Quiz: Sword & Fantasy stories since Robert Howard created Conan spoke of lands called Thule or Ultima Thule. Did such a place ever exist?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Who was Zoroaster?
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History for 12/25/2023 Christmas Day

Birthdays: (observed) Emanuel Ben Joseph or Yesuah. Called in Greek Jesus the Christ, 6-4 BC (est)

Other Birthdays: Sir Isaac Newton, Clara Barton, Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Helena Rubinstein, Rod Serling, Charles Pathe’, Jimmie Buffet, Quentin Crisp, Mike Mazurki, Conrad Hilton- Paris’ granddad, Anwar El Sadat. Larry Csonka, Burne Hogarth, Ishmail Merchant, Maurice Utrillo, Kid Ory, Barbara Mandrell, Dame Rebecca West, Clark Clifford, Annie Lennox is 69, Sissie Spacek is 74, CCH Pounder is 71, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, animator Howard Beckerman is 93.

Today is Constitution Day in Republic of China/Taiwan, and
Taisho Tenno-Sai (Anniversary of Death of Emperor Taisho) in Japan

272 A.D. To the Ancient Romans this date was the feast day of SOL INVICTUS, the "Invincible Sun", a hybrid religion popular just before Christianity that attempted an early form of monotheism, worship of the sun. The Roman Emperor Constantine, whose conversion lifted the ban on Christianity, was originally a devotee.

495 A.D.- Clovis, first King of the Franks (French), was baptized. St. Remi said while pouring the Holy water on the old barbarian's head:" Kneel Sicambrian, and Adore what thou once had Burned: and Burn what thou once hath Adored."

800AD- In old Saint Peters Basilica in Rome, Charlemagne knelt in prayer with Pope Leo III celebrating the Christmas feast. The King of the Franks had just come over the Alps to defeat the threat to the Vatican from the Lombards. During the service, Pope Leo whipped out a big jeweled crown and plopped it on Charlemagne’s head. The audience cried out three times in unison the ancient formula: "HAIL CHARLES THE AUGUSTUS, CROWNED BY GOD, THE GREAT EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS!" Charles had said he did not want the Imperial crown and was surprised, but nobody believed such an important step was taken without his prior knowledge. Charlemagne ruled a European Empire almost as large as the Old Roman Empire, from Spain to Hungary, and Denmark to Sicily.
They called it the Holy Roman Empire, although as Voltaire once observed, it wasn’t Roman, wasn’t much of an empire, and wasn’t very holy either…

885- Pope Gregory I formalized what Christians had already been doing for 500 years, namely celebrating the birth festival of Jesus or "Christ’s Mass", on December 25th.

1066- After the great victory of Hastings William the Conqueror had himself crowned King of England in London. Outside, when his nervous Norman knights heard the loud shouts of celebration, they mistook them for a Saxon uprising, drew their swords and attacked the crowd. They slaughtered many and burned down most of the neighborhood around Westminster Abbey.

1428- During the Hundred Years War, at the siege of the city of Orleans, a six hour truce was declared for Christmas. English warlords Sir William Gladsdale and Sir John Talbot expressed a wish to hear French music, so a band of French trumpeters serenaded them from the city walls.

1497-Natal South Africa discovered by Vasco da Gama. It was called Natal because it was discovered on Christmas.

1541- After the Christmas services, Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment was unveiled, done for the Altar wall of the Sistine Chapel beneath his famous ceiling.

1734- Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio first performed at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Bach pioneered writing sacred music in German instead of Latin or Italian.

1745- The Treaty of Dresden between Prussia and Austria.

1758- HALLEY’S COMET- Sixteen years after his death, the comet Sir Edmund Halley had predicted showed up right on schedule. This event was seen as significant because for centuries the random unexplained appearance of a fiery torch in the sky seemed to be a direct Tweet from God himself. Halley proved once and for all that comets were not supernatural omens of Fate. That they had an erratic orbit but were otherwise natural phenomena. Halley's Comet appeared last in 1986, and is scheduled to return in 2061.

1776- WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE- The British army kicked George Washington's rebel ass out of New York and chased them across New Jersey. The British Navy controlled the coastline. Washington had lost every battle, lost Americas’ largest city and was about to lose his capitol. From 23,000 men in July, he now had just 4,000 cold, sulky scarecrows left. And now the soldier’s 6-month enlistments were up! Who would re-up with a defeated shambles of an army? Washington wrote his family advising them to flee to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The American Revolution was in danger of complete disintegration.
Washington knew he had to do something fast or else it was all over. He drew a line in the snow, and begged the men for one more battle, appealing to their patriotism and the great cause of independence. The response was only a few men crossed the line to volunteer. Frustrated, Washington gave a second speech, the contents of which are hidden from history but eyewitnesses said was more to the point: Swearing, You just can’t wage war against the king and then go home! Followed by descriptions of how they would all hang, kept alive long enough to see their wives and daughters gang-raped by soldiers, etc. This time more men crossed the line.

