DECEMBER 24 — 1923 Coolidge lights 1st national Christmas Tree;1777 Battle of Trenton Pt. 2: Washington sends spy to fool Hessian leader about Continental army Christmas attack; 1955 NORAD begins using Santa Tracker
1923 – Silent Cal lights up the first national Christmas Tree. President Calvin Cooledge wasked from the white house to the Ellipse to light a 48-foot fir tree decorated with 2,500 electric bulbs in red, white and green, as a local choir and a “quartet” from the U.S. Marine Band performed. 91 years later, this American holiday tradition continues to bring citizens together to share in a message of hope and peace. The history of the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree is intertwined with the history of America. Through peace and war, from national celebration to national mourning, Americans have gathered together and celebrated the season in this holiday event. In 2007, LED Christmas lights were used on the National Christmas Tree at the request of the White House GE thus made the National Christmas Tree more energy-efficient than ever before. GE has been designing the National Christmas Tree since 1963, producing and donating the lighting and decorations. Powered almost entirely by light-emitting computer chips called LEDs, the 2008 National Christmas Tree display was 50 percent more energy efficient than the 2007 display. This is also the first time Santa’s Workshop was found along the Christmas Pathway of Peace, sharing holiday cheer and safety tips with all families this December. If you want to check it out for next year, there is no parking. Farrragut west is the closest Metro stop. If you want to use the Metro, you can use the Trip Planner at wmata.com.
1905 – Happy birthday American business tycoon, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker, and philanthropist Howard Hughes. In the 19230s he made controversial films in Hollywood, and spent the 1930s setting world air speed records, built the spruce goose aircraft, acquired and expanded TWA airlines, merged it with American Airlines, was ranked as being one of the best aviators by Flying magazine, dated Katherine hebpurn, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Ava Gardner, and many other beautiful wojmen, alledgedly bribed Richard Nixon’s brother, and developed Obsessive compulsive disorder to the point to where he would need a special fork to separate his peas in order of size. Happy birthday, Howard!
1777 – Battle of Trenton Pt 2: Washington finds his man.
New Jersey Scots-Irishman John Honeyman was not only a merchant who sold supplies to the Hessian army stationed just across the Delaware River in Trenton, he was a registered Crown loyalist.
He also fought with Colonel George Washington in the French and Indian Wars. Small world, right? Especially when Honeyman was, wnink wink, captured by Washington’s army.
General George Washington had lost New York and Pennsylvania, and was about to lose his army as their enlistment was up at the end of 1777 which was next week. Many of them had already deserted and nearly formed a coup. Washington was by now used to rumors of his replacement as General of the United States Continental Army.
Now, George got a break. It was a happy reunion between Washington and Honeyman actually, and Honeyman would oblige Washington with a story to take back to his Hessian pal Colonel Johann Rall in Trenton.
The message would be: There will be no attack. The American troops are so disheartened and so bedraggled, they have o plans of advancing anytime soon. Ha!
Who said George Washington never told a lie!
Rall is famous for saying, we don’t need fortifications or trenches, the Rebel Soldiers, those country clowns, , and they’re almost naked, dying of cold. They have no provisions and no blankets, let them come; we shall welcome them with our bayonets. USA! USA! USA! Yup.
Col Rall fell for it like Daffy Duck fell for the Acme brick of TNT on the loose edge of a cliff. The Hessians opened the kegs of ale, the church bells rang Merry Christmas, and Washington had already moved his men out. Washington was about to take his men through a very cold and icy Delaware with just three days rations.
The pass code for the operation was Victory, or Death. Robert Morris, one of the main financiers other Revolution, also came up with food and rations, just in time. John Honeyman, the spy who never was, turned out to be Washington’s biggest asset, as Washington would maneuver one of the boldest offense in military history. With his army, he gambled it all, and won big.
TBC.
1994 – RIP Nat Daniel, great guitar designer and founder of Danelectro which specialized in guitars, bass guitars, amps and effects units. 1912 – Irving Fisher patents an archiving system using index numbers. Fisher was one of those guys who knew so much about economics he didn’t have a clue. His thorough research on quantity theory was very impressive and James Tobin and Milton Friedman were very proud of him. Why some economic concepts were named after himl, including the Fisher equation, the Fisher hypothesis and the international Fisher effect. Oh wait, except three days before the 1929 stock market crash, he thought the stock market had reached a paermanantly high plateau. Yeah don’t confuse being very well educated to being smart. They’re not the same thing.
1955 – NORAD starts the Santa tracker. Says Wiki, The program began on December 24, 1955, when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper which told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was misprinted and calls instead came through to Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children who called in a “current location” for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.[3]Today, NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible.[4] Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories.