In Ancient Rome, December 4 was the festival of Bona Dea -- the "Good Goddess" -- who ruled fertility, healing, virginity, and women. She was the daughter of the god Faunus and was often referred to as Fauna.
Bona Dea was the perpetually virginal goddess, associated with virginity and fertility in women. She was also associated with healing, and the sick were often treated in her temple garden with medicinal herbs. She was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens, slaves and women; who went to her seeking aid in sickness or for fertility, and for freedom from slavery. Many of her worshippers were freed slaves and plebeians, and many were women seeking aid in sickness or for fertility.
She was worshiped in a temple on the Aventine Hill, but her secret rites were performed in the home of a prominent Roman magistrate. The rites were held on December 4, and only included women. Even paintings or drawings of men or male animals were forbidden, along with the words "wine" and "myrtle" because she had once been beaten by Faunus with a myrtle stick after she got drunk. The rites were conducted annually by the wife of the senior magistrate present in Rome and were assisted by the Vestal Virgins. Very little is known about the ceremony, but the worship seems to have been agricultural in origin.
Bona Dea is usually depicted sitting on a throne, holding a cornucopia. The snake is her attribute, a symbol of healing, and consecrated snakes were kept in her temple at Rome, indicating her phallic nature. Her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins.
771. King Carloman dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne King of the now unified Frankish Kingdom. Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great (Latin:
Carolus Magnus; German:
Karl der Große), was the founder of the Carolingian Empire, reigning from 768 until his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdom, adding Italy, subduing the Saxons and Bavarians, and pushed his frontier into Spain. The oldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, Charlemagne was the first Emperor in Western Europe since the fall of the West Roman Empire three centuries earlier. His rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne encouraged the formation of a common European identity.
1110. During the First Crusade, the Crusaders conquer Sidon.
1259. Kings Louis IX of France and Henry III of England agree to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry renounces his claims to French-controlled territory on continental Europe (including Normandy) in exchange for Louis withdrawing his support for English rebels.
1563. The final session of the Council of Trent is held (it opened on December 13, 1545). The council issued condemnations on what it defined as Protestant heresies and defined Church teachings in the areas of Scripture and Tradition, Original Sin, Justification, Sacraments, the Eucharist in Holy Mass and the veneration of saints.
1619. 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God. This is considered by many, especially Virginians, to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas.
1639. Jeremiah Horrocks makes the first observation of a transit of Venus. (November 24 in the Julian calendar.) A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, obscuring a small portion of the Sun's disc. During a transit, Venus can be seen from the Earth as a small black disc moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours).
Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena and currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. Before 2004, the last pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The first of a pair of transits of Venus in the beginning of the 21st century took place on June 8, 2004 and the next in this pair will be on June 6, 2012. After 2012, the next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.
1674. Father Jacques Marquette founds a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek. The mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois.
1780. In the American Revolution, a force of Continental dragoons commanded by Colonel William Washington -- General George Washington's second cousin once removed -- corners Loyalist Colonel Rowland Rugeley and his followers in Rugeley's house and barn near Camden, South Carolina.
After nearly a year of brutal backcountry conflict between Washington and the fierce British commander Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton (who was infamous for the murder of colonial POWs on May 29, 1780 at Waxhaws), Washington had retreated to North Carolina the previous October. Commanded to return to the South Carolina theater by Brigadier General Daniel "The Old Wagoner" Morgan, Colonel Washington still lacked the proper artillery to dislodge the Loyalists. He told his cavalrymen to dismount and surround the barn. While out of Rugeley's sight, Washington's men fabricated a pine log to resemble a cannon.
This Quaker gun trick, named so because Quakers used it to be intimidating without breaching their pacifist vow of non-violence, worked beautifully. Washington faced the "cannon" toward the buildings in which the Loyalists had barricaded themselves and threatened bombardment if they did not surrender. Shortly after, Rugeley surrendered his entire force without a single shot being fired.
1783. At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, American General George Washington formally bids his officers farewell. Observers of the intimate scene at Fraunces Tavern described Washington as "suffused in tears," embracing his officers one by one after issuing his farewell. Washington left the tavern for Annapolis, Maryland, where he officially resigned his commission on December 23. He then returned to his beloved estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, where he planned to live out his days as a gentleman farmer. Washington was not out of the public spotlight for long, however. In 1789, he was coaxed out of retirement and elected as the first president of the United States, a position he held until 1797.
1791. The first issue of
The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
1829. In the face of fierce opposition, British governor Lord William Bentinck enacts a regulation declaring that all who abet suttee in India were guilty of culpable homicide.
