December 30, 1899: Ibrox Stadium Opens

December 30, 1899: Ibrox Park opens in the Ibrox neighborhood, on the West Side of Glasgow, Scotland. Home to Rangers Football Club, it hosted its 1st game 2 days later, on January 1, 1900, against the team that had already become their "Old Firm" arch-rivals, Celtic F.C., who won, 3-2.

This was the 2nd Ibrox Park, built just to the west of the 1st one, which Rangers had called home since 1887. While playing there, Rangers had won the Scottish Football League in 1891 and 1899. After moving to the 2nd Ibrox, they raised their title total to a national record 54: Adding them in 1900, '01, '02, '11, '12, '13, '18, '20, '21, '23, '24, '25, '27, '28, '29, '30, '31, '33, '34, '35, '37, '39, '47, '49, '50, '53, '56, '57, '59, '61, '63, '64, '75, '76, '78, '87, '89, '90, '91, '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97, '99, 2000, '03, '05, '09, '10 and '11.

(Unlike England, Scotland did not suspend league "football" for the duration of World War I. They did, however, suspend it for the duration of World War II.)

The stadium has been the site of 3 fatal disasters. On April 5, 1902, shortly after kickoff of a match between the national teams of Scotland and England, a section of terracing collapsed, causing 125 people to fall 50 feet to the ground below, killing 25 of them. Repairs were made, and also an expansion, raising capacity from the original 40,000 to 63,000.

The stadium was expanded again in 1929. On January 2, 1939 -- it has been tradition for the "Old Firm" rivals to play on New Year's Day, or on January 2 if January 1 falls on a Sunday -- Rangers beat Celtic, 2-1, in front of 118,567. This remains the largest attendance for a football match in any league in the United Kingdom.

The stadium got lights in 1953. Safety legislation cut capacity to about 80,000. But Ibrox Park had the worst fan safety record in Britain. Two fans died on September 16, 1961, when a barrier collapsed on Stairway 13, resulting in a crush. Stairway 13 was a popular exit from the East Terracing due to its proximity to the Copland Road subway station and parking areas for the Rangers supporters' coaches, but it was often overcrowded and very steep.

After this incident, Rangers installed safety measures, but further injuries were sustained in crushes on Stairway 13 in both 1967 and 1969. On October 23, 1968, the main stand was hit by fire. Just 7 months later, there was another fire, which destroyed more than 200 seats behind the directors box.

But when people speak of "The Ibrox Disaster," they usually mean what happened after the Old Firm game on January 2, 1971, when 66 people died of asphyxiation, due to another crush on Stairway 13. The game itself ended in a 1–1 draw, with Colin Stein scoring a late equalizer for Rangers. This led to a widespread belief that the crush had been caused by fans who had left the game early, but had turned back when they heard the roar that greeted the Rangers goal.

A public inquiry discounted this initial story. It established that the crowd had been travelling in the same direction when the crush happened, with it perhaps being precipitated by some bending over to pick up items that had been discarded during the goal celebrations. The downward force of the crowd leaving the stadium meant that when people started to fall there was no means of preventing a crush.

Adjustments made after the passage of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 cut the capacity of Ibrox to 44,000 by 1981. The Taylor Report, which applied to Scotland was well as England, led to a total rebuilding of each stand, which was completed in 1997, at which point Ibrox Park was officially renamed Ibrox Stadium. Capacity is now 50,817, all-seater.

In 2012, financial issues forced the liquidation of Rangers Football Club, ending them after 140 years. A new organization was founded, and a team of the same name took up residence at Ibrox, climbing up the Scottish "football pyramid." In 2021, they won the Scottish Premier League. Rangers fans count this as a 55th title. The rest of Scotland, who treat Rangers the way Englishmen treat Manchester United, and Americans treat the New York Yankees, do not.

*

December 30, 1899 was a Saturday. Among the games in English soccer, Leicester Fosse and Woolwich Arsenal played to a 0-0 draw at Filbert Street in Leicester, in the East Midlands. Woolwich Arsenal moved from South London to North London in 1913, becoming simply Arsenal. Leicester Fosse became Leicester City in 1919.

But in North America, there were no scores on this historic day.

December 25, 1932: The 1st Royal Christmas Message

December 25, 1932: King George V delivers a Royal Christmas Message to the British Empire, broadcast live over the British Broadcasting Corporation and its Worldwide Service, thus beginning a tradition.

John Reith, founder of the BBC, had first approached the King about the idea in 1922, but the King declined, saying that radio was mainly an entertainment. Reith waited 10 years before trying again. This time, he was smart: He gave the idea to Queen Mary first. When she told her husband it was a good idea, he relented. To be on the safe side, he also talked to the Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald, who was prepared to be an additional voice to try to talk the King into it.

The tradition of the British royal family staying at Sandringham House, their country retreat in Norfolk, East Anglia, for the Christmas season had been put in place ever since it was bought in 1862, as a summer home for the King's father, then the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. A temporary studio was set up there, eventually replaced by a permanent one.

The address was written for the King by one of Britain's most honored (if not "greatest") authors then living, Rudyard Kipling, and is said to have been heard by 20 million people. The broadcast began at 3:00 PM London time, for the best possible distribution across the time zones: Eastern Canada, 10:00 AM; South Africa, 5:00 PM; New Dehli, 8:30 PM; Hong Kong, 11:00 PM; Sydney and Melbourne, 1:00 AM on December 26.

