Auld Lang Syne

Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo performed the classic New Year's Eve song "Auld Lang Syne" at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City for the first time on December 31, 1929. Auld Lang Syne is an old Scottish song first written in the 1700s. The phrase Auld Lang Syne translates into the English phrase "times gone by."
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New Year's Ball drop

The first New Year's Ball drop occurred in Times Square in 1908. Looking to add some dash to its New Year's celebration, the New York Times adapted the maritime port and shipping time-ball concept to its building on its square. A gigantic time-ball at the top of the New York Times Building at One Times Square dropped as 1907 became 1908.
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Politics

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -- Ronald Reagan.
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First public film screening

Auguste and Louis Lumiere held the world's first public film screening on December 28, 1895. Their showing of short films in the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe in Paris lasted twenty minutes. The Lumiere Brothers believed their invention was without a future as they thought that people would be bored by images that they could just as easily see by walking out into the street.
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Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1. The pan-African holiday was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga to reaffirm the communitarian vision and values of African culture and to contribute to its restoration among African people. The word "Kwanzaa" means "first-fruits." Dr. Maulana Karenga celebrated the first Kwanzaa in 1966.
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The chicken or the egg?

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Most experts agree that the egg came first. Evolutionary theorists state that the egg or DNA always comes first. Those espousing creationism believe that the chicken came from an earlier "created" species, and thus would have been hatched from an egg.
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First radio broadcast

Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast on December 24, 1906 from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. After six years of refining his radio transmission idea and overcoming many hurdles, Fessenden produced a short broadcast program that included his playing the song "O Holy Night" on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.
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Sneakers

The origin of the modern athletic shoe dates back to the late 19th century when people wore rubber soled shoes called pimsolls. In 1915, the Converse company made the first athletic shoes for tennis. Two years later they designed the first basketball shoe. The U.S. Rubber company began selling "sneakers" in 1917, a name coined from the quiet walk of the shoe.
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Diet book

Englishman William Banting's 1862 book "Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public” is considered to be the world's first book on the subject of dieting. After many weight-loss attempts, Banting shed 45 pounds with advice from Dr. William Harvey that suggested a diet void of bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer and potatoes. Banting's diet book sold 63,000 copies worldwide.
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First basketball game

The first basketball game was played at a YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts on December 21, 1891. James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the school, invented the game for his students by hanging peach baskets at opposite ends of the gymnasium, providing a soccer ball, and a few simple rules. His students immediately took to the game.
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Frst NFL playoff game

The first NFL playoff game was played in Chicago on December 18, 1932. Due to extremely cold weather, the game was played on a modified 80-yard field indoors at Chicago Stadium. Besides being the first playoff game, it was also the first NFL game to be played indoors. The Chicago Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0.

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Freedom Tower

The first steel columns for the Freedom Tower in lower Manhattan were installed on December 19, 2006, more than five years after the 911 events. Several 25-ton steel beams were erected with fanfare at Ground Zero marking the first vertical construction of the planned 1,776 foot tower at the former site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers.
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The Nutcracker

Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky premiered the music for The Nutcracker Ballet Suite on December 18, 1892. The eight-part concert was held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. This first performance was so successful, at least six times during the performance the audience demanded immediate encores of specific music selections.
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First in flight

Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first sustained air craft flight on the windy beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. By day's end, the brothers made several flights in their gas-powered, six-hundred pound craft. The final flight of the day carried Wilbur 852 feet in 59 seconds. Orville and Wilbur Wright were awarded a patent for their "aeroplane" on May 22, 1906.
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Mario Lemieux

In December 1988, hockey superstar Mario Lemieux became the first and only player in National Hockey League history to score one each of the five types of goals in a single game: an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot, and an empty-net goal.
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Crossword puzzles

The first crossword puzzle appeared in the New York World newspaper in December 1913. Editor Arthur Wynne developed a game for the paper that was inspired by a boyhood game called Magic Squares. Wynne called his new game "word cross." Crossword puzzles became a popular regular weekly feature in the New York World paper.
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St. Augustine, Florida

