Dutch Ovens: On this day in history, 317 years ago, January 10, 1709, English Quaker ironmaster and foundryman Abraham Darby fired up the world’s first coke-fired blast furnace at his iron foundry at Coalbrookdale, England. The Coalbrook Furnace specialized in making large cooking pots. (1/4)

Women’s Golf: On this day in history, 215 years ago, January 9, 1811, the Musselburgh Fishwives’ Competition, at Musselburgh, Scotland, became the first documented women’s golf tournament. 1st prize was a fishing basket, and 2nd- and 3rd-place prizes were silk Barcelonian handkerchiefs. (1/4)

The Colorado Cannibal: On this day in history, 125 years ago, January 8, 1901, trail guide Alfred (aka Alferd) Packer, “The Colorado Cannibal,” was granted a parole as the final official act of outgoing Colorado Governor Charles B. Thomas. (1/5)

“Machine for Transcribing Letters” On this day in history, 312 years ago, January 7, 1714, it is said that Henry Mill, a waterworks engineer for the New River Company in London, was presented Patent No. 395 by Queen Ann for his “Machine for Transcribing Letters.” (1/5)

Four Freedoms: On this day in history, 85 years ago, January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt—in his State of the Union address to Congress—spelled out the dangers of isolationism and described how threats to foreign nations were also threats to the security of the United States. (1/4)

The Landlord’s Game: On this day in history, 122 years ago, January 5, 1904, Elizabeth J. Magie (later Phillips) was granted a patent for her invention of a board game called The Landlord’s Game, which was the inspiration for the game of Monopoly. (1/7)

Colt Revolvers: On this day in history, 179 years ago, January 4, 1847, Samuel Colt received an order from Captain Samuel Walker for 1,000 Colt six-shot revolver pistols to be used by the Texas Rangers. (1/5)

Smile: On this day in history, 62 years ago, January 3, 1964, The Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Co. and Guarantee Mutual Assurance Co. of America introduced the “Smiley Face” button in the February 1964 issue of their “Mutualite” newsletter. (1/5)

Isabella and Columbus: On this day in history, 133 years ago, January 2, 1893, the United States Postal Office issued its first commemorative stamp collection, which contained the first three U.S. stamps to portray images of a woman, Queen Isabella of Spain. (1/5)

Merle Meets Johnny: On this day in history, 67 years ago, January 1, 1959, Johnny Cash played a prison concert at San Quentin Prison, and among the inmates in the audience was 21-year-old Merle Haggard, sentenced for robbing a roadhouse, and transferred to San Quentin after an escape attempt. (1/4)

Wage and Price Controls: On this day in history, 249 years ago, December 31, 1776, in an attempt to control the inflation that was caused by the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island instituted wage and price controls. (1/4)

Banned in Boston: On this day in history, 216 years ago, December 30, 1809, the city of Boston, clinging to its Colonial Puritan influences, declared masquerade balls to be illegal. (1/5)

Sex Discrimination Act of 1975: On this day in history, 50 years ago, December 29, 1975, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status in employment, education, finances, and related fields. (1/4)

Chewing Gum: On this day in history, 156 years ago, December 28, 1869, dentist William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, was granted a patent for his “Improved Chewing-Gum,” which utilized a method of dissolving rubber in naphtha and alcohol before adding other ingredients. (1/5)

Obstetrical Analgesia: On this day in history, 180 years ago, December 27, 1845, Doctor Crawford Williamson Long, from Jefferson, Georgia, administered ether to his wife during the birth of their second child, the first recorded use of anesthesia during childbirth. (1/5)

Machine of the Year: On this day in history, 43 years ago, December 26, 1982, “Time” magazine announced that its Man of the Year would be a non-human and would instead be a Machine of the Year, recognizing the profound effect the personal computer had on the world. (1/5)

“Talkin’ ’bout the Bad Man” On this day in history, 130 years ago, December 25, 1895, Lee “Stag Lee” Shelton killed William “Billy” Lyons in a Christmas-night fight at the Bill Curtis Saloon in “The Bloody Third Ward” of St. Louis, Missouri, an event that inspired the song “Stagger Lee.” (1/5)

The Angel of Bastogne: On this day in history, 81 years ago, December 24, 1944, 30-year-old nurse Renée Lemaire was at home in Bastogne, Belgium, for the holidays, volunteering at an aid station for the American 20th Armored Infantry Battalion, when the German Army bombed the aid station. (1/4)

Ned’s Proclamation: On this day in history 214 years ago, December 23, 1811, Ned Lud’s Proclamation was published anonymously, threatening death to anyone who supplied information to the authorities regarding the breaking of weaving frames in the textile factories. (1/5)

This day in Cobb history, Dec 21, 1825: planning the removal of the Creek and Cherokee Cobb Courier History can't be erased: The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) published a copy of letter from the two U.S. treaty commissioners to the Cherokee Nation (Don't let Trump know this) bit.ly/4qqxJ5t

Smith Charities: On this day in history, 180 years ago, December 22, 1845, Oliver Smith, a farmer who became rich through land investment, died in Northampton, Massachusetts, willing that his fortune be used to assist the poor and needy of the Northampton area. (1/5)

Word-Cross: On this day in history, 112 years ago, December 21, 1913, the “Fun” section of the “New York World” newspaper published the first “Word-Cross” puzzle, which—because of a typographical error—became known as “Cross-Word” a few weeks later. (1/4)

Secession: Yesterday in history, 165 years ago, December 20, 1860, the Secession Convention of South Carolina, which had been elected on December 7 and convened on December 17, unanimously passed a Declaration of Secession, making South Carolina the first state to leave the Union. (1/4)

Mark Twain and the Brassiere: Two days ago in history, 154 years ago, December 19, 1871, Samuel Clemens—later to be better known by his pen name of Mark Twain—received a patent for his “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments.” (1/4)

I am finally connected to the Internet again after a long power outage. In case you were missing my histories during those in-between days, I will be sharing three days of history today.

