As everybody knows, December 4, at least in the US, is National Cookie Day. December, of course, is well known for National Food Days; it all starts on the first, which is Eat a Red Apple Day. The next day takes a left turn away from healthy choices to be National Fritter Day. Then after today, we can look forward to the 8th, which is BOTH National Brownie Day and National Concha Day. Then, having gotten warmed up by those, the 9th is National Pastry Day.
By then you’ll probably be a bit thirsty, so National Lager Day happens just in time, on the tenth. If you overdo that day, all you’ll miss on the eleventh is National Noodle Ring Day, which has got to be one of the more obscure ones. A ring…made of noodles…hmmm. But a ring is round, with a hole in the middle, which also describes a bagel — and the same day is also National Have a Bagel Day.
The rest of the month proceeds in the same vein; with a couple of notable standouts. The 16th is Chocolate Covered Day — anything you want, just dipped in chocolate. And right around the end of the month, somebody looked back at the list and knew exactly what the 30th should be: National Bicarbonate of Soda Day.
In 1791, December 4 fell on a Sunday, and was the first day a Sunday newspaper was ever published (at least in the English-speaking world). It was the Observer, and the publisher didn’t have any particular aspirations to great journalism or the like — he was W.S. Bourne, and he started the paper only to make money. It didn’t work, and before long he found himself deep in debt. Newspapers in those days in England were licensed, and Bourne tried to sell the license to the government to cut his losses. They weren’t interested, but his brother — who had already made a fortune in other businesses — worked out a deal with the government. They wouldn’t buy the license, but they subsidized it in exchange for control over the editorial content. Bourne, who didn’t have any journalistic opinions anyway, thought that was perfectly OK, and the Observer became a very mainstream, establishment voice. It stayed that way for years, and only started to publish anything critical of the government in the 1820s.
December 4 also has its share of enigma; it’s the day in 1872 that the Mary Celeste was discovered drifting at sea with nobody aboard. The log showed that she’d been abandoned for 10 days, and both the cargo and all the personal things belonging to the captain and crew were untouched. The only thing missing was the ship’s lifeboat — but there wasn’t any apparent reason why the crew would have abandoned ship; there was nothing wrong with it. The captain and crew were never found, and even now, nobody has any idea what happened to them.
That’s what Boss Tweed was hoping for when he escaped from prison on December 3, 1875. He was the central figure in the Tammany Hall political scandals in 1800s New York, and had been convicted of stealing millions of dollars from public funds. He made it as far as Spain, but people did hear from him again, when he was recaptured. He never got out of jail after that.
Of all the historic events that happened on December 4, though, one of them might be the most important, at least to some people. The world’s oldest professional hockey franchise, the Montreal Canadiens, was founded this day in 1909. And if that isn’t enough to cheer you up, well, go have some cookies!
