American chronicles

225 years ago, Dec. 19, 1776: It was a cold winter day when Thomas Paine published the first edition of "American Crisis opening with these stirring words: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer solider and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." Gen. George Washington ordered this essay to be read aloud to his American troops at Christmas, just before they whipped the sleeping Hessians in Trenton, NJ., the next morning.

200 years ago, Dec. 7, 1801, the 7th Congress convened in Washington, D.C., under a Democratic-Republican majority in both houses for the first time. The next day, disliking the showy ceremony of the required annual "State of the Union" address, the new 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson, delivered his first address to Congress in writing.

150 years ago, Dec. 9, 1851: The first North American chapter meeting of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was held, in Montreal. Three weeks later, on Dec. 29, 1851, the first U.S. chapter of the YMCA was opened, in Boston. Meanwhile, down in the capital city, on December 24, a fire at the Library of Congress burned two-thirds of the collection.

125 years ago, on Dec. 6,1976, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden officially lost the 1876 election, although he had won a popular vote plurality of 250,000 the previous month. Due to alleged voting irregularities in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon, an electoral commission was charged to undertake a partial recount. On this day, they gave the victory to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.

On Christmas Day, in New York, Henry M. Robert published his first Rules of Order.

100 years ago, it was a busy month in the public and private sector alike: On Dec. 2, 1901: King Camp Gillette patented the first safety razor with a double-edged disposable blade.

On Dec. 3, 1901: President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a heated 20,000-word speech on the floor of the House of

Representatives, asking Congress to break up the business conglomer-, ates, or trusts. The stock mat-' ket suffered a near-50% correction, due to TR's antibusiness posturing.

Dec. 5, 1901: Walt Disney was born, 100 years ago this month; on the same day German physicist Werner Heisenberg was born, as was U.S. soprano Grace Moore, a centennial tri-fecta.

Dec. 10, 1901: The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, to Jean Henri Dunant (the Swiss-born founder of the International Red Cross, back in the 1860s).

On Dec. 11, 1901: Marchese Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) sent a radio signal from an antenna in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada, 2,232 miles away. This news "electrified" the world. (Previously, scientists argued that the curvature of the earth would limit the transmission of any radio waves to a mere 100 to 200 mile radius.) Marconi's native Italy did not appreciate his wireless radio, so he had to go to the British government to help him keep working on this revolutionary technology.

25 years ago, on Dec. 10, 1976, Americans swept all of the Nobel Prizes except the Peace Prize. Most notable for conservatives, economist Milton Friedman won the Economics Nobel prize.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Dec 3, 2001
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