QUIZ: What is the new year in Roman numerals?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: Sometimes you’ll notice your coffee comes from the Kona coast. Where is the Kona coast located?
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History for New Years Eve 12/31/2023
Birthdays: Henri Matisse, General George C. Marshall, Odetta (real name Holmes Felicious Gordon), Simon Weisenthal, Virginia Davis, Pola Negri, Jules Styne, Sarah Miles, Donna Summer, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Arden, Tim Matheson, John Denver, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Psy, Ben Kingsley-born Khrishna Banji is 80, Anthony Hopkins is 86, Val Kilmer is 64, Gong Li is 58

192-193 A.D.- The Roman Emperor Commodus was assassinated. The natural son of the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius turned out to be just another sicko tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. This night during a wild New Years Party, he drunkenly challenged a top wrestler named Narcissus. Narcissus had been bribed by Commodus's Praetorian Prefect Laetus and head of the Imperial Household Eclectus. So instead of just pinning him down, Narcissus broke Commodus’ neck. Made for a great party.

314 AD-This was the Feast Day of Saint Sylvester, the Pope who baptized the Roman Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Legend is Sylvester miraculously cured Constantine of leprosy, and in reward Constantine gave the Roman Pontiff dominion over all the world. This Donation of Constantine was the philosophical reason the Pope in Rome became the supreme head of the Christian Church over any other bishop. In the 1440’s Italian scholar Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation story was a myth forged in the 700s by a Vatican clerk named Christophorous.

406AD- Huge hordes of Goths and allied German tribes, Seuvi, Alemanii, and Teutons, with all their families and belongings trudged across the frozen Rhine River and entered the frontier line of the Roman territory. This mass migration of barbarians was the signal of the beginning of the Fall of the Roman Empire. They reached the city of Rome four years later in 410, and the last emperor abdicated in 476. They later called it the Volkervanderung- The Wandering of the People.

1502- Renaissance Prince Caesar Borgia was besieging the Adriatic town of Senigalia. Caesar invited the enemy leaders Vitelli and Oliverotto to a conference with him at the Governors Palace. After dinner and drinks, Caesar had them garroted and their bodies dumped in the river. Machiavelli praised Caesar Borgia for ‘a most lovely ruse”.

1600- England starts thinking about India... Queen Elizabeth granted a charter for exploration to the Honorable East India Company.

1711- Queen Anne of England dismissed the Duke of Marlborough from command of the British Army and from all his cabinet and government posts. John Churchill the Duke of Marlborough was one of the greatest English soldiers, ranked with Wellington and Henry V. Yet, by now Queen Anne found him and his pushy wife Sarah annoying.

1772-3 THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. STRUENSEE-The King of Denmark, Christian VII was slowly devolving into insanity from syphilis. In 1770 he hired a doctor named Johann Freidrich Struensee to try to alleviate his pain. The good Doctor became more and more influential at the Danish Court as the king withdrew into seclusion. Struensee was made a count, and to top it all off he became the lover of the Queen!
Soon Count Dr. Struensee was ruling Denmark. In the name of Queen Caroline, he passed 1,000 acts of enlightened reform, updating the Danish civil service and outlawed torture. Finally the Royal Court couldn't stand being dictated to by a low born doctor anymore. At a New Years ball Struensee was arrested by order of the Queen Mother Juliana Maria. He was quickly tried and beheaded. The King's care devolved to several regents until his son took over after his death.
Queen Mum Juliana Maria said one of the greatest pleasures of her old age was looking out her window and watching the birds peck at the skull of Doctor Struensee.

1862- Battle of Stones River or Murfreesboro - Yankees and Confederates battle it out in the thick forests below Nashville. They then declare a days truce to celebrate New Years. Then they resume killing one another on Jan. 2nd.

1862- The U.S.S. Monitor, the little ship that fought the Merrimac in the first great duel of iron warships, sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras. Her inventor John Ericsson had boasted, 'the waves shall pass over her and she shall ride the sea like a duck', but in rough seas she sank like a rock. Twenty years ago the Monitor was found on the ocean floor. Bits have been brought up since 2002 and the entire turret is currently was reconstructed.

1862-3 - SLAVERY ENDED IN THE UNITED STATES- In a service at Boston's Music Hall Abolitionist leaders Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubmann, Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison sang 'Battle Hymn of the Republic" and celebrated midnight when the Emancipation Proclamation would officially take effect.

