Not an auspicious omen

Let's hope this is not a sign of the new year




Today's gift count: you currently have Nine ladies dancing,

16 young woman engaged in the dairy industry (and possibly their union rep. I've also never considered whether or not the cows come with them), 21 Swans making a racket, 24 geese a' laying (check to see if you can make omelets for all those people), 25 golden rings, 24 calling birds, 21 French hens, 16 turtledoves and 9 partridges in their respective pear trees.



With this many people in the house, I suggest that you invest in more toilet paper and a good plunger.


January 2, 1882 -
The 28 year old Oscar Wilde arrived in New York City on this date to delver a series of lectures across the U.S.A.

When a customs inspector asked him if he had anything to declare he replied, "Nothing but my genius." A cursory look through the Oscar Wilde Collection does not say whether or not he would submit to a full body cavity search by the TSA.


Today in History:
January 2, 1492 -
After a siege that began in 1491, Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII (also known as Boabdil) surrendered Granada (the last Moorish holdout in Spain) to Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Castile and Aragon, on this date. The incredibly elaborate ceremony, culminating with the handing over of the keys to the Alhambra, brought to an end over 700 years Muslim rule in Spain.

Legend has it that as the royal party moved south toward exile, they reached a rocky prominence which gave a last view of the city. Muhammad XII reined in his horse and, surveying for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below, burst into tears. When his mother approached him she said : "Weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man". The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as "the Moor's last sigh" (el último suspiro del Moro).


January 2, 1872 -
Brigham Young was arrested on charges of bigamy for having 25 wives on this date.

A cursory look through the Brigham Young Archives reveals that it's the first night he was able to sleep with both eyes closed in years.


January 2, 1890 -
Alice Sanger was hired as a stenographer for President Benjamin Harrison on this date.

Sanger was the first woman to work a non-domestic service job in the White House, and her appointment was thought to be an olive branch to the growing suffragist movement.


January 2, 1935 -
Bruno Richard Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of aviator Charles A. and Anne Lindbergh on this date.



(He would later be found guilty and executed for that crime that he probably did not committed.)


January 2, 1942 -
33 members of a German spy ring headed by Frederick or Fritz Joubert Duquesne were sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison. The Duquesne Spy Ring, as they were known, is the largest espionage case in United States history that ended in convictions.

The 1945 film The House on 92nd Street was also a thinly disguised version of the Duquesne Spy Ring saga of 1941, but differs from historical fact. It won screenwriter Charles G. Booth an Academy Award for the best original motion picture story.


January 2, 1939 -
Time Magazine published its annual Man of the Year issue on this date for the year 1938. Time had chosen Adolf Hitler as the man who "for better or worse" (as Time founder Henry Luce expressed it) had most influenced events of the preceding year. The cover picture featured Hitler playing "his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine's wheel and the Nazi hierarchy looks on." This picture was drawn by Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper, a German Catholic who had fled Hitler's Germany.

Who came in second - Benito Mussolini.


January 2, 1974 -
President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.



Leadfoots everywhere cry out in pain.


Be careful traveling home today - there could be a lot of snow out there (or not.)



And so it goes