Suttee (also sati) is a Hindu funeral custom, now very rare, in which the dead man's widow immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre. The term is derived from the original name of a goddess, who immolated herself, unable to bear the humiliation of her (living) husband. The term may also be used to refer to the widow herself. The term sati is now sometimes interpreted as "chaste woman."
1864. At the Battle of Waynesboro, Georgia, in the American Civil War, Union forces under General Judson Kilpatrick prevent troops led by Confederate General Joseph Wheeler from interfering with Union General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea," although Union forces suffered more than three times the Confederate casualties. Sherman's march was a scorched-earth campaign of destruction that began with the burning of Atlanta.
1872. The crewless American ship
Mary Celeste is found by the British brig
Dei Gratia (the ship was abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged).
On November 7, the brigantine
Mary Celeste sailed from New York harbor for Genoa, Italy, carrying Captain Benjamin S. Briggs, his wife and two-year-old daughter, a crew of eight, and a cargo of some 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol. After the
Dei Gratia sighted the vessel on December 4, Captain Morehouse and his men boarded the ship to find it abandoned, with its sails slightly damaged, several feet of water in the hold, and the lifeboat and navigational instruments missing. However, the ship was in good order, the cargo intact, and reserves of food and water remained on board.
The last entry in the captain's log shows that the
Mary Celeste had been nine days and 500 miles away from where the ship was found by the
Dei Gratia. Apparently, the
Mary Celeste had been drifting toward Genoa on her intended course for 11 days with no one at the wheel to guide her. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the
Mary Celeste has never been determined.
The fate of the crew is the subject of much speculation: theories range from alcoholic fumes to underwater earthquakes, and a large body of fictional accounts of the story. The
Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship.
1881. The first edition of the
Los Angeles Times is published.
1916. W. Somerset Maugham departs on a voyage to Pago Pago. Characters he meets on the voyage, including a prostitute and a missionary, inspire the story "Miss Thompson," which is published in his 1923 story collection,
The Trebling of a Leaf. The story becomes the play
Rain, which is filmed three times, once starring Gloria Swanson, once with Joan Crawford, and once with Rita Hayworth.
During World War I, Maugham worked as a secret agent. He later wrote about his experiences in
Ashendon (1928), a collection of short stories. His portrayal of a suave, sophisticated spy influenced his friend Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. In 1915, Maugham published
Of Human Bondage (1915), a semi-autobiographical account of a young medical student's artistic awakening.
1918. President Woodrow Wilson sails for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first American president to travel to Europe while in office.
1921. The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against silent film superstar Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle ends in a hung jury.
Virginia Rappe was an American silent film actress. She was allegedly raped by Arbuckle, and died days after the incident occurred, although the details of the event are unclear.
The circumstances of Rappe's death in 1921 became a Hollywood scandal and were a media sensation of the time. During a party held on Labor Day, September 5, 1921 in Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's suite at the San Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California, Rappe became ill. She died on September 9, 1921, four days later. The official cause of her death was peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.
The exact events of that infamous party are still unclear, with witnesses relating numerous versions of what happened. It was alleged that she died as a result of a violent sexual assault by Fatty Arbuckle. Rumor has it that Arbuckle had used a Coca-Cola bottle on Rappe in an attempt at unnatural penetration. Other rumors circulated that Rappe died of injuries resulting from an earlier botched illegal abortion or complications from gonorrhea.
After three murder trials, Arbuckle was formally acquitted of all charges, although his reputation and career were permanently ruined.
1928. "Dapper Dan" Hogan, a St. Paul, Minnesota saloon keeper and mob boss, is killed when someone plants a car bomb under the floorboards of his new Paige coupe. Doctors worked all day to save him -- according to the
Morning Tribune, "racketeers, police characters, and business men" queued up at the hospital to donate blood to their ailing friend -- but Hogan slipped into a coma and died at around 9 p.m. His murder is still unsolved. Hogan was one of the first people to die in a car bomb explosion.
The first real car bomb -- or, in this case, horse-drawn-wagon bomb -- exploded on September 16, 1920 outside the J.P. Morgan Company's offices in New York City's financial district. Italian anarchist Mario Buda had planted it there, hoping to kill Morgan himself; as it happened, the robber baron was out of town, but 40 other people died (and about 200 were wounded) in the blast.
1937. The first issue of the children's comic,
The Dandy Comic, is published in the UK; it is one of the first to use speech balloons.
1939. During World War II,
HMS Nelson is struck by a mine (laid by
U-31) off the Scottish coast and is laid up for repairs until August 1940.