The speech was introduced by a local shepherd named Walton Handy. The town church rang its bells, and its choir sang Christmas carols. Finally, the King spoke, for a little over 3 minutes:

Through one of the marvels of modern science, I am enabled, this Christmas Day, to speak to all my peoples throughout the Empire.

I take it as a good omen that Wireless should have reached its present perfection at a time when the Empire has been linked in closer union. For it offers us immense possibilities to make that union closer still.

It may be that our future may lay upon us more than one stern test. Our past will have taught us how to meet it unshaken.

For the present, the work to which we are all equally bound is to arrive at a reasoned tranquility within our borders; to regain prosperity without self-seeking, and to carry with us those whom the burden of past years has disheartened or overborne.

My life's aim has been to serve as I might, towards those ends. Your loyalty, your confidence in me has been my abundant reward.

I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all.

To men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them; to those cut off from fuller life by blindness, sickness, or infirmity; and to those who are celebrating this day with their children and grandchildren.

To all, to each, I wish a Happy Christmas. God Bless You!

George V delivered such Messages again in 1933 and 1934. In 1935, it was noticed that his voice sounded weaker. Sure enough, he died less than a month later, on January 20, 1936.

His son, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne on December 11, 1936, so not only did he never get a Coronation, he never got to deliver a Royal Christmas Message. His brother became King George VI. He did not deliver a Royal Christmas Message in 1936. He did in 1937, but not in 1938. But in 1939, all through World War II, and into his final illness, he and delivered them every year through 1951. He died on February 6, 1952.

Since then, his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, has delivered the Message every December 25. Her 1st Message, in 1952, was simulcast, in sound only, on BBC television. Not until 1957 would it be broadcast live on TV.

In 1953, as she and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, were on a tour of the British Commonwealth, she delivered her Message from Auckland, New Zealand. Since then, it has been pre-recorded at either Sandringham House or Buckingham Palace.

*

December 25, 1932 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NFL season had ended the previous Sunday, with the Chicago Bears defeating the Portsmouth Spartans (of Ohio) for the Championship.

There were 2 games played in the NHL that day. The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Maroons, 2-0 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

"Back in Blighty," this was the era when England's Football League still regularly played games on Christmas Day. But not on Sundays, so there were no games played in that League.

December 25, 1914: The Christmas Truce

A recreation of the match for the BBC's Centennial coverage, 2014

December 25, 1914: Upon hearing German soldiers sing Christmas carols in their trench on the Western Front of what was then called The Great War (later World War I), the British soldiers start to do so in theirs. Soon, the men on both sides come out of their trenches, and stop treating each other as enemies for a few hours, exchanging food, drinks, and trinkets. It becomes known as the Christmas Truce.

Legend has it that there was even a soccer game. Sorry, forgot to "speak English" there: A football match. It's not clear which side produced the ball, but according to most accounts that discuss the match, the Germans beat the English, 3-2.

This is the 1st time that Englishmen would be defeated by Germans at their national game. There have been many more. But, as England manager Alf Ramsey pointed out before the 1966 World Cup Final, twice in the 20th Century, the English (well, the British, and their allies) would beat the Germans at their national game (war), and on their soil no less.

Military historian Andrew Robertshaw, a technical advisor for the film version of the World War I story War Horse, says such a truce would have been unthinkable a year later: "This was before the poisoned gas, before aerial bombardment. By the end of 1915, both sides were far too bitter for this to happen again."

In 1997, Garth Brooks and Joe Henry wrote a song titled "Belleau Wood" for Brooks' album Sevens.  It describes a Christmas truce between American and German soldiers at Belleau Wood in 1917. But this is fiction, as the battle of Belleau Wood took place in June 1918, in Aisne, Picardy, France.

The Football League did not suspend operations until the conclusion of the 1914-15 season. On Christmas, Arsenal began a home-and-home series, defeating Leicester Fosse away 4-1 on the 25th, and 6-0 at home on the 26th.

December 25, 1914 was a Sunday. Baseball was in the off-season. American football had just ended its season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the National Hockey Association didn't start their 1914-15 season until the day after Christmas. So there were no scores in North America on this historic day.

December 22, 1962: Britain's "Big Freeze" Begins

December 22, 1962: The "Big Freeze" begins in Britain. There were no frost-free nights until March 5, 1963 – 74 straight days.

The Winter of 1962–1963 remains the coldest since at least 1894-95 in all meteorological districts of the United Kingdom, although in north Scotland the Winter of 2009-10 was equally cold.

A cold easterly set in on December 22, as an anticyclone formed over Scandinavia, drawing cold continental winds from Russia. Throughout the Christmas period, the Scandinavian high collapsed, but a new high formed near Iceland, bringing northerly winds. Significant snowfall occurred on December 26 and 27, as the air mass moved south, and became firmly established.

Overnight on December 29 and 30, 1962 a blizzard swept across southern England and Wales. Snow drifted to more than 20 feet deep in places, driven by gale force easterly winds, blocking roads and railways. The snow stranded villages and brought down power lines.

On December 31, the clock on the Palace of Westminster -- often called Big Ben, even though that's actually the name of the bell in the clock -- was delayed by 10 minutes due to the large amount of snow that had accumulated on the clock hands, and the New Year ended up being 10 minutes late.

The near-freezing temperatures meant that the snow cover lasted for more than 2 months in some areas. There was so much snow, and temperatures were so cold, that the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, which normally begins on the 1st Saturday in January, was not completed until March 11, at a time when the 6th Round, the Quarterfinals, would usually be played. As a result, the Final, usually set for the 1st Saturday in May, was pushed back to the last, May 25.

