Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-12-01 / 12. szám

FRATERNITY

3

C. ARTO:

EN ROUTE

DECEMBER DATES:

12/2/1804: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of the

French in a real do-it-yourself manner. He took the crown from the

hands of Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head.

12/2/1942: The ATOMIC AGE was born beneath the football stadium of Chicago University, where a group of scientists successfully demonstrated a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

12/4/1942: President Roosevelt ordered the liquidation of the Works Projects Administration (WPA) after $10y2 million had been spent over a span of seven years to aid 8V2 million victims of the Depression.

12/5/1933: Prohibition, the “noble experiment” for thirteen terrible years, was ended at 3:32 P. M., when Utah became the 36th state to

ratify the XXI Amendment repealing the Volstead Act.

12/6/1941: President Roosevelt sent a personal note to Emperor

Hirohito of Japan “in the fervent hope that Your Majesty may, as I am doing, give thought in this definite emergency to ways of dispelling the dark clouds.” The next day, at 2:38 P. M., all American radios blared: “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin: the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt just announced.”

12/7/1799: George Washington died at the age of 67 at Mount

Vernon, Virginia, after an attack of quinsy and acute laryngitis.

12/15: Bill of Rights Day. A good way to celebrate it would be to read those Amendments to the Constitution.

12/16/1773: About fifty Boston, Mass., patriots, disguised as American Indians, remonstrated against despised British taxation by dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.

12/16/1944: Hitler’s last great and futile counter-offensive started in the Ardennes Forest (“Battle of the Bulge”) in Belgium.

12/20/1860: South Carolina, first state to do so, seceded from the Union. Centennial Civil War celebrations will soon be taking place everywhere. Hungarian-Americans will also join in with the formation of a Zagonyi Centennial Committee to celebrate the brilliantly successful charge led by Charles Zagonyi, near Springfield, Missouri.

~k -k

CHRISTMAS IS ACOMIN’ and we are beginning to be filled with many pleasant thoughts, for indeed, it is the time for the most pleasant of thoughts. We give thought to converting a small portion of ourselves into gifts for others. We should devote serious thinking to gift-giving and do our utmost to avoid “white elephant” gifts. (The King of Siam used to present a white elephant to anyone whom he wished to destroy.

T