Today In History – December 17

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This is Ray Mossholder with Today in History – December 17

Ebenezer Scrooge

On this day in 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story “A Christmas Carol” was first published.

Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.

In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories,Sketches by Boz, later known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,was published. The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children. The short sketches in his collection were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings by caricature artist Robert Seymour, but Dickens’ whimsical stories about the kindly Samuel Pickwick and his fellow club members soon became popular in their own right. Only 400 copies were printed of the first installment, but by the 15th episode 40,000 copies were printed. When the stories were published in book form in 1837, Dickens quickly became the most popular author of the day.

The success of the Pickwick Papers was soon reproduced with Oliver Twist(1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the United States, where he was welcomed as a literary hero. Dickens never lost momentum as a writer, churning out major novels every year or two, often in serial form. Among his most important works are David Copperfield(1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Beginning in 1850, he published his own weekly circular of fiction, poetry, and essays called Household Words. In 1858, Dickens separated from his wife and began a long affair with a young actress. He gave frequent readings, which became immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.

On December 17, 1862; Union General Ulysses S. Grant lashed out at at Jewish cotton speculators, who he believed were the driving force behind the black market for cotton, and issued General Order No. 11, expelling all Jewish people from his military district, which encompassed parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

At the time, Grant was trying to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Grant’s army now effectively controlled much territory in western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and parts of Kentucky and Arkansas. Grant had to deal with numerous speculators who followed his army in search of cotton. Cotton supplies were very short in the North, and these speculators could buy bales in the captured territories and sell it quickly for a good profit. In December 1862, Grant’s father came to visit him along withfriends from Ohio. Grant soon realized that the friends, who were Jewish, were speculators hoping to gain access to captured cotton. Grant was furious and fired off his notorious Order No. 11: “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from receipt of this order.”

The fallout from his action was swift. Among 30 Jewish families expelled from Paducah, Kentucky, was Cesar Kaskel, who rallied support in Congress against the order. Shortly after the uproar, President Abraham Lincoln ordered Grant to rescind the order. Grant later admitted to his wife that the criticism of his hasty action was well deserved. As Julia Grant put it, the general had “no right to make an order against any special sect.”

It’s up. It’s down. It’s history.

On December 17, 1903, Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.

Orville and Wilbur Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and developed an interest in aviation after learning of the glider flights of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s. Unlike their older brothers, Orville and Wilbur did not attend college, but they possessed extraordinary technical ability and a sophisticated approach to solving problems in mechanical design. They built printing presses and in 1892 opened a bicycle sales and repair shop. Soon, they were building their own bicycles, and this experience, combined with profits from their various businesses, allowed them to pursue actively their dream of building the world’s first airplane.

After exhaustively researching other engineers’ efforts to build a heavier-than-air, controlled aircraft, the Wright brothers wrote the U.S. Weather Bureau inquiring about a suitable place to conduct glider tests. They settled on Kitty Hawk, an isolated village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, which offered steady winds and sand dunes from which to glide and land softly. Their first glider, tested in 1900, performed poorly, but a new design, tested in 1901, was more successful. Later that year, they built a wind tunnel where they tested nearly 200 wings and airframes of different shapes and designs. The brothers’ systematic experimentations paid off–they flew hundreds of successful flights in their 1902 glider at Kill Devils Hills near Kitty Hawk. Their biplane glider featured a steering system, based on a movable rudder, that solved the problem of controlled flight. They were now ready for powered flight.

In Dayton, they designed a 12-horsepower internal combustion engine with the assistance of machinist Charles Taylor and built a new aircraft to house it. They transported their aircraft in pieces to Kitty Hawk in the autumn of 1903, assembled it, made a few further tests, and on December 14 Orville made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged, and they spent three days repairing it. Then at 10:35 a.m. on December 17, in front of five witnesses, the aircraft ran down a monorail track and into the air, staying aloft for 12 seconds and flying 120 feet. The modern aviation age was born. Three more tests were made that day, with Wilbur and Orville alternately flying the airplane. Wilbur flew the last flight, covering 852 feet in 59 seconds.

During the next few years, the Wright brothers further developed their airplanes but kept a low profile about their successes in order to secure patents and contracts for their flying machines. By 1905, their aircraft could perform complex maneuvers and remain aloft for up to 39 minutes at a time. In 1908, they traveled to France and made their first public flights, arousing widespread public excitement. In 1909, the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps purchased a specially constructed plane, and the brothers founded the Wright Company to build and market their aircraft. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912; Orville lived until 1948.

The historic Wright brothers’ aircraft of 1903 is on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

On December 17, 1941, exactly 10 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was relieved of his command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as part of a shake-up of officers in the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster.

Admiral Kimmel had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning in 1915 as an aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served admirably on battleships in World War I, winning command of several in the interwar period. At the outbreak of World War II, Kimmel had already attained the rank of rear admiral and was commanding the cruiser forces at Pearl Harbor. In January 1941, he was promoted to commander of the Pacific Fleet, replacing James Richardson, who FDR relieved of duty after Richardson objected to basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor.

If Kimmel had a weakness, it was that he was a creature of habit, of routine. He knew only what had been done before, and lacked imagination—and therefore insight—regarding the unprecedented. So, even as word was out that Japan was likely to make a first strike against the United States as the negotiations in Washington floundered, Kimmel took no extraordinary actions at Pearl Harbor. In fact, he believed that a sneak attack was more likely at Wake Island or Midway Island, and requested from Lieutenant General Walter Short, Commander of the Army at Pearl Harbor, extra antiaircraft artillery for support there (none could be spared).