*

December 22, 1962 was a Saturday. Also starting in England on this day is Ralph Nathanial Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes, in Ipswich, Suffolk. We would know him as the actor Ralph Fiennes, pronounced "Raif Fines."

And, on that day, for the first time, a British band hit Number 1 on the American popular music charts. No, it wasn't The Beatles. It was The Tornadoes, with the instrumental "Telstar," named for the communications satellite launched earlier in the year. As far as the U.S. charts were concerned, The Tornadoes turned out to be "one-hit wonders."

The cold postponed all Football League games in England. In American football, the NFL was between the last week of its regular season and its Championship Game, which, on December 30, the Green Bay Packers won, beating the New York Giants, 16-7 at Yankee Stadium. The American Football League played its Championship Game on December 23, and the Dallas Texans beat the Houston Oilers, 20-17 in overtime at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston. (I have separate entries for each of those games.)

There were 2 college football bowl games played that day. The Tangerine Bowl was played at the stadium then carrying the same name, now named Camping World Stadium, in Orland, Florida. The University of Houston beat Miami University of Ohio, 49-21.

UH did not play its bowl game in Houston. That would be the Bluebonnet Bowl, at Rice Stadium. Missouri beat Georgia Tech, 14-10.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games in the NBA, and 2 were a doubleheader at the Boston Garden. The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Zephyrs, 122-110. The Zephyrs became the Baltimore Bullets the next season. And the New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 120-106 at the Boston Garden. Richie Guerin scored 37 points for the Knicks.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Syracuse Nationals, 123-118 at the Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, New York. It was just another day at the office for Wilt Chamberlain: He scored 39 points and grabbed 28 rebounds, leading the Warriors to victory. This was the NBA's only season without a Philadelphia team: The Warriors had moved in the previous off-season, while the Nats would move the next off-season, becoming the Philadelphia 76ers for 1963-64.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Chicago Black Hawks and the Montreal Canadiens played to a tie, 1-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

December 21, 1988: The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

December 21, 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. It is one of the most notorious cases of terrorism to date, and remains the deadliest ever to occur in the British Isles.

A Boeing 747, it had taken off from Frankfurt, Germany at 4:19 PM, and stopped over at Heathrow Airport in London at 5:40. At 6:25, it took off again, heading for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. After a refueling, it would then have taken off for Detroit, its final stop.

But at 7:03 PM, Greenwich Mean Time -- 2:03, U.S. Eastern Time -- the plane exploded over Lockerbie, about 15 miles northwest of the Scotland-England "border," 74 miles south of Edinburgh, 72 miles southeast of Glasgow, and 341 miles northwest of Central London.

The bombing and crash claimed the lives of all 259 individuals on board the plane, and 11 people on the ground below. The victims were citizens of 21 countries. Of those killed, 190 were United States citizens, making the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 the deadliest terrorist attack against American civilians prior to September 11, 2001. It remains the deadliest attack in the history of the United Kingdom.

The bombing didn't just kill 270 people. Essentially, it killed Pan American World Airways as well: Already in financial trouble, Pan Am never recovered, and went out of business on December 4, 1991, just under 3 years later.

The bombing hung over the Christmas season in both America and Britain. On December 23, 2 days later, reports surfaced that the U.S. Embassy in Finland received bomb threats against a Pan Am flight. On December 28, 5 days after that, British investigators reported that a bomb in the luggage compartment caused the explosion.

The bombing came 2 1/2 years after President Ronald Reagan retaliated for Libyan terrorist attacks that had killed American soldiers stationed in Europe, by bombing targets in Libya, including a palace owned by dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Conservatives used to tell me that once Reagan bombed Libya, Gaddafi left Americans alone. He did – until he gave Reagan, who was to leave office a month later due to term limits, something dictators don't officially have, this going-away present.

Arrest warrants were issued for two Libyan nationals in November 1991. After protracted negotiations and United Nations sanctions, on April 5, 1999, Gaddafi handed over the two men for trial at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands. On January 31, 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was found guilty of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing. He remains the only person ever convicted of involvement. The other man handed over, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was found not guilty, and released.

On November 2, 2009, having been diagnosed with cancer, the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds. He had been in custody for 10 1/2 years, for murdering 270 people. He lived until May 20, 2012.

In 2003, Gaddafi accepted Libya's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, and paid over $1 billion dollars in compensation to the families of the victims, a very unusual outcome for a terrorist bombing. He maintained that he had never personally given the order for the attack.

He finally answered for his crime on October 20, 2011. His former Minister of Justice, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, claimed that Gaddafi had personally ordered the attack.

As of December 21, 2022, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah is still alive.

*

December 21, 1988 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was in midweek, and there were no college bowl games that day. There were 6 games in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Dallas Mavericks, 122-120 in overtime at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Boston Celtics, 115-114 at the Boston Garden.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Washington Bullets, 98-82 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Charlotte Hornets, 112-100 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Miami Heat, 109-101 at the Miami Arena.

* And the San Antonio Spurs beat the Sacramento Kings, 125-107 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

And there were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Devils and the Winnipeg Jets played to a tie, 5-5 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat their Provincial rivals, the Quebec Nordiques, 6-4 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat their fellow New Englanders, the Hartford Whalers, 4-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-1 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 8-6 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

December 14, 1926: Agatha Christie Is Found

December 14, 1926: Agatha Christie, the world's best-selling mystery novelist, is found, safe and sound, 11 days after disappearing. It was a story worthy of one of her own fictional detectives.

