Tidbits
December 28, 1793 – Thomas Paine arrested in
France. Thomas Paine’s 47-page pamphlet, known as “Common Sense,” took colonial America by storm in 1776, and made critical arguments for declaring independence from England.
Paine moved to Paris to become involved with the French Revolution and was heartily welcomed and granted honorary citizenship by leaders of the revolution, but before long the chaotic political
climate turned against him, and he was arrested and jailed for treason and crimes against France.
Thomas Paine’s fortuned turned for the worse and he died penniless in 1809, in New York.
December 29. 1845 – Texas enters the Union as the 28th state. During the
1820s, Mexico welcomed foreign settlers to the sparsely populated Texas Territory. By 1823, settlers were needing protection, and the Texas Rangers were formed that year. 2023 is the 200th Anniversary of the Texas Rangers.
In March 1836, armed conflict with the Texas settlers and the Mexican government began. Texas defeated the Mexican government and declared its independence.
Texas is the only republic to join the Union.
December 30, 1922 – The USSR is Established. In a post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation (later divided into the Georgian, Azerbaijan and Armenian
republics).
December 31, 1879 – Edison demonstrates the light bulb. American inventor Thomas Edison lights up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The first incandescent lamp had been produced 40 years earlier, but no inventor had been able to come up with a practical, working
bulb.
Noted for dozens of inventions, his greatest contribution came from his work in electricity. He developed a complete electrical distribution system for light and power, enabling the world’s first power plant in New York City.
January 1, 1942 – UN created. 10
days prior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington, D.C., for the Arcadia Conference, a discussion with President Franklin D. Roosevelt about a unified Anglo-American war strategy and a future peace. Roosevelt and Churchill issued a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries. It was named the “United Nations.”
January 2, 1960 – JFK
announces his run for president.
Senator John F. Kennedy announces his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. U.S. Senate Caucus Room, Washington, D.C.
January 3, 1777 – Battle of Princeton. Deeply concerned by Washington’s victory over the British at Trenton, just 8 days
prior on December 26, 1776, General Charles Cornwallis arrived with his troops in Trenton on the evening of January 2 prepared to overwhelm Washington’s 5,000 exhausted, if exuberant, Continentals and militia with his 8,000 Redcoats.
Cornwallis sent troops to guard the Delaware River, expecting Washington to reverse the route he took for the now famous “midnight crossing on the Delaware”.
Instead, Washington left his campfires burning, muffled the wheels of his army’s wagons and snuck around the side of the British camp. As the Continentals headed north at dawn, they met the straggling British rear guard, which they outnumbered 5 to 1. Forty Patriots and 275 British soldiers died during ensuing Battle of Princeton.
January 3, 1959 – Alaska admitted to the
Union. The territory of Alaska was admitted into the Union as the 49th and largest state. For centuries, Indigenous peoples had inhabited the region that would become Alaska.
The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741 by a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering. In the early 19th century, Russian settlements had spread down the west coast of North America
all the way south as far as northern California.
By the 1820’s Russian settlements and activity had declined, and British and Americans were granted trading rights. In the early 1860’s a nearly bankrupt Russia decided to offer Alaska for sale to the United States. Finally, on March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska
for $7.2 million.
Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, and its tremendous landmass of one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”
The
discovery of gold in 1898 and its other natural resources contributed to changing those kinds of thoughts