Washington spent this night ferrying his men across the Delaware at McKonkey’s Ferry to attack a Hessian regiment in their Christmas beds. The boatmen were all from one town, Marblehead Mass, under their Quaker leader John Glover.

The famous painting, Emmanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" was painted in Dusseldorf Germany in 1894. The painter omitted details like Washington sat all the way across, and there were two black men in the boat, Oliver Cromwell, the ships pilot, and Washington's personal bodyguard William Wallace.

1815- At a Christmas concert in Vienna, Beethoven premiered his NameDay Overture.

1836- According to the novel Moby Dick, today is the day the Pequod set sail from Natucket.

1855- Ice hockey first played in North America at Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

1868- President Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean who filled in for the murdered Abraham Lincoln and now a lame duck after losing reelection to war hero General Grant, declared a general amnesty from prosecution for all Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. He was planning to issue this pardon in February, remember then the Inauguration wasn’t until March, but the treason trial of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis was being urged in the courts. Johnson moved up the pardon because many were worried a smart lawyer like Davis would use the platform of a trial to prove there was indeed a constitutional basis for the Southern states seceding the union.

1869- In Towash Texas, John Wesley Hardin went into town for a friendly game of cards. He quarreled over the game with a man named Bradley. The two went out into the street to shoot it out in classic gunfighter style. Bradley’s shot missed. Hardin drilled him dead. John Wesley Hardin isn’t as well known as Jesses James or Wyatt Earp, but he was one of the deadliest gunfighters of the west. His business card read J. Wesley Hardin, Shootist.

1870- Siegfried Idyll, written by Richard Wagner as a birthday gift to his wife Cosima, was first performed by a small ensemble outside her door as she awoke this morning at their home in Lucerne Switzerland.

1914- During World War I, German and Scottish soldiers facing each other across the Western Front held a spontaneous Christmas truce. After midnight the German guns ceased and the sounds of Christmas Carols drifted over the barbed wire. The British and French responded with serenades from their regimental bands. At dawn without any official sanction or orders the soldiers of both sides came out of their trenches. In the middle of No-Man's Land they exchanged laughter, schnapps, scotch, tobacco and even played a good-natured soccer game. Next morning the killing resumed, and the officers who allowed the fraternization were reprimanded.

1917-"Why Marry?" by Jesse Lynch Williams opened. The first play to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1927- Japanese Emperor Hirohito crowned.

1929- The Fox Atlanta Theater opened on Peachtree St. An Arabian Nights-type fantasy in part financed by the Shriners so they could use it for their meetings.

1931-The first BBC World Service broadcast. An address by King George V called "Around the Empire". Written by Rudyard Kipling.

1937-NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Arturo Toscanini premieres with its first radio broadcast. In 1975, their studio space, Studio 8H, became the stage of Saturday Night Live.

1940- Rogers & Hart’s musical Pal Joey opened on Broadway. It made a star out of a young dancer named Gene Kelly.

1946- Comedian W.C. Fields died of alcoholism at age 67. While in his hospital bed someone saw him reading a Bible. They said:" W.C., what are you doing with that? " Fields replied:" Looking for loopholes!"

1957- Disney film Old Yeller premiered.

1962- The film of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird premiered with Gregory Peck, Brock Peters, and Robert Duval.

1963- Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone released. First animated feature solely directed by Wolfgang,” Woolie” Reitherman.

1977- Charlie Chaplin died quietly in his sleep at Vevey, Switzerland. He was 86.

1980- Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns finished reading Simon Schaara’s novel about the Battle of Gettysburg called The Killer Angels. He told his father he was inspired to make a documentary about the Civil War. The Civil War took six years to make and ran in 1990, but it was one of the most popular documentary films in the US and redefined the medium of documentary filmmaking.

1989- Romanian Communist dictator Nicholai Cercescu and his wife were executed on live television. Cercescu ran the last mad-Stalinist tyranny in Eastern Europe. Madame Cercescu, unrepentant, bellowed defiance at the cameras as they were stood up against the wall. They were so hated, that the presiding officer barely had time to get out of the way of the firing squad and say "Ready…Aim…" before the troops started shooting. Instead of being given one round each with the Unknown Blank Cartridge, the men had asked for extra clips. The death penalty was abolished in Romania immediately afterwards.

1989- Bad-tempered NY Yankees baseball manager Billy Martin died in a car accident (DUI).

1991- Premier Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the USSR or Soviet Union, ceased to exist. In its place is the Confederation of Independent States led by the Federation of Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

1993-The release of the animated "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm," not only arguably the best Batman animated film, but some say one of the best Batman feature films of any kind.

1998- Fidel Castro allowed the resumption of Christmas celebrations in Cuba, outlawed since 1960.

1999- Galaxy Quest opened. Spoof of Star Trek with Tim Allen, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver.

2020- Pixar’s film Soul premiered.

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Yesterday’s Question: Who was Zoroaster?

Answer: Zoroaster (aka: Zarathustra) was an ancient Persian prophet whose teaching are the basic for Zoroastrianism, which is now considered the oldest organized religion in history. It is the first religion that had a monotheistic orientation and is still practiced today.