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Tonight's the second night of Kwanzaa.

Tonight celebrates Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) - To define oneself, name oneself, create for oneself and speak for oneself.


Once again, if you're keeping score, you currently have, three French hens,  four turtledoves and three partridges with their trio of pear trees (10 gifts.)

The hens, being french, will not associate with the common turtle doves - leave plenty of room between the cage


Today in History:
December 27, 1831 -
For some unknown reason, naturalist Charles Darwin began his famous voyage on-board a beagle, on the date.



He immediately swam back to shore and boarded the HMS Beagle once the dog drowned.


The 12 acre complex in midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center developed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on land leased from Columbia University opened to the public on December 27, 1932.

Radio City Music Hall (named for one of the complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America) opened with a spectacular stage show, featuring Ray Bolger and Martha Graham. The opening was meant to be a return to high class variety entertainment.

Unfortunately, the show bombed and on January 11, 1933, the Music Hall rushed to show the first film on the giant screen, installed in the theatre: Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck.



Again, the film was not critically well received


December 27, 1937 (some sources site the broadcast date as December 12, 1937) -
Middle aged, slightly overweight and possible transvestite performer, Mae West and Don Ameche appeared on the radio show The Chase and Sanborn Hour as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. She told Ameche in the show to "get me a big one...I feel like doin' a big apple!"



The FCC later deemed the broadcast vulgar and indecent and far below even the minimum standard which they should control in the selection and production of broadcast programs. West would not perform in radio for another twelve years until January 1950, in an episode of The Chesterfield Supper Club hosted by Perry Como.


December 27, 1941 -
20th Century Fox released John Ford's film, How Green Was My Valley, starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Roddy McDowall on this date.



For the scene where the miners greet their women by putting their earnings in baskets, actress Maureen O'Hara stopped the scene's filming once she noticed that her basket was a modern Kraft basket and not a basket of the movie's period. Director John Ford was so upset by being corrected in front of the cast and crew that he closed down the set and told O'Hara to wait on a nearby hill until he called for her. Fuming, O'Hara waited an hour before an assistant came to retrieve her but was satisfied to see that the basket had been changed upon her return.


December 27, 1947 -
Hey kids, what time is it?

A bleary eyed world, fresh from the horrors of a second World War awaken to the sight of a freaky marionette on NBC -  Howdy Doody premiered on this date.



The show hosted by Buffalo Bob Smith, somehow managed to stay on the air for 13 years.


December 27, 1967 -
Robert Zimmerman returned to his acoustic roots with the release of his John Wesley Harding album on this date.



While Bob Dylan did the original version of the song, it wasn't as popular until remade by Jimi Hendrix. Dylan liked Hendrix' version so much, he began playing the Hendrix version instead of his own. Jimi Hendrix had replaced the harmonica parts with guitar, and sped up the song.


December 27, 1985 -
Dian Fossey,  famous for her efforts to study and save mountain gorillas in Africa, was murdered in her hut in Rwanda with a machete she had confiscated from a poacher some months earlier.




No suspects were ever found; no charges were made.



And so it goes