Born in Torquay, Devon, in England's West Country in 1890, she struggled as a writer until 1920, when The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published, introducing the world to Hercule Poirot, her Belgian private detective. More Poriot stories followed.

She had married Army officer Archie Christie in 1914, and both served in World War I: Archie in the Royal Flying Corps, Agatha as a nurse back in Torquay. He survived the war, and Agatha's only child, Rosalind, was born in 1919.

In April 1926, Agatha's mother, Clara Miller, died, leaving her in a deep depression. In August, Archie asked her for a divorce, because he'd fallen in love with another woman. She wouldn't grant it. On December 3, Archie announced he was going to spend the next weekend with friends, without Agatha. That night, she drove off from their house at Sunningdale, Berkshire, about 25 miles west of London.

The next day, her car, a Morris Cowley, was found at Newlands Corner, about 14 miles to the southeast. Inside were women's clothes and an expired driver's license. The search was on, with the police, civilians, and early airplanes searching the rural area. Sherlock Holmes' creator, Dr. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, gave one of her gloves to a spirit medium, with no luck. The British press, always on the look for a sensational story, the more salacious the better for them, went wild. The rest of the world covered it as well, with The New York Times featuring an account of her disappearance on a front page.

On December 14, she was found, at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, 184 miles north of her house. She was registered as Mrs. Tressa Neele, from Cape Town, South Africa. This was a dig at her husband: His mistress was named Nancy Neele, spelled exactly the same way.

The next day, her sister Margaret, a.k.a. Madge, took Agatha to her home in Cheadle, outside Manchester, and kept her "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away." "Callers" meaning "visitors." She acted as though she had no memory of leaving Sunningdale, and 2 doctors diagnosed her memory loss as genuine. Perhaps she had a nervous breakdown, but the fact that she had signed her name as that of her husband's mistress led many to consider it a publicity stunt, perhaps to frame her husband for murder (despite the lack of a dead body), and turn on her.

A year later, the December 1927 issue of The Royal Magazine published The Tuesday Night Club, a Christie story that introduced a new consulting detective, an old lady whose vast experience enable her to solve current cases. The following year, Archie got the divorce he wanted, and married Nancy Neele. He died in 1962.

Also in 1928, Agatha first rode the Orient Express, the already-famous Paris-to-Istanbul train, and traveled to the Middle East, to indulge her love of archaeology. On a subsequent trip in 1930, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years younger, and they married, and went on expeditions together. They were together until death did they part.

In 1934, she published Murder On the Orient Express, in which Poirot is on the eponymous train, and is called on to solve a murder on board. It became her most famous work, although it wasn't filmed until 1974, with Albert Finney playing Poirot. It was filmed again in in 2001, with Alfred Molina; 2010, with David Suchet, who is usually considered to be the role's definitive portrayer; and 2015, with Kenneth Branagh.

Agatha Christie was knighted in 1971, and died in 1976. Her daughter, Rosalind Hicks, married an Army officer just as her mother had, but he was killed in action in World War II. She remarried, and guarded her mother's estate and legacy until her own death in 2004. Her only child, Matthew Prichard, inherited the estate, which is now run by his son, James Prichard.

*

December 14, 1926 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't yet been founded. There were 3 NHL games that night:

* The New York Americans lost to the Ottawa Senators, 2-0 at the new Madison Square Garden -- which, since 1968, has been known as the old Madison Square Garden. Cy Denneny scored both goals.

* The Montreal Maroons beat the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum. The following season, under new ownership, the St. Patricks were renamed the Maple Leafs, and their dominant color from green to blue.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Cougars, 7-2 at the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena). The Cougars became the Detroit Falcons in 1930, and the Detroit Red Wings in 1932.

December 5, 1952: The Great Smog of London

December 5, 1952: London is hit by the deadliest smog in human history.

London is known for its fog, adding to the atmosphere of books, movies and TV shows set there. There is a brand of clothing named London Fog. Stories involving the fictional Sherlock Holmes and the very real Jack the Ripper tend to be shrouded in fog.

In 1967, when the producers of the Batman TV series wanted to do a 3-episode arc parodying the era's "Swinging London," they renamed the city Londinium (the ancient Roman name for it), and the villains were felonious sibling aristocrats, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg (played by Rudy Vallée with an accent even more ridiculous than Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins) and Lady Penelope Peasoup (played by Glynis Johns, who was also in Mary Poppins, and was, at least, English).

But London was also the world's 1st truly industrial city, which led to it not only becoming the biggest city in the world by the mid-19th Century, but also to the production of pollution on a scale never seen before. "Smog" is a portmanteau of "smoke" and "fog," and the city has long been called "The Smoke" or "The Big Smoke" by people from elsewhere in England.

And the seat of the British Commonwealth, formerly the British Empire, had been hit hard by smog before: 780 dead in 1873; 2,200 in 1880; 779 in 1892; 800 in 1948. (In some cases, exact numbers can't be reached, based on symptoms.) And it didn't smell too good, either: 1858 was called "The Year of the Big Stink."

A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an "anticyclone" and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants, mostly arising from the use of coal, to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday to Tuesday, December 5 to 9, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called "pea-soupers." Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog, and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.

The Great Smog was many times worse than anything the city had ever experienced before: It is thought to be the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom, and the most significant, for its effects on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

But that Act had not yet been implemented in December 1956, when another smog killed 1,000 people. Another 400 died in the long and especially cold Winter that began in December 1962, and another 160 in December 1991.

