JANUARY 1 — 1863 Emancipation Proclamation takes effect; 1999 Mortgage Electronics Registration System is established; 1955 Ernie Nelson opens Prehistoric Garden; 2017 Eagle Carson Wentz breaks rookie record for most completions 1902 Michigan beats Stanford in 1st Rose Bowl
JANUARY 1
1863 – The Emancipation Proclomation goes into effect.
After three years of a bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln declared that all persons held as slaves are and henceforward, shall be free.
This proclamation exmpted border slave states that were loyal to the union and the three Confederate states that were under Union control at that time. This changed the nature of the FCivil War, folks. Before it was about states seceding the nation. I can hear some people out there saying it was about economics por agriculture versus industrialism. Whatever you want to call it; the Union fighting the Civil War proved to the world that it was about freedojm. After all, Lincoln personally felt slavery was morally reprehensible. This would be about Real freedom of all men.
Now the liberated were the liberators as nearly 200,000 former slaves joined the Union army to fight their former captors. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution would end officially end slavery in America.
1999 MERS established.
Mortgage Electronics Registration Systems was created in 1997 to record mortgage paperwork, and not only does it eliminate recording fees, according to its website, “With the MERS System, mortgage data is “more accurate and and title information more reliable.”
But there was far too many examples that show this is not the case that go beyond to scope of this show, but the problems start with the very recording database it uses. According to Propublica.org, there are no pdf images of origi9nal documents or any other original records and no signatures. MERS also has a reputation of losing loans, keeping inaccurate records, and gets involved with foreclosures. Different states have varying ways of handling situations where Chevy Chase Bank, for instance, doesn’t have the original loan either because they recorded it with MERS. In some counties and states, the foreclosure is legitimate, and in others it’s not.
Courts are split when it comes to MERS and its legitimacy, and other than the MERS Holding Company becoming acquired by the New York Stock Exchange parent company Intercontinental Exchange in October 2018, its future is uncertain.
1896 – Alfred Ely Beach passes away. From Springfield Mass, he’s probably best known for designing New York City’s earliest subway prototype; called the beach Pneumaic Transit. He also patented a ypewriter for the blind. No he didn’t do the Braille dots for drive up
ATM machines.
1958 – San Quentin inmate Merle Haggard hears Johnny Cash play.
Like a lot of folks from Oklahaoma and Texas, Merle’s family moved to California during the great epression to try and find a way to earn a living. When Merle was a child, his father died of a brain hemorrhage, which deeply affected Merle.
He learned how to play guitar at the age of 12 but started getting into trouble because his mom was away at work trying to support the family. She tried to send him to a juvenile detention center to whip him into shape one weekend but it only made him worse. He made several trips to jail several times during his teenage years and was able to escape a few of them. When his buddy Caryl Chessman, whom they nicknamed rabbit, was sent to death row, Merle decided to turn his life around. And on January 1st, Johnny cash came to San Quentin to play a concert. As Merle would say, Cash had the right attitude. He chewed gum, looked arrogant and flipped the bird to the guards – he did everything the prisoners wanted him to do.
He was a mean mother from the South who was there because he loved us. When he walked away, everyone in that place had become a Johnny Cash fan. Country legend Merle haggard credits Cash with giving him the inspiration to begin a career after prison that by the way includes 8 #1 hits on the country charts.
2017 –Wentz breaks records for most completions for a rookie.
Carson Wentz from North Dakota had just been signed to the Eagles that year.
Sam Bradford was the starter at the quarterback position until he got traded to the Vikings right before the season started. Yes, before he was watching the Eagles pick apart the seemingly indestructible New England Patriots from the sidelines of Super Bowl 52, in 2016 Wentz began winning rookie and offensive player awards.
Now he finished off his rookie season with a 27-13 triumph over the Dallas Cowboys, completing 27 or 43 passes for 245 yards and two touchdowns, finishing the year with 379 completions, beating out the old record of 354 by…of all people the quarterback he replaced at the beginning of the season, Sam Bradford, who had made that records back when he played for the Rams.
1955 – Ernie Nelson opens his Prehistoric Gardens in the South Oregon Coast.
Watch out, it’s guarded by a giant life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Nelson, who started out as a CPA and mill owner, decided dinosaurs were his cah-cah-cahllll, and packed up his family and moved south all the way from Eugene to Port Orford to open a prehistoric park.
It’s not exactly Jurassic park, so you can bring the children. According to the website, building of each dinosaur started with a steel frame, then the placement of the metal mesh to give it that rough edge look. Then he floated the final layer of concrete to create definition and hand painted what he found in dinosaur research books. You know, I used to swear I was a T-Rex. I would walk around the house and yell “RAAARRR!!!”and my dad told me to get a job.
These days it’s still in the family, off the 101 in Gold Beach, OR.
1961 Houston Oilers beat LA Chargers in the 1st AFL championship game – George Blanda threw 3 TDs for Houston
1988 Miami beats Oklahoma for college football championship – Jimmy Johnson’s #2 ranked and undefeated Miami beats Barry Switzer’s #1 ranked and undefeated Sooners
1983 Penn State beats Georgia for college football championship – Georgia with their Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker had been the only undefeated team in the NCAA
1981 Georgia beats Notre Dame for the college football championship – Georgia completed only one pass for 7 yards – outgained ND 328 to 127 as Herschel Walker gained 150 yards on the ground
1902 The first Rose Bowl game is played – Michigan beat Stanford 49-0