousness and rediscovering details that take on new relevance today.
Fifty years ago, as the Civil War centennial got underway, Robert Penn Warren wrote of the struggle as if it were an ancient epic, one that “affords a dazzling array of figures, noble in proportion yet human, caught out of Time as if in a frieze, in stances so profoundly touching or powerfully mythic that they move us in a way no mere consideration of ‘historical importance’ ever could.”
It seems impossible that voices from what Warren calls our “Homeric period” could survive into the age of audio recording, yet a small number have. The perspective on the Civil War that might seem most elusive is in fact the most tangible: that of enslaved children. Thanks to the Work Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project, and the careful stewardship of the Library of Congress, voices of onetime slaves who lived well into the 1930s are now just a few clicks away. Continued

Photo: PP78.47 – Slave house on Webster land (Route 136 between Calvary and Cresswell), Harford Co., Mason. Neg Z8.467.B6; dup/copy neg Z6.1550.B6. (Maryland Historical Society)

Pan Am Flight 214

(Wikipedia) - Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707-121 registered as N709PA, was a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Baltimore to Philadelphia, which crashed on December 8, 1963 near Elkton, Maryland, after being hit by a lightning strike while in a holding pattern, killing all 81 persons on board. Continued

Photo: Historical Society of Cecil County (mislabeled as flight 714).

Air Raid on Pearl Harbor

(LoC) On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of twelve ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged. Continued

Photo: The U.S. Navy battleship USS Maryland (BB-46) alongside the capsized USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor. The USS West Virginia (BB-48) is burning in the background. (National Archives).

Former Funkhouser Quarry in Delta to be sold at auction

(Aegis) ... She said the quarry dates back to the 1840s, when speculators from Lancaster County started moving west to York County.
Slate's heyday was around the early 1900s and it was primarily used as roofing material, until the Industrial Revolution produced synthetic shingles that were cheaper, she said.
The quarry's manpower largely left during World War I, she said.
Robinson noted the site still contains slate, and remaining piles of it were used for various purposes. In the 1950s, the slate was taken for highway paving material.
Hard facts about Funkhouser Quarry's operating history are hard to come by. Continued

Amid Historic Homes, New England Moves to Preserve a Modern Heritage

LINCOLN, Mass. (NYTimes) In a region that prizes center-chimney Colonials, shingled Capes, saltboxes and other homes that have helped shape New England’s unmistakable sense of place, Polly Flansburgh’s boxy, low-slung house does not leap out as historic. Built in 1963 in the modern style, Ms. Flansburgh’s home seems a better fit for Los Angeles or Palm Springs than for this town, not far from where Henry David Thoreau built his cabin in the woods.
But one of the nation’s oldest preservation groups recently helped Ms. Flansburgh protect the house with an easement — a legal agreement ensuring that it cannot be torn down or significantly altered, even if it gets new owners.
The group, Historic New England, is now seeking to protect certain modern houses along with the more traditional New England homes it has helped preserve for generations. It started doing so in 2008, after some notable modern homes in the region were torn down to make way for the McMansions of the real estate boom. Continued

Martin Van Buren: The Little Magician

(LoC) Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States and a founder of the Democratic Party, was born on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York.
Just five feet six inches tall, with reddish-blond hair, Van Buren earned the nicknames "The Little Magician" and the "Red Fox of Kinderhook" for his legendary skill in political manipulation. Continued

The State of the Union Is Bad

(NYTimes) On Dec. 3, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his first Annual Message, the equivalent of our modern State of the Union. In the 19th century, presidents summarized progress at the end of the year rather than the beginning, which gives a little more perspective on things.
The phrase “the State of the Union” dates from 1934, when Franklin D. Roosevelt used it for the first time. Nor was it spoken, as it has been, generally, since Woodrow Wilson chose to travel down Pennsylvania Avenue and deliver his message verbally in 1913. (Jimmy Carter sent his in in 1981, a confession that things had not gone so well.)
Instead, Lincoln composed a long written document, and sent it to Congress. Continued

The Fredericksburg Campaign

(Wikipedia) ... The Union Army began marching on November 15, [1862] and the first elements arrived in Falmouth on November 17. Burnside's plan quickly went awry—he had ordered pontoon bridges to be sent to the front and assembled for his quick crossing of the Rappahannock, but because of administrative bungling, the bridges had not preceded the army. As Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner arrived, he strongly urged an immediate crossing of the river to scatter the token Confederate force of 500 men in the town and occupying the commanding heights to the west. Burnside became anxious, concerned that the increasing autumn rains would make the fording points unusable and that Sumner might be cut off and destroyed. He squandered his initiative and ordered Sumner to wait in Falmouth.
Lee at first anticipated that Burnside would beat him across the Rappahannock and that to protect Richmond, he would assume the next defensible position to the south, the North Anna River. But when he saw how slowly Burnside was moving (and Confederate President Jefferson Davis expressed reservations about planning for a battle so close to Richmond), he directed all of his army toward Fredericksburg. By November 23, all of Longstreet's corps had arrived and Lee placed them on the ridge known as Marye's Heights to the west of town, with Anderson's division on the far left, McLaws's directly behind the town, and Pickett's and Hood's to the right. He sent for Jackson on November 26, but his Second Corps commander had anticipated the need and began forced-marching his troops from Winchester on November 22, covering as many as 20 miles a day. Jackson arrived at Lee's headquarters on November 29 and his divisions were deployed to prevent Burnside crossing downstream from Fredericksburg: D.H. Hill's division moved to Port Royal, 18 miles down river; Early's 12 miles down river at Skinker's Neck; A.P. Hill's at Thomas Yerby's house, "Belvoir", about 6 miles southeast of town; and Taliaferro's along the RF&P Railroad, 4 miles south at Guinea Station.
The boats and equipment for a single pontoon bridge arrived at Falmouth on November 25, much too late to enable the Army of the Potomac to cross the river without opposition. Burnside still had an opportunity, however, because by then he was facing only half of Lee's army, not yet dug in, and if he acted quickly, he might have been able to attack Longstreet and defeat him before Jackson arrived. Continued

Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW

Berger's Cookie History

(Berger Cookies) In 1835 two brothers named George and Henry Berger traveled to the United States from Germany. George, was a metal worker and lived in West Baltimore, Henry, was a baker and lived in East Baltimore. Henry had three sons, George, Henry and Otto. Each brother opened their own little bakery, with the exception of Henry who took over his father's bakery.
In the late 1800s "open air" markets dominated the way people shopped. They could purchase all their food needs in one general area. Each vendor had their own little shop, or as they were known, stall. It is believed that each brother maintained a stall in one of about five markets throughout the city. Continued

What were we reading back then?

(NYTimes) As we lurch into the digital age, people are kicking up hoary generalizations about Americans and their reading habits. “No one reads anymore,” “Kids used to read ‘Hamlet,’ not ‘Twilight,’ ” “We used to have more time to read.” But these canards are based upon conjecture, anecdote and idealized views of the past. In fact, we know very little about which books Americans used to page through: the history of reading is largely circumstantial, based upon diary entries or sales figures. Continued