Certainly, when it came to deadly smog, London was not alone: New York would lose 260 in 1953, 405 in 1963, and 168 in 1966. But the American city best known for smog is Los Angeles. On July 26, 1943, the smog in L.A. was so bad, people began calling the police, thinking that the Japanese were conducting chemical warfare as part of their effort in World War II. The Japanese military never developed anything like that, but America didn't know that at the time. And on October 21, 1954, the smog in L.A. was so bad, the City actually closed its public schools for several days.

Oddly, the American city best known for fog, San Francisco, has never reported a smog causing multiple deaths.

Environmental activism from 1970 onward has gone a long way toward preventing such smog disasters, but not entirely, as pointed out by the 1991 London smog event.

*

December 5, 1952 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There were 2 college football games played that night. The University of Georgia beat the University of Miami, 35-13 at Burdine Stadium in Miami. Burdine Stadium would be renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959. And the University of the Pacific beat the University of Hawaii, 49-13 at Honolulu Stadium.

There were no games scheduled for the NHL. One game was played in the NBA: The Indianapolis Olympians beat their geographical rivals, the Fort Wayne Pistons, 84-74 at the Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

December 2, 1905: New Zealand's Rugby "All Blacks" Stun England

December 2, 1905: Great Britain, and England in particular, get a lesson they will not soon forget: Their island is not the only place where great rugby is played.

Rugby was allegedly invented at the prep school of the same name in England's Midlands in 1823. Wales began playing it in 1850, the Welsh Rugby Union was formed in 1881, and the Home Nations Championship, between Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland was first played 2 years later. (France was added in 1910, making it the Five Nations Championship. In 2000, Italy was added, making it the Six Nations Championship.)

The sport was first played in New Zealand in 1870. By 1904, New Zealand was sending its national team on tour. Because of their all-black uniforms, they became known as the All Blacks. (The soccer team eventually became known as the All Whites, and their cricket team as the Black Caps.)

The Original All Blacks, also known simply as "The Originals," were the first New Zealand team to tour outside Australasia. Managed by George Dixon, coached by Jimmy Duncan, and captained by Dave Gallaher, they toured the British Isles, France and the United States during 1905–1906.

Their opening game, on September 16, 1905, was against Devon, in England's West Country, whom they defeated 55–4. They defeated every English side that they faced, including a 16–3 victory over English county champions Durham in the North-East, and a 32–0 victory over Blackheath in South-East London.

On December 2, they played the England national team, at the Crystal Palace stadium in South-East London (not to be confused with Selhurst Park, home of the current version of Crystal Palace F.C.), and won, 15-0, stunning the entire British Empire.

Two weeks later, they played the national team of Wales, in a match that became known as the sport's Match of the Century.

*

December 2, 1905 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball barely existed. And hockey was mostly amateur at this point. There was 1 college football game that day: The Army-Navy Game ended in a 6-6 tie, played at Osborne Field on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.

And in English soccer, Woolwich Arsenal, one day to become the North London team I would support, beat Manchester City, 2-0 at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, South-East London. 

November 27, 1975: The Assassination of Ross McWhirter

The McWhirter Twins, 1974: Norris (left) & Ross

November 27, 1975: Ross McWhirter, with his twin brother Norris a sportswriter, co-founder of The Guinness Book of World Records, and a Conservative Party activist, is assassinated outside his home in Enfield, North London. He was 50 years old.

The twin brothers were born on August 12, 1925 in North London, and both served in the Royal Navy in World War II, on a minesweeper. They became sports journalists. In 1951, they published Get to Your Marks, and earlier that year they had founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, the catch-all name for British newspapers, even if they were no longer based on the London street of that name.

In 1954, Norris served as the public address announcer for the track meet at Oxford University in which Roger Bannister became the 1st man to run a mile race in under 4 minutes. Also competing that day was Christopher Chataway, who worked for the Guinness brewery, and introduced them to his boss, Sir Hugh Beaver.

The following year, the 1st Guinness Book of World Records was published, billed as the ultimate settler of bar bets. It quickly became the biggest-selling book in Britain, setting a world record itself, and eventually became more famous than the stout itself. In 1965, the twins were guests on the American panel game show I've Got a Secret, where they exhibited their memorization of their book.

Both brothers became Conservative Party activists. Both ran for seats in Parliament in the 1964 general election, but were unsuccessful. Norris tried again in 1966, and lost again. In 1972, Prime Minister Edward Heath, Leader of the Conservative Party, brought Britain into the European Common Market. Norris called it "treason." In a 2017 article in The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries called him "the original Brexiter":

Imagine, if you dare, that Katie Hopkins is also the status guru on Test Match Special. Or that Nigel Farage is renowned not just as the beef-faced broker who got us out of the EU but for his astute postgame analysis on Match of the Day.

Neither of these comparisons really does justice to Norris McWhirter. He was something else. He was alt-right before the term was invented. 

(For readers not familiar with British politics: Hopkins is a newspaper columnist, known for her anti-immigrant views; Farage was the longtime leader of the far-right UK Independence Party, and claims to be the person most responsible for Britain finally leaving the European Union, the process known as "Brexit"; Test Match Special is a TV show about cricket; Match of the Day, about soccer. And, yes, there is another show on British TV, called Soccer Saturday, so they don't always call that sport "football.")