1879- Thomas Edison did a public demonstration of his new invention the Light Bulb. Special commuter trains brought people to Menlo Park New Jersey for the show.

1881- Los Angeles became the first U.S. city to be lit entirely by electricity.

1890- The new immigration facility on Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened.

1901-Los Angeles Angel's Flight cable tram opened. It closed down in the 1980's but was restored in 1996, then broke down a few years later.

1906-07- THE FIRST BALL DROPPING CEREMONY- Since the 1700s Newspaper services like Reuters and the London Times would post important headlines and on large signboard in front of their offices for businessmen on the street to see. Sometimes they would mark an important event like the death of a monarch by raising a flag, ringing a bell, or firing a cannon. Lowering a lantern was something ships in harbor did to synchronize their time keeping. The old Western Union building used to drop a ball at precisely noon for the same reason.
In 1905 The New York Times hosted a giant news years party from their new office tower at #1 Longacre Square, now renamed in their honor Times Square. Midnight was signaled to the crowd by the lowering of a lantern on its roof.
In 1907 an ironworker created a large ball covered with electric light bulbs that was lowered from a flagpole. The Ball-dropping ceremony was only interrupted twice in 1942 and 1943 for World War II blackouts. The Times Building was later sold and renamed the Allied Chemical Building, the Sony Building, Time/Warner, the Newsday building, and now One Time Square.

1911-12 Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected first President of the Republic of China, replacing the 256 year reign of the Manchu Dynasty. One of his first acts was to abolish the Chinese calendar and go on the western one for 1912. He then went to the Shrine of the Ming Emperors to tell their spirits that their enemies the Manchu had fallen. Dr Sen was a Methodist who no longer followed Chinese religious beliefs, but he was honoring a pledge to political allies.

1917- EUROPE DISCOVERED JAZZ- As the first American units entered Paris to help in World War I, the New York 15th Colored Regiment serenaded the city. The band of the 15th was made up of top Harlem jazz musicians led by bandleader James Europe. The French were amazed as the band performed ragtime riffs that only gradually they recognized as La Marseillaise and Le Marche Sambre et Meuse. Local musicians accused the Harlemites of using trick instruments since no one could make sounds like that. Lieutenant James Europe went on tour with the band and Europe the continent embraced the modern new sound.

1923-24-BBC overseas radio service first broadcast the Chimes of Big Ben around the world.

1929- New York's "21" Club opened as a speakeasy. Barkeep Jack Kramer opened the hangout at 21 west 52nd street. With a wine cellar hidden behind a two-foot thick stone wall door. The feds raided 21 once and found nothing after hours of searching. When they went back outside all their cars had been towed away by NYPD traffic cops. It seems the Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker was having dinner in the wine cellar with his mistress and was annoyed by the intrusion. In subsequent years it was normal to see movie stars, Lucky Lucciano, J. Edgar Hoover and John F. Kennedy eating side by side. Richard Nixon loved their tater-tots. 21 closed in 2021 due to covid.

1929- Guy Lombardo and his big band the Royal Canadians first played Auld Lang Syne at midnight for New Years. Lombardo and his band became synonymous with New Years until his death in the 1980s.

1931- NY gangster Larry Fay was a business partner of speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and Cotton Club co-owner Big Frenchy DeMange. But the Depression was hitting everyone hard. This day Larry cut the salary of the doorman of his club. He responded by shooting Larry in the back as he walked by.

1940-41- Avant Garde artists John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp broke into the Washington Square Arch and declared Greenwich Village the Republic of New Bohemia. Like coool, daddy.

1941- A Warner Bros memo dated this day from producer Hal Wallis office announced that the movie to be made from a play by Murray Bennett called “Everybody Goes to Rick’s” has been renamed “Casablanca”. This was to capitalize on an already popular film title “Algiers” with Charles Boyer “come with me to ze Casbah” etc.. Humphrey Bogart got the lead after George Raft first turned it down.

1942- Chrome was outlawed on American cars for the duration of World War II.

1943-44- In occupied Europe U.S. Navy frogmen sneak over to the future Normandy beachhead and take sand samplings to analyze if the beach could take the weight of heavy tanks and ordnance. The samples were sent to Detroit so companies could design customized tank-tread teeth. As the frogmen swam back to their midget submarine they could hear the Germans celebrating in their bunkers. One frogman yelled out "HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

1943- Four hundred policemen are called out to control frenzied crowds of bobbysoxers as Frank Sinatra played the Paramount Theater in Times Square. It was his debut as a solo performer. OOHH FRANKIE!!