Kimmel’s predictability was extremely easy to read by Japanese military observers and made his fleet highly vulnerable. As a result, Kimmel was held accountable, to a certain degree, for the absolute devastation wrought on December 7. Although he had no more reason than anyone else to believe Pearl Harbor was a possible Japanese target, a scapegoat had to be found to appease public outrage. He avoided a probable court-martial when he requested early retirement. When Admiral Kimmel’s Story, an “as told to” autobiography, was published in 1955, Kimmel made it plain that he believed FDR sacrificed him—and his career—to take suspicion off himself; Kimmel believed Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, although no evidence has ever been adduced to support his allegation.

December 17, 1944, During World War II, U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issued Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that, effective January 2, 1945, Japanese American “evacuees” from the West Coast could return to their homes.

On February 19, 1942, 10 weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

During the course of World War II, 10 Americans were convicted of spying for Japan, but not one of them was of Japanese ancestry. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to recompense each surviving internee with a tax-free check for $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government.

On this day in 1961, a fire at a circus in Brazil killed more than 300 people and severely burned hundreds more. The cause of the fire was never conclusively determined but it may have been the result of sparks from a train passing nearby.

Christmas week was just beginning, the children had just begun their winter vacations, and spirits were high for the 2,500 in attendance at the Gran Circo Norte Americano, the Brazilian version of America’s Ringling Brothers. The large blue-and-white tent was set up across the bay from Rio de Janeiro and was filled to capacity. All seemed to be proceeding as planned when disaster struck suddenly.

Antonietta Estavanovich, a trapeze artist, was the first to see the flames. From her high perch, she could see the roof of the tent beginning to burn. As the crowd became aware of the fire, pandemonium ensued and people were trampled as they tried to exit. In one reported instance, a Boy Scout attending the circus pulled out a knife, cut a hole in the tent and managed to get his family out safely. Hundreds of others, though, were not so lucky–323 people, many of them children, died in the fire. At least 500 more people were seriously injured, from burns, smoke inhalation and trampling.

Mikhail Gorbachev Boris Yeltsin Vladimir Putin

December 17, 1991, After a long meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, a spokesman for the latter announced that the Soviet Union would officially cease to exist on or before New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin declared that, “There will be no more red flag.” It was a rather anti-climactic culmination of events leading toward the dismantling of the Soviet Union.

Despite its dramatic implications, the announcement inspired mostly yawns and skeptical jokes from a Russian population weary from months of political intrigue and instability and a crumbling economy. For many people, the Soviet Union had already disintegrated. The various Russian republics had already declared their independence; in a few days they would meet and form the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev’s power was steadily ebbing: a coup attempt the previous August had already nearly toppled him. Yeltsin, on the other hand, was busily planning the takeover of Soviet facilities and the symbolic lowering of the Soviet hammer-and-sickle to be replaced by the flag of Russia. Even Gorbachev seemed to accept the inevitable, taking time off from his less and less meaningful job to have a photo op with the rock group Scorpion.

It was all a rather unexciting end to the nation President Ronald Reagan once called “the evil empire.”

Terrell Owens

On December 17, 2000, during a 17-0 victory by the San Francisco 49ers over the Chicago Bears, San Francisco’s wide receiver Terrell Owens set a new league record of 20 catches in a single game.

Drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the 1996 NFL draft, Owens was thrilled to join his hero, Jerry Rice. During his college career at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, he had worn Rice’s number (80). Early in the 1997 season, when Rice tore his ACL, Owens stepped up and became a star performer for the 49ers, grabbing 60 receptions for 936 yards and eight touchdowns over the season. After 16 straight winning seasons, the 49ers faltered in 1999 and stumbled to a 4-12 record. At the end of the season, the star quarterback Steve Young retired.

The 2000 season was also a losing season for San Francisco, though there were several saving graces. Rice continued to impress in what would be his final season with the 49ers, and was given a number of standing ovations during the 49ers’ shut-out of the Bears in San Francisco on December 17, Rice’s last appearance in his home stadium. On the field, however, Owens stole the show from his mentor, catching 20 passes for 283 yards and a touchdown and breaking Tom Fears’ record of 18, set with the Los Angeles Rams in December 1950 against the Green Bay Packers. Owens also broke Rice’s franchise record of 16 receptions in a single game, set against the Rams in 1994.

The volatile Owens had a difficult relationship with the 49ers organization, including Young’s successor as quarterback, Jeff Garcia, and head coach Steve Mariucci. He and the team parted ways after the 2003 season and Owens headed to the Philadelphia Eagles (not without a struggle involving a missed deadline for his free agent paperwork and the 49ers subsequent attempt to trade him to the Baltimore Ravens). Conflict and controversy continued to swirl around Owens in Philadelphia, and he was released from his contract in 2006. Signed by the Dallas Cowboys, he remains one of the NFL’s most talented–and controversial–stars.

And now the major story of this day…….December 17, 2015…….

 (Reuters)

After seven years of rock-bottom interest rates held low to stanch the bleeding from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and after months of unusually public hand-wringing over the precise timing of liftoff, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a rate hike intended to start easing U.S. monetary policy back to normal.

The historic decision marks the final break from an era of unprecedented interventionist monetary policy initiated in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to raise rates by 0.25% to a range of 0.25%-0.50%, not a whole lot but enough to test the still-weakened U.S. economy’s ability to absorb the higher borrowing costs that will follow the increase.

Citing healthy momentum in the U.S. labor markets and confidence that inflation is starting to climb upward toward the Fed’s 2% target, the Fed pulled the trigger on the first rate hike in nearly a decade.

Today In History – December 17

Today In History – December 17