Ross advocated and lobbied for various restrictions on the freedom of the Irish community in Britain, such as compulsory registration with the local police, and a requirement for signed photographs when renting flats or booking hotel rooms. If that sounds like something that Donald Trump would like, that's not my fault.

In 1975, Ross McWhirter offered a £50,000 reward -- in 2022 money, about £342,000; with the current exchange rate, about $415,000 -- for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings in England that were publicly claimed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

On November 27, at 6:45 PM, he was shot by 2 members of the Balcombe Street Gang. The killers were Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty. Duggan said later, "McWhirter thought he lived in Texas. He put a bounty on our heads. He asked to be killed."

No, he didn't. Being a right-wing jerk is not an invitation to murder. And killing him didn't accomplish anything.

Duggan and Doherty were captured 9 days later, and charged with his murder and 10 others. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, but freed in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. As of November 27, 2022, both men are still alive.

Norris McWhirter lived on, without his brother, as a union-bashing libertarian. With the election of the Conservatives, and of the twins' longtime friend Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, in 1979, his beliefs became, for the most part, official government policy.

He had medals cast and given to athletes boycotting the Olympics in Moscow in 1980, and publicly defended athletes who dared to resist the ban on playing sporting events in then-apartheid South Africa. Defenders of that state, in both Britain and America, defended by saying they weren't personally racist, themselves, but supported a regime that was openly anti-Communist. Of course, the implication was that the country's black activists were Communists.

Norris sold his interest in the Guinness Book in 1996, and died on April 19, 2004, at the age of 78.

*

November 27, 1975 was a Thursday. In America, it was Thanksgiving Day. Since 1934, that had meant that the Detroit Lions played at home. This would be their 1st T-Day game in the suburbs, and they lost, 20-0 to the Los Angeles Rams, at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.

Since 1966, Thanksgiving had meant that the Dallas Cowboys played at home. But this year, and again in 1977 (but not in 1976), the NFL deviated from Dallas, giving the home game to the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards lost to the Buffalo Bills, 32-14 at Busch Memorial Stadium. The NFL might have been motivated to give St. Louis the game not because of the Cardinals, but because of their opponents: The Bills featured the most popular player in the League, running back O.J. Simpson.

One game was played in college football, the rivalry known as "Clean Old-Fashioned Hate": Georgia, then ranked Number 15, beat Georgia Tech, 42-26 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Washington Bullets, 96-90 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 95-91 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 106-105 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.)

And there was 1 game in the American Basketball Association: The Utah Stars beat the Kentucky Colonels, 128-126 in overtime at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Despite the defeat, William "Bird" Averitt of the Colonels led all scorers on the night with 43 points. Ron Boone led the Stars with 34.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Islanders, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the League's Missouri teams played each other: The Kansas City Scouts beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. This may have been the Scouts' high point: A year later, they moved to Denver, becoming the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, they moved again, becoming the New Jersey Devils.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-1 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 5-3 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Calgary Cowboys beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 5-1 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-1 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

November 24, 1887: Sherlock Holmes Debuts

Jeremy Brett as Holmes, in the PBS

anthology series Mystery!, sometime in the 1980s

November 24, 1887: The British magazine Beeton's Christmas Annual is published. It sells out before Christmas, largely on the strength of a novel whose text it contains: A Study in Scarlet, by Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle. The story introduces the character of consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, and his assistant, Dr. John H. Watson.

Watson was based on Conan Doyle himself. (He used "Conan Doyle" as a compound surname, but Britain's list of knighthoods, and most libraries, list him alphabetically under D for "Doyle.") Born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland, as Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, his mother was Irish Catholic, and his father's parents were as well, but he left the Church as a young man and became an agnostic.

He attended the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and studied botany at the Royal Botanical Garden there. He would have Holmes frequently rely on his knowledge of botany, particularly in how some plants are poisonous.

One of his professors was Dr. Joseph Bell (1837-1911), and it was on him that Conan Doyle based Holmes, writing to him in 1892, "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes... Round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man."

Another University of Edinburgh graduate (though not of its medical school) who turned to writing, Robert Louis Stevenson, used Holmes-like deduction to figure it out, writing to Conan Doyle, "My compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes... Can this be my old friend Joe Bell?"

In September 1879, Conan Doyle was published for the first time, both with an academic article and a short story. And -- relevant to the 2020s -- he was a staunch supporter of early vaccination and a denouncer of anti-vaccinators.

In 1885, he married Louisa Hawkins, and they had a daughter named Mary Louise and a son named Arthur Kingsley. Known as "Kingsley," he was wounded in World War I, and died of pneumonia just 14 days before the Armistice. Louisa died of tuberculosis in 1906. The following year, he married Jean Leckie, and they had a son named Denis, a son named Malcolm, and a daughter named Jean.

He earned his medical doctorate, but was unsuccessful in the practice of medicine. In 1886, he wrote A Study in Scarlet, and it was accepted for publication by Ward Lock & Co., although they waited an entire year to print it in their Beeton's Christmas Annual. It got excellent reviews, and Ward Lock commissioned a sequel, which became The Sign of the Four.

In 1890, having fulfilled this commitment, and not liking the way he was being exploited, Conan Doyle stuck to writing short Holmes stories for The Strand magazine, and it through these stories that Holmes is best remembered.

Conan Doyle took the name and profession, but nothing else, from Dr. James Watson, once a colleague in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Dr. John H. Watson narrated most of Holmes' stories. There was a Chief Inspector William Sherlock whose name was frequently  in the London newspapers, and Conan Doyle was find of the poetry of American writer Oliver Wendell Holmes.