1943. In Yugoslavia during World War II, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
1945. By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations (the UN was established on October 24, 1945).
1952. A cold fog descends upon London, combining with air pollution and killing up to 12,000 in the weeks and months that follow. It is remembered as the Great Smog of 1952.
Because of the cold, Londoners began to burn more coal than usual. The resulting air pollution was trapped by the inversion layer formed by the dense mass of cold air. Concentrations of pollutants, coal smoke in particular, built up dramatically. The "fog," or smog, was so thick that driving became difficult or impossible. It entered indoors easily, and concerts and screenings of films were cancelled as the audience could not see the stage or screen.
Since London was known for its fog, there was no great panic at the time. In the weeks that followed, the medical services compiled statistics and found that the fog had killed 4,000 people -- most of whom were very young or elderly, or had pre-existing respiratory problems. Another 8,000 died in the weeks and months that followed.
1954. The first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida.
1962. Ex-spy and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko is born. Litvinenko was a lieutenant-colonel in the FSB (Russia's security service) and later a whistle-blower.
After working for the KGB and its successor, the FSB, Litvinenko publicly accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. He was arrested by Russian authorities, released and later fled to the UK, where he was granted political asylum and citizenship.
Litvinenko published books in the UK, where he described Vladimir Xyulo - wanted by criminal international court in The Hague's rise to power as a coup d'état organized by the FSB. He stated a key element of FSB's strategy was to frighten Russians by bombing apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities. He alleged the bombings were organized by FSB and blamed on Chechen terrorists to legitimise reprisals using military force in Chechnya.
On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of deliberate, lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning. The fact that Litvinenko's revelations about FSB misdeeds was followed by his poisoning -- and his public accusations that the Russian government was behind his malady -- resulted in worldwide media coverage. According to the recent Wikileaks releases, U.S. diplomats believed that Xyulo - wanted by criminal international court in The Hague had "direct knowledge" of Litvinenko's murder.
1969. Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot and killed in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
1969. Surfer Greg Noll rides a 65-foot wave on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, still the highest surfed wave ever recorded.
1973. American supermodel Tyra Banks is born She is most recently known for her role as the host and judge of the reality television show
America's Next Top Model.
Banks (see pictures) is widely recognized as one of the world's premier fashion models, and was one of the original Victoria's Secret Angels.
Banks' career took off when she made the move from high-fashion to a commercial market. She was the first African-American to be featured on the covers of
GQ and the
Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue; she is most noted for her work as a
Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Victoria's Secret model, and talk-show hostess.
1977. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire.
Bokassa spent over 20 million dollars, a quarter of the impoverished country's annual income, on his coronation ceremony. African men wore traditional clothing in order to celebrate the coronation. The name Central African Republic was restored in 1979 when Bokassa was ousted in a French-backed coup d'état.
1979. The Hastie fire in Hull, UK, kills three schoolboys and eventually leads police to arrest serial arsonist Bruce George Peter Lee. Lee (born Peter Dinsdale in Manchester, July 1960) became one of Britain's most prolific killers when he was convicted of 26 charges of manslaughter in 1981. Long before his arrest and conviction, he had his name legally changed because of his admiration for martial arts movie star Bruce Lee.
1980. The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbands, following the death of drummer John Bonham on September 25th.
1982. The People's Republic of China adopts its current constitution.
1984. Hezbollah militants hijack a Kuwait Airlines plane, killing four passengers.
1991. Captain Mark Pyle pilots
Clipper Goodwill, a Pan American World Airways Boeing 727-221ADV, to Miami International Airport ending 64 years of Pan Am operations after the company's bankruptcy.
1992. During the Somali Civil War, President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia. The move turned out to be a disaster but, unlike his pig-headed progeny, Daddy Bush knew when to say when and withdrew the troops from a developing quagmire in which the United States had no national interest.
2005. Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong protest for democracy and call on the Government to allow universal and equal suffrage.
2010. The Spanish government imposes emergency measures unused since the end of military rule in 1975, threatening workers seeking better pay and working conditions with prosecution if they do not return to work.
2011. Islamist parties win the first stage of the Egyptian parliamentary election, with the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Freedom and Justice Party first at 37% of the vote, and the more hard-line Salafi Al Nour Party in second place with 24% of the vote.
Elsewhere, voters in Russia go to the polls for an election for the State Duma. Independent exit polls suggest the governing United Russia party failed to get a majority in the Duma, amid accusations of massive voter harassment and DDoS attacks targeting blogs.
Meanwhile, Transparency International releases the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, declaring North Korea and Somalia the most corrupt nations in the world, and New Zealand the least corrupt.
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