Founded in 1565, St. Augustine, Florida is the first known settlement of European origin in the United States. Forty-two years before the English colonized Jamestown, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the Spanish established St. Augustine as North America's first enduring settlement.
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The first Olympic games

The first Olympic games were held in Olympia, Greece in 776 BC. The first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. The Games of the First Olympiad were staged with fourteen nations and about 240 all male athletes. There were forty-three events in nine sports included aquatics, athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling.
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First modern sky scraper

The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois is considered to be the world's first modern sky scraper. The structure earned this distinction due to its steel frame construction versus stone material. Rising ten stories to a height of 138 feet, the building was the world's tallest from 1885 to 1905. Two additional floors were added to the building in 1890.
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Email spam

The first federal law regulating email spam was passed in the U.S. in December 2003. The passage of the law capped a process that stretched more than six years and was marked by more than a dozen competing bills, all of which took different approaches to the ever-growing problem of unsolicited commercial e-mail.
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Nobel Prizes

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. Alfred Nobel established in his will that interest income from his fortune was to be allotted each year in five equal parts as prizes to those who had most helped humanity. The first Nobel Prize winners were: Wilhelm C. Roentgen, physics; Jacobus H. van't Hoff, chemistry; Emil A. von Behring, medicine; Rene F. A. Sully-Prudhomme, literature; and Jean H. Dunant, peace.
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First property tax

The Massachusetts Bay Colony levied the first property tax in colonial America in 1634. Local administrators arbitrarily assessed colony property owners in order to raise revenue for local governments. The colony imposed a tax directly on estate property including buildings, livestock and other enumerated personal property items.
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Rocket 88

The song "Rocket 88" recorded in 1951 by Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm at Sam Phillips' recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee is considered to be the first rock-n-roll song. The song featured the Oldsmobile Rocket 88 automobile as a metaphor for romantic prowess. The song introduced rock-n-roll style and lyrical theme and inspired a new generation of music.
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The First State

Delaware was the first of the thirteen original states to ratify the Constitution of the United States. This unanimous ratification took place in a convention at Dover on December 7, 1787, whereby Delaware became "The First State" of the new Federal Union. Delaware's name was derived from colonial Virginia's Governor Lord De La Warr.
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Beer

The first evidence of beer is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet depicting people drinking a brewed beverage. The Sumerians lived between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is believed they discovered the fermentation process by chance. A description of making a drink that made people feel "exhilarated, wonderful and blissful" was found on an ancient Sumerian engraving.
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The first guns

The Chinese developed the first guns with a metal barrel, gunpowder, and a flying projectile during the late thirteenth century. Most believe that gunpowder was invented as early as the tenth century and was developed independently in different regions of the world during various times. Guns began proliferating during the 16th century when English army switched from archer bows to guns.
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Air conditioners

Willis Carrier installed the first air conditioner to combat humidity inside a Brooklyn, New York printing company in 1902. Carrier was one-year out of college making $10 per week as a salaried employee at the Buffalo Forge Company when he developed his "apparatus for treating air." His invention was granted a patent in 1906, the first of several patents awarded to Willis Carrier.
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Heart transplant

South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard conducted the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital, Capetown, South Africa on December 3, 1967. Fifty-three year-old Lewis Washkansky's heart was surgically replaced during the successful 9-hour operation. Sadly, Mr. Washkansky lived for only 18 after the operation succumbing to double pneumonia.
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America's first fire insurance company

Celebrated American statesman Benjamin Franklin led the effort to create America's first fire insurance company. His group established "The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire" in 1752 with a board of directors and seventy shareholders. The first insured property to burn was repaired for 154 pounds, nearly a third of the Society's assets.
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Shopping mall

Shopping center architect Victor Gruen designed the first indoor shopping mall just outside Minneapolis in 1954. Southdale had seventy-two stores and two anchor department stores. Unlike other suburban shopping centers at the time, Southdale was a fully enclosed, multi-tiered shopping complex with a garden court under skylights.
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