It has been suggested that there was then a popular cricket player named Sherlock who inspired the detective's name, but this idea is usually dismissed. Nevertheless, Conan Doyle was a keen sportsman, and loved cricket, playing 10 first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lords. He played for an Authors XI alongside James M. Barrie (creator of Peter Pan), P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster) and A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh). As a bowler (equivalent in baseball to the pitcher), he had one first-class wicket (major league strikeout): W.G. Grace, a fellow physician, who was then regarded as the greatest batsman the sport had ever known.

He previously played as a goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club, while practicing medicine in the city. (That team went out of business in 1896, and the current Portsmouth Football Club -- "Play up, Pompey!" -- was formed 2 years later.) In 1901, he was 1 of 3 judges for the world's 1st major bodybuilding competition.  In 1908, he was a judge for the Olympic Games held in London, and was one of the judges who assisted Dorando Pietri after he fell on the final lap of the marathon, leading to Pietri's disqualification.

He had been an amateur boxer and, while on a lecture tour of America in 1910, was invited by boxing promoter Tex Rickard to referee the Heavyweight Championship fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries. He declined, citing the distance and his schedule. (Rickard ended up refereeing the fight himself, which Johnson won by a 15th round knockout.) That same year, he was elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in Sussex. He entered the English Amateur billiards championship in 1913. And some time that he spent in Switzerland, before creating Holmes, led to a love of skiing.

But his time spent in Switzerland also inspired the "death" of Holmes. He wanted to write about other things. Inspired by the  "scientific novels" of Jules Verne -- H.G. Wells had not yet tried the genre, and Hugo Gernsback had not yet coined the phrase "science fiction" -- he created the scientist Professor Challenger, including The Lost World, one of the 1st pieces of fiction to incorporate dinosaurs. He created Brigadier Gerard, an officer in Napoleon's Grand Armée. He created Sir Nigel Loring, a knight in the Hundred Years War.

His scientific and historical fiction got him the best reviews of his career. But the general public wanted more and more of Holmes. Conan Doyle couldn't take it anymore: In 1893, he published The Final Problem. He created a villainous equal for Holmes, Professor James Moriarty. Though Moriarty appeared in only this story, Holmes told Watson that they had been in a battle of wits for years.

They made their way to the Reichenbach Falls, a real place in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. There, according to the story, on May 4, 1891, 10 years after Holmes and Watson first met, Holmes and Moriarty fight, and tumble over a protective fence to their deaths. From such a height, neither could have possibly survived.

Holmes fans were furious! How dare the man who created their hero kill him! Conan Doyle got death threats in the mail. He was attacked on the street, by men with umbrellas and women with purses. It was the first "toxic fandom" in the history of popular culture.

It also produced some of the earliest "fanfiction," as people began writing their own Holmes stories, not considering copyright laws. As you might guess, this included some pornographic stories, some involving Holmes and Irene Adler, and some even involving a homosexual relationship between Holmes and Watson, thus inventing what came to be known -- after similar "Kirk/Spock" stories by whacked-out female Star Trek fans -- in the 1970s as "slash fiction."

Irene Adler, like Moriarty, canonically appeared only once, in A Scandal in Bohemia, but to Holmes would always be "the woman," though Watson specifically said that Holmes held only respect for her: "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler." Later film adaptations of Holmes would romantically link them, however. And author William S. Baring-Gould, a Holmes expert, suggested that Rex Stout's fictional private detective, Nero Wolfe, was the illegitimate son of Sherlock and Irene, the result of an affair after meeting again sometime after the incident at the Reichenbach Falls.

Bowing to pressure, in 1901, Conan Doyle published a full-length novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, obviously taking place before Holmes' death. This only increased the demand for more Holmes stories. In 1903, Conan Doyle gave in, writing The Empty House, and explaining how Holmes survived the Reichenbach Falls. Fandom had its 1st victory over the "cancellation" of a popular series. It would not happen again until the aforementioned Star Trek, 65 years later.

Though associated with the Victorian era, and (within his fictional world) known all over Europe for his detective work, the character of Holmes was never knighted by Queen Victoria. Nor was he knighted by her son, King Edward VII; nor by his son, King George V. But in 1902, King Edward did knight Conan Doyle -- not for his Holmes stories, but for his recent writings supporting the country, its government, and its Army in the Boer War.

In 1917, Conan Doyle published His Last Bow, which depicts Holmes and Watson, by then in their 60s, aiding the British government against the German Empire in the Summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I. As late as 1927, he was publishing Holmes stories, taking place between The Empty House and His Last Bow, and having Watson assure readers that Holmes, who had taken to beekeeping, "is long retired from his profession of detective but is still alive and well, albeit suffering from a touch of rheumatism."

Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930, at 71, from a heart attack, at Windlesham Manor, his house in Crowborough, Sussex, about 40 miles south of London. He was buried in Minstead Churchyard in New Forest, Hampshire. His wife Jean died in 1940. None of his 5 children had children of their own, so, with his daughter Jean's death in 1997, the bloodline of Arthur Conan Doyle died out.

Baring-Gould, who placed Holmes' birth in 1854, considered the date of the creator's death to also be that of the creation. But Holmes lives on. His best known portrayal remains that of Basil Rathbone, in 14 films between 1939 and 1946. Some were set in Holmes' original period, but some were set in the present, and featured Holmes and Watson riding in automobiles and fighting Nazis, with Holmes wearing a fedora hat instead of a deerstalker cap. Nigel Bruce's portrayal rendered Watson as something of a bumbler, unworthy of standing alongside Holmes, for a generation of fans.

