On This Day January 1

Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean is the most remote island in the world. It was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier on January 1, 1739 (see picture below). The nearest land is the uninhabited Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, over 1,600 km (994 mi) away to the south. The nearest inhabited lands are Tristan da Cunha, 2,260 km (1,404 mi) away and South Africa, 2,580 km (1,603 mi) away.

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On This Day December 31

Thomas Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31 1879, in Menlo Park. British chemist Joseph Swan had already invented the lamp but Edison wanted to produce a longer lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on the electric light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding a carbonized bamboo fiber that remained lit for over 1,000 hours in a vacuum.

"Edison Lightbulb Museum of Letters and Manuscripts" by Tieum512 

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On This Day December 30

When Frank Sinatra opened at New York's Paramount Theatre on December 30, 1942, he was dubbed "The Sultan of Swoon," as teen girls screamed and cried. Sinatra became the idol of "bobbysoxer" teenage fans everywhere, culminating in the "Columbus Day Riot" of 1944, when 35,000 teenage girls mobbed the New York Paramount to see him sing.

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On This Day December 29

Edmond Audran (1840-1901) was a church organist in the French city of Marseilles who also wrote comic operas. He penned a popular comic operetta about a country girl whose extraordinary good fortune could not be due to mere chance but must have been caused by some supernatural agent. Titled La Mascotte, it premiered on December 29, 1880. Translated into English as The Mascot, it introduced into the English language "mascot," a word for any animal, person, or object that brings good luck.

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On This Day December 28

In 1836 a fleet of eight ships under John Hindmarsh, first Governor of South Australia, camped at Holdfast Bay. South Australia was officially proclaimed as a new British colony on December 28, 1836, near The Old Gum Tree in what is now the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg North.

European settlers with Aborigines, 1850

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On This Day December 27

The Cave of Swallows in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico is the largest known cave shaft in the world. The floor of the cave is a 1092 feet (333-meter)) freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter (1,214 ft) drop from the highest side. The first documented exploration was on December 27, 1966 by T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns.

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On This Day December 26

The modern parachute was invented by French chemist and physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand. His intended use for the parachute was to help entrapped occupants of a burning building to escape unharmed. Lenormand used his 14-foot contraption with a rigid wooden frame to make the first recorded public parachute jump, when he leaped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, in France, on December 26, 1783.

Lenormand jumps from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, Wikipedia

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On This Day December 25

Clovis I, King of the Franks, was converted to Christianity, the first barbarian chief of any importance to convert to orthodox Christianity, rather the Arian religion. He was baptized into the Catholic faith on Christmas Day 496, along with his 3,000 strong army at Reims Cathedral. The Bishop Remigius of Rheims declared to him, "bow thy head, proud Frank: adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored."

Clovis roi des Francs by François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844) Wikipedia

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On This Day December 24

During World War I there was an unofficial Christmas truce between British and German troops demonstrating the power for good that is inherent in the season. The truce began on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, when the two sides shouted Christmas greetings to each other and as word spread men from both sides of the Western Front ventured into no man's land to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs.

Christmas Truce By A. C. Michael - The Guardian

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On This Day December 23

On December 23, 1888, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh's painting companion, threatened to leave him alone to spend a hard winter in Arles. In retaliation, the tortured Dutchman came at the French artist with an open razor. He was stopped by Gauguin, but instead cut off part of his own left earlobe. The incident led to Van Gogh's painting Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, which was sold privately in the late 1990s for an estimated US$80/$90 million.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

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On This Day December 22

Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was arrested with 33 others in April 1849 as a Social Revolutionary, after a police informer had slipped into his socialist discussion groups. Originally he was sentenced to be executed on December 22, 1849. At the stake in front of the squad he was told his sentence was a joke and he was to be sent to Siberia for four years instead.  Dostoyevsky was incarcerated at a penal settlement where they were packed in "like herrings in a barrel."

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

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On This Day December 21

96 days after the Mayflower Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, they landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. The Pilgrims established there the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. It's now thought that 12 per cent of all modern day Americans are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall 1882

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