Political theory and practice

45 B.C. In Rome 1 January became the first day of the calendar year with the adoption of the Julian Calendar based on the solar year. Prior to that the New Year had been marked on 1 March. It had been commissioned by Julius Caesar. John Maddox Roberts tells this story through a krimi in’ The Year of Confusion (SPQR XIII).’

1863 In Nebraska farmer Daniel Freeman submitted the first claim under the new Homestead Act for a property near Beatrice. The act opened the West and immigrants followed. The Act gave land to those who would improve it by the mixture of their labour. Sounds like John Locke.

1892 In New York City harbour fifteen-year old Annie Moore from Ireland became the first of the more than twelve million immigrants who passed through the Ellis Island Immigration Station in its sixty-two years of operation. Kate paid it a visit once upon a time. See the discussion of the film ‘Brother from Another Planet’ (1984) elsewhere on this blog for an update on Ellis Island.
1901 In Melbourne the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. Tom Roberts was commissioned to paint the scene and below he is at work.

1962 In London the Beatles auditioned for Decca Records, but the company instead signed Brian Poole & the Tremeloes. The executive who made this call no doubt paid himself a bonus.

1660 In London Queen Elizabeth I granted a Royal Charter to the Company of Merchants of London Trading with the East Indies, later know as the East India Company with its own navy and army it became a law unto itself while providing sinecures to James and John Stuart Mill to write their books.

1879 In Honolulu the cornerstone was laid for the Iolani Palace which was the only royal palace in the United States. We have been through it. Jack Lord used to be there in Hawaii 5-Oh.

1929 In Montréal Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians played “Auld Lang Syne” as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time. The group originated in London, Ontario. Been there and Montréal, too..

1935 In Chicago Charles Darrow was granted United States patent 2,026,082 for the board game Monopoly. Play money was a big hit when there was so little of the real thing to go around in the Great Depression. It was such a success that it crossed the Atlantic in the following year. The poster below marketed the game in England in 1936. Played it more than once.

1999 The millennium observed around the world, while pedants declaimed it would be at the end of 2000. Despite the hype, the bug did not show.

1853 In Mexico City the coercive Gadsden Purchase, or Gadsden Treaty, was concluded. It was the last piece of territorial USA brought under the flag.

1916 In Saint Petersburg Grigori Rasputin, a self-styled Russian holy man, was murdered by Russian nobles eager to end his sway over the royal family. We have been the room where the deed was started but not done.

1922 Moscow: The USSR established in a ceremony in Bolshoi Theatre comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation. We saw a ballet at the Bolshoi and this plaque on the wall of the building.

1936 In Flint Michigan members of the United Auto Workers staged the first sit-down strike on history at the Fisher Body Plant. They said the idea came from Mahatma Gandhi in India.

2011 In the South Pacific Ocean several island natons changed time zone and moved west of the international dateline to align the time zone with trading partners, Australia and New Zealand. In doing so, they skipped December 30 and moved directly from December 29 to December 31. The line in the picture below used to be straight. There must be a backstory about moving that line. Who manages the world’s time zones? And how is it done?

1170 Canterbury England Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral to please King Henry II. Plays by T. S. Eliot and Jean Anouilh brought this story back to light .

1851 In Boston the first chapter of the YMCA was formed. Pictured below is the Boston ‘Y’ I frequented in 1979-1980 when a visiting fellow at Harvard.

1890 The massacre at Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge in South Dakota occurred. Been there and I have the dream catchers over my iMacs to prove it. The Sioux I bought them from assured me they were made by his wife and not in a factory in China. He volunteered this; I did not ask.

1967 On television the Star Trek episode ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’ aired with Mr Pomfritt, third from the left.

1969 Curt Flood’s lawyers surrounded that he would challenge Major League Baseball’s reserve clause and return to accept his trade to Philadelphia. His subsequent victory re-made all professional sports. Every player since then owes him a lot.

1065 In London Westminster Abbey was consecrated. Still there. Seen it and the long lines of visitors waiting in the rain to enter but have never done so myself.

1836 In Adelaide the Acting Governor read a proclamation creating the colony of South Australia. The first and only Australian colony founded by free settlers, many of them from German-speaking Europe.

1869 In Philadelphia the Knights of Labor, a labor union of tailors, held the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. This was a forerunner of Labor Day. Why is not one of the Philadelphia sports teams called The Tailors? Answer me that!

1895 In Paris the world’s first commercial movie screening took place at the Grand Cafe. For a fee the Lumière brothers screened a series of short scenes from everyday life.

1973 In Paris Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ in Russian. It put paid to Western apologist for the Soviet Union in documenting the persistence, severity, extent, and depravity of the slave system. These apologist told us that the Gulag went with the death of Stalin. Powerful. It is depressing to realise that at the same time there were comfortable intellectuals in Paris, London, and Sydney espousing the moral equivalence of the USA and USSR while never missing a meal. No mea maxima culpas have ever been heard. We went to the Gulag Museum in Moscow. Grim. The curator who showed us around had been a victim. The map below of gulags below shows the extent at the time Solzhenitsyn published.

1652 In London Charles II suppressed coffee houses because of the “scandalous papers, books and libels from being read in them” and to prevent the freedom of speech or the right to express dissatisfaction with the government in the houses. It was rescinded in a fortnight when it elicited in equal measures ridicule and disbelief.

1780 In Victoria Buckley’s chance was taken when convict William Buckley, recently arrived, escaped into the bush. He lived 32 years among the Wathaurong people on the Mornington Peninsula. He became a peacemaker between the aborigines and European settlers and was pardoned to become a civil servant.

1900 In Wichita Kansas Carry Nation smashed up the bar at the elegant Carey Hotel. She had abandoned the nonviolent agitation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union for direct action — “hatchetation.” Since the Kansas Constitution prohibited alcohol, Nation argued that destroying saloons was an acceptable means for citizens to enforce the law when established authorities would not do so.

1904 In London ‘Peter Pan,’ by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London. Do you believe? Still playing in some form somewhere right now.

1945 In D.C. International Monetary Fund was established by twenty-nine member countries. It has done much to bring stability to the world’s finance.

1606 At Whitehall London King Lear was performed at the court of King James I. It had been written in the previous twelve months. I have seen it performed many times. Most productions mangle the politics by omitting scenes and lines that indicate Lear had a plan, and only when it was foiled and he lost control of the situation did he become erratic.

1919 The Boston Red Sox committed original sin by selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, and suffered ever after. Only expiated in 2004; saw it, did not believe it. Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee had predicted it would a hundred years but he meant 2019. He missed by fifteen years. That’s close enough for a junk baller. In any event it was the hundredth World Series so he numerology was right.

1931 George Gershwin’s musical, “Of Thee I Sing,” opened in New York City. It became the first American musical to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Daughter Julie sang in this at the Sydney Opera House.

1945 The first Sydney to Hobart yacht race occurred. In the first instance it was a sailing club with nine craft, but it soon became a competition ‘to make it more interesting’. It has been a boon to Hobart’s tourist business. The spectacle on Sydney Harbour is a sight to see. At Hobart the survivors are usually a bedraggled lot which does not look so good.

1982 Time magazine made the Personal Computer its ‘Man of the Year.’ The first time a person was not name for this distinction. Started to use my first one in the office about 1988 when I rolled one recently delivered from the hallway into my office. That was the method by which resources were allocated in those days.