From 1970 to 2012, PBS' Sesame Street featured a Muppet named Sherlock Hemlock, voiced by Jerry Nelson, better known as the voice of The Count. Jeremy Brett played Holmes in 41 episodes of a Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994, which were broadcast in America as part of PBS' anthology series Mystery! Dr. Watson was played by David Burke in the 1st season, and Edward Hardwicke thereafter.

In 1987, the CBS movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes told the story of Jane Watson (Margaret Colin), the Doctor's great-granddaughter, a private detective living in present-day Boston, inheriting her family's English property, which included a cryogenic chamber in which Holmes (Michael Pennington) had frozen himself after being infected with plague. After getting him cured, he sees that modern London is no place for him, so she takes him home, his first experience on an airplane. Together, they solve a murder as he adjusts to the late 20th Century.

I was working at a movie theater in 1988 when Without a Clue was shown there. Ben Kingsley played Watson, and his creation, Holmes, had proven so popular that he hires an actor, Reginald Kincaid, played by Michael Caine, to play Holmes for the public. Together, they -- actually, just Watson, as Kincaid is called by Watson "You idiot!" to his face and, correctly, "a gambler, a womanizer, and a drunkard!" to others -- solve crimes, but Holmes gets the public credit. When Watson is kidnapped by Moriarty, Kincaid must take the lead for the first time, and be a real Holmes for the first time. With help from Mrs. Hudson, the landlady at 221b Baker Street, and a kid from the Baker Street Irregulars, he defeats Moriarty and closes the case.

More recently, 2 Holmes films have been made with Robert Downey Jr.; the TV series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a present-day Holmes, also shown on PBS' Mystery!; and the CBS series Elementary, with Jonny Lee Miller as a present-day Holmes moving from London to New York, where he meets Dr. Joan Watson, a divorcée born Joan Yun (Lucy Liu). Despite Watson now being a woman, the series never made them a romantic couple.

That show's title brings up an important point. Arthur Conan Doyle never, not even once, had Sherlock Holmes say to his partner the words, "Elementary, my dear Watson." Rathbone used it, making it forever identified with the character, but Conan Doyle didn't. He did have Holmes use the word "elementary" a few times, and call his partner "my dear Watson" a few times (other times, "my dear fellow"), but never paired them up.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Cumberbatch played Dr. Strange, while Downey played Iron Man. I think the Marvel writers missed an opportunity: Neither actor had the chance in any Marvel film to say to the other, "No shit, Sherlock!"

As for the world's most famous address: During Conan Doyle's lifetime, addresses on London's Baker Street did not go as high as 221, but the street was later extended. In 1932, the Abbey National Building Society moved into a complex at 219 to 229 Baker Street. Abbey National employed a full-time secretary to answer mail that came to 221b, addressed to Holmes. Abbey House closed in 2005. Since then, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 237 to 241 Baker Street, NW1 6XE, has had legal ownership of the building at 221b.

In a 2012 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, rapper-comedian Zach Sherwin played Sherlock Holmes, and Saturday Night Live castmember Kyle Mooney played Dr. John Watson, against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as the Christian Bale version of Batman, with "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist, incongruously, as the Burt Ward version of Robin.

*

November 24, 1887 was a Thursday. Erich von Manstein was born on this day. He became a Field Marshal of the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's army, and was convicted of war crimes. He served 4 years in prison, and, under NATO supervision, led the rebuilding of West Germany's armed forces.

In America, it was Thanksgiving Day. So, while baseball season was over, hockey hadn't yet come over the Canadian border, basketball hadn't yet been invented, and football hadn't yet gone professional, there was college football played that day:

* Yale beat Harvard in "The Game," 17-8 at the original Polo Grounds, at 111th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Effectively, this was the National Championship Game, as both teams came in undefeated. Harvard had outscored its opponents 652-0; Yale, 509-4. Led by quarterback Harry Beecher, who became the 1st football player to appear on what would later come to be called baseball cards, Yale won the game.

* That game at the Polo Grounds was the 2nd game of a doubleheader. In the 1st game, Wesleyan University beat the University of Pennsylvania, 10-4. Yale, Harvard and Penn, as Ivy League schools, now compete in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division I-AA); while Wesleyan, in Middletown, Connecticut, competes in NCAA Division III.

* The U.S. Naval Academy beat Johns Hopkins, 8-0 on the Academy grounds in Annapolis, Maryland. Hopkins, the Baltimore university famous for its medical school, now competes in Division III.

* The University of Richmond beat Randolph-Macon College, 14-13 in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond now compete in the FCS. Randolph-Macon, in Ashland, Virginia, compete in Division III.

* And the University of Michigan beat the Chicago Harvard School, 26-0 on a mudpatch of a field at the Wanderer Cricket Ground, at 37th Street and Indiana Avenue on the South Side of Chicago.

Michigan had intended to play Northwestern University on the day, but Northwestern backed out after the Michigan team had already arrived in Chicago. It was suggested to them that the CHS team was better than Northwestern, anyway, so the game was set up. It rained, and instead of being "the great equalizer," the rain held CHS back, and allowed Michigan to dominate.

The Chicago Harvard School was basically a private high school, intended to prepare its students for schools like Harvard and the University of Chicago, and did not play a major college in football again. It closed in 1962.