Believe It or Not! On this day in history, 107 years ago, December 18, 1918, Robert Ripley published the first installment of his sports cartoon feature, “Champs and Chumps,” in the local New York newspapers, and it was soon reprinted in various other newspapers. (1/4)

Buffalo Bill: On this day in history, 153 years ago, December 17, 1872, William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody made his stage debut alongside Ned Buntline and John Baker “Texas Jack” Omohundro in the Buntline drama “Scouts of the Prairie” at Nixon’s Amphitheatre in Chicago. (1/4)

Temple–Black Wedding: On this day in history, 75 years ago, December 16, 1950, 22-year-old movie star Shirley Temple married her second husband, Charles Black, in a small family-ceremony ten days after her divorce from John Agar became final. (1/5)

Patent Office Fire: On this day in history, 189 years ago, December 15, 1836, Blodget’s (also spelled Blodgett’s) Hotel building in Washington D.C., which housed both the Post Office Department and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, caught on fire during the early morning hours. (1/5)

The Quagmire: On this day in history, 64 years ago, December 14, 1961, President John F. Kennedy wrote a letter to South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Deim, pledging additional support from the United States to South Vietnam in its battle against North Vietnam. (1/6)

Dean’s Debut: On this day in history, 75 years ago, December 13, 1950, 19-year-old James Dean made his acting debut in a television commercial for Pepsi-Cola. (1/4)

Mae West and Charlie McCarthy Scandal: On this day in history, 88 years ago, December 12, 1937, Mae West was banned from radio after appearing on “The Chase and Sanborn Hour.” (1/6)

Iridescent Clouds

Zapping Cronkite: On this day in history, 52 years ago, December 11, 1973, “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” was “zapped” by gay activist Mark Allan Segal, who ran in front of Cronkite’s desk with a hand-printed sign that said, “Gays Protest CBS Prejudice.” (1/5)

Nobel Prize: On this day in history, 124 years ago, December 10, 1901, on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. (1/4)

American Minerva: On this day in history, 232 years ago, December 9, 1793, the first daily newspaper in New York, “The American Minerva,” edited by Noah Webster, was published by George Bunce & Co. (1/4)

The Eisenhower Tree: On this day in history, 69 years ago, December 8, 1956, President Dwight David Eisenhower attended a Board of Governors’ Meeting at the Augusta National Golf Club and introduced a motion that a tree on the seventeenth fairway be cut down. (1/5)

Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride: On this day in history, 116 years ago, December 7, 1909, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland was granted a United States Patent for Bakelite (polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride), the world’s first synthetic plastic. (1/5)

U.S. vs. Ulysses: On this day in history, 92 years ago, December 6, 1933, Judge John Munro Woolsey of the U.S. District Court in New York City ruled in “United States v. One Book Called Ulysses” that James Joyce’s “Ulysses” was not obscene and could be distributed in the United States. (1/5)

The Ghost Ship “Mary Celeste”: On this day in history, 153 years ago, December 5, 1872, the ship “Mary Celeste” was discovered floating adrift off the Azores with no one aboard (actually discovered at 1:00 p.m., December 4, but the ship used “sea time” in which the new day started at noon). (1/5)

Shell Shock: On this day in history, 108 years ago, December 4, 1917, Doctor W.H.R. Rivers of Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland delivered a paper entitled “The Repression of War Experience” describing his treatment of the condition known as “shell shock.” (1/5)

Divorce in the American Colonies: On this day in history, 386 years ago, December 3, 1639, the “pretended marriage” of Elizabeth and James Luxford was declared void by the “Court of Assistants or Quarter Court,” becoming the first recorded divorce in the American Colonies. (1/5)

“Have You No Sense of Decency?” On this day in history, 71 years ago, December 2, 1954, the United States Senate voted 67–22 to condemn Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, who had used his Senate Committee to attack political opponents with unsubstantiated allegations of Communist connections. (1/4)

Freedom Flights: On this day in history, 60 years ago, December 1, 1965, the first Freedom Flight (Los Vuelos de la Libertad) arrived in Miami, Florida, from Cuba, and then operated five times per week. (1/5)

It Came Out of the Sky: On this day in history, 71 years ago, November 30, 1954, Mrs. Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, was sleeping on her sofa when a meteorite fell through the roof of her home, bounced off a radio, and hit her hip. (1/5)

Pong: On this day in history, 53 years ago, November 29, 1972, Atari Inc. released the sports video game of Pong, which had been originally developed by Allen Alcorn as a training exercise. (1/5)

Female Pirates: On this day in history, 305 years ago, November 28, 1720, two female pirates—Anne Bonny and Mary Read—were sentenced to death in Spanish Town, Jamaica, after being convicted of piracy. (1/6)

Berner’s Street Hoax: On this day in history, 216 years ago, November 27, 1809, writer and prankster Theodore Edward Hook won a bet by making Mrs. Tottenham’s house at 54 Berners Street the most talked-about address in London, having sent hundreds of appointment letters the previous week. (1/5)

Horse-Drawn Streetcar: On this day in history, 193 years ago, November 26, 1832, the New York Harlem and Railroad Company opened the first horse-drawn streetcar line, with “omnibus cars” built by the John Stephenson Company. (1/5)

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: On this day in history, 25 years ago, November 25, 2000, the first International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was commemorated, following U.N. resolution 54/134, which had been adopted on February 7. (1/4)