1946- The first Pismo Beach Clam Festival.

1947- Roy Rogers married Dale Evans.

1952- At the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis, bandleader Johnny Johnson had a problem. Scheduled to play his regular gig at New Years, one of his trio suffered a stroke. Johnson looked around for a substitute musician and settled on a young construction worker trying to break in show business named Chuck Berry. Johnson played Boogie-Woogie piano, and Chuck Berry listened to country western on the radio and invented his own up-tempo variations. The two of them collaborating evolved a distinctly new sound we now recognize as Rock & Roll.

1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Spielberg called it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Chuck Jones & Mike Maltese wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1958-59- As Fidel Castro's guerrillas closed in on Havana, Cuban dictator Fulgensio Batista slipped out of a New Year's Party and boarded a plane for Miami, all arranged by the CIA. Fredo, ya broke my heart…

1962- Romanoff’s closed. Once one of the premier hot spots on the Sunset Strip, it was a preferred hangout of Humphrey Bogart, who liked to play chess in the afternoon with Nick Romanoff when he was between films.

1967- The Ice Bowl- Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 for the NFL championship ( the Superbowl had not been invented yet). It was nicknamed the Ice Bowl because the game was played in Green Bay in the out doors in below zero weather, with a wind chill of 40 below zero. Referees’ whistles froze to their lips.

1969- United Auto Worker's President Joseph 'Jock' Yablonsky was murdered with his wife and daughter. The gangland style hit is later tied to his successor Tony Boyle who went to jail. 20,000 miners called a wildcat strike Jan. 5th to protest the murder.

1973- Israel held its first election after the Yom Kippur War. The Labor Party held on to its majority although Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan resigned after a report accused them of being unprepared for the Arab surprise attack. The big news of this election was how former General Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin had welded the various right wing parties into a new coalition called the Likud. They quickly became a major force in politics.

1977- President Jimmy Carter in Teheran toasted Iran under the Shah as “ An Island of Stability in a Troubled Middle East. ” Within a year the Shah was overthrown.

1985- Singer Ricky Nelson died when his band's converted old DC-9 airplane crashed near DeKalb, Texas. Nelson had been living on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and Snickers bars.

1995- The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Waterston. He just decided one day to end it, before it became stale.

1997- Will Smith married Jada Pinkett.

1999- Boris Yeltsin surprised everybody in the Russian Federation when he suddenly announced he would resign as president of Russia after an 8 year rule. He spent that time administering the break up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of democracy and capitalism in Russia. He named his successor, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

1999-2000 - The Y2K MANIA. While the world prepared to celebrate the new century and the Third Millennium, the American tabloid media whipped up fear over a theory that the change from 1999-2000 would cause most computers to crash. Planes would fall out of the sky, nuclear missiles would launch themselves, and marauders would rule the streets like something out of Mad Max. The US Government spent $65 million to prepare for the crisis. But at midnight absolutely nothing happened. Even older less sophisticated computers were unaffected, and everything ran normally. Meanwhile many of the US public shivered at home and watched the rest of the world have fun on television.

2001-2002- The European Union currency exchange went into effect. Adieu, Adios and Ciao to the French Franc, Belgian Franc, Italian Lire, German Deutschmark, Austrian Schilling, Dutch Gulden, Greek Drachma, Irish Pound, Portuguese Escudo and Spanish Peseta. Welcome the Euro.

2006- Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hanged.

2008- Dedication in Baghdad of the Killing Saddam Museum.

2019-The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a world-wide warning about the threat from the coming Coronavirus CoVid 19. American President Trump chose to ignore this, then inexplicably cut funding to the WHO.

2020- Because of the global covid pandemic, many world capitols cancelled their large public New Years celebrations, or held them virtually, like Times Square.
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Yesterday’s question: Sometimes you’ll notice your coffee comes from the Kona coast. Where is the Kona coast located?

Answer: Hawaii.
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**THANK YOU FOR READING MY LITTLE HISTORIES. I HOPE YOU HAVE AS MUCH FUN READING THEM AS I DO WRITING THEM.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!
- TOM SITO