December 26 The first day of the first Kwanzaa is celebrated in Los Angeles under the direction of Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University in Long Beach. The seven-day holiday, which has strong African roots, was designed by Dr. Karenga as a celebration of African
The year is 1574 and the Hotel de Sens in Paris is welcoming Christmas guests. It was where the great lords of the Church lived and they seemed to have been, almost without exception, a rascally lot. The Cardinal of Lorrraine lived here. Some historians insist that Henry IV’s death
December 19 An explosion in the Darr Mine in Westmoreland County, Pa., kills 239 coal-miners. Seventy-one of the dead share a common grave in Olive Branch Cemetery. December 1907 was the worst month in U.S. coal-mining history, with more than 3,000 deaths. – 1907. After nearly 14 hours of debate,
Ben Franklin was a Founding Father and in his 84-year old life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of the United States which were the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of
Honoring the late-Victorian period of the Tanner House Museum, the Aurora Historical Society (AHS) has bestowed its holiday season Victoria award on two rooms this year, decorated by Michael Bryant and Kevin and Rachel Rose Bee. The honor, given for the first time last year, recognizes rooms that capture some
December 12 More than two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence. Peruggia previously had worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group
Imagine three Celtic artist monks, secluded in the scriptorium of Iona, or in eastern Scotland, or in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath, Ireland. They welcome in the year 800 A.D. in days filled with extraordinary artistry and commitment. The Book is written on prepared calfskin (vellum) and contains
In 1937, Mr. William Randolph Hearst, newspaper-publishing tycoon, appeared before a committee of the U.S. Congress and requested that it introduce a bill prohibiting the growing, selling, and distribution of hemp. He was very disingenuous in his arguments because the hemp plant produced cannabis, a.k.a marijuana, which, he claimed, was
December 5 A fire at the Brooklyn Theater in New York City kills nearly 300 individuals and injures hundreds more. Some victims perished from a combination of burns and smoke inhalation; others were trampled to death in the general panic that ensued. – 1876. Unionists John T. McNamara and James
The holidays are a great time to remember family traditions and celebrations of the past. Older residents of Montgomery remember the days when Santa Claus rode through town on a sleigh and delivered packages containing candy, fruit, and nuts to all the children. This tradition was started by the Montgomery
Many thousands of years ago, Memphis and its area was settled by indigenous peoples. By the 17th Century, the Chickasaw Indians migrated to the Memphis area. The European-American city was founded in 1819 and incorporated in 1826. Cotton was king and large plantations developed on the work of enslaved Africans.
November 28 After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America, that now bear his name, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific Ocean with three ships to become the first European explorer to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic. – 1520. Frank Duryea wins the first motor-car race in
It was November 22, 1963. The world as Americans knew it was about to change. It began as a Sun-filled Autumn day in Dallas, Texas. The crowds were enthusiastic in welcoming president John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy. The motorcade proceeded slowly through the Dallas streets. No one could imagine
November 21 The American inventor Thomas A. Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a way to record and play back sound. – 1877. A Senate committee issues a report charging that U.S. government officials were behind assassination plots against two foreign leaders and were heavily involved in at least
November 14 In Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government and urges his Muslim followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia, and Montenegro in World War I. – 1914. The Depression-era Public Works
Part two of the Stolp Avenue profile: The first part is available at thevoice.us/history-recalled-of-buildings-on-stolp-avenue-in-aurora This essay looks at Island Avenue in Aurora before it was amalgamated with Stolp Avenue in 1964. It must be noted that not only was this street the center of Aurora geographically, it was Aurora’s heart
November 7 U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term in office. FDR remains the only president to have served more than two terms. – 1944. November 8 U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt announces plans for the Civil Works Administration to create four million additional jobs
Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born at St. John’s Hospital New York, August 3, 1926. His father John was seriously ill at the time of his birth and within a year, his father was unable to work. His father died when Tony was 10 years old. “I grew up in poverty,”
There is something special in October’s air, and I don’t mean the snow flurries that have threatened and are on their way this week. There is something in the cool October breeze that speaks to a deep, ancient, part of us as humans. It was celebrated in the ancient Celtic
